[x] Maybe they’d try to do some scene drawing together. Eternity and Kazami are apparently prolific artists.

Having to leverage my body against hard, cold dirt to ascend the tunnel system is a maddening struggle. It doesn’t feel like it matters how in or out of shape I am when this sort of movement is liable to pop a blood vessel or two. Eternity scampered up a couple minutes ago without so much as a suggestion of helping me. I guess I didn’t endear myself enough for ten seconds of work.

She and Kazami started chatting as I began my climb, but between the acoustics of a literal hole in the ground and the strain of climbing I can’t make out what they’re talking about. It doesn’t help that the chill of late fall is seeping back into my bones. I took for granted how nice Eternity kept her little cubby.

A shadow descends upon my space, and I look up to see a body blotting out the gray sky above. It reaches down and plucks me from the hole by my collar. My vulpine companion eyes her catch above the soil, reminding me of my previous escapade with Wakasagihime.

“Thanks. That was tiring,” I greet her as jovially as I can muster.

Ran gives me a very lame eye for my trouble, considering, “Why did you not request Eternity Larva to fly you up?”

“Call me a bit distracted,” I shoot back.

“What, pray tell, would distract you beyond the ability to exit the space you had entered?”

I glance over to Eternity and Kazami, I think discussing Wriggle’s absence, and wave Ran to bring me closer to her. She sets me down so that I might bend her ear, conspiring in hushed tones, “Do you know anything about doors in weird places?”

Now she flits an eye over to Eternity and Kazami, considering them for a moment. She leans back, her brow knitting at some idea only she’s privy to. “No, I have no idea about that. Stay aware if it should happen again,” she claims, her monotone delivery more pallid than usual. What’s more… she stares at me. It’s longer than a pause in conversation. No, it’s deliberate. Is she lying for some reason? What would cause her to withhold information right now? Are we being watched?

Shit, do I need to act natural? I break from Ran, walking towards Eternity and Kazami to announce myself, “Well, thanks for the hand up, Eternity.”

The fairy looks confused by the statement. “Huh? You needed help? Why not fly?” she unwittingly mocks.

I shake my head, aggrieving, “Why would you assume I could fly?”

She shrugs. “I thought you were one of those humans that could do everything. Cirno thought you were cool, that fox follows you around, even Yuuka came with us because you convinced her.”

“Eternity, ignore that fool for the time being,” Kazami chides her little friend. “You were telling me about why Wriggle flew off?” Her lifted brows abandon any subtlety in her questioning, not to mention suspicion.

The fairy bickers at her grown companion, “No, I already told you, Yuuka! She saw that book on plants you gave me and got mad for no reason!”

I wouldn’t personally call it no reason, but I think it’s better to keep that comment to myself. I nudge Eternity on the shoulder, getting her attention. When she looks up to me, I motion back to Kazami, the Youkai none too hopeful of the intent behind this. She taps a finger to her hip, umbrella nestled under her palm, as she waits for Eternity to construe a cohesive thought.

Eternity has a bit of trouble getting the words together, hesitance ramming headfirst into want, as she asks, “Uhm… Yuuka. Would you–? Would you like to spend some time drawing with me?”

“Come again?” Kazami guffaws, skewing her look in blatant disbelief. “Please tell me this human hasn’t coaxed you into anything untoward.”

“I resent that comment,” I chime in.

She brushes me off, “I don’t believe I could care any less about a human’s animosity. If you should be corrupting fairies like my darling little butterfly, however, then there will be consequen–”

“Yuuka!” Eternity pipes up over her friend’s threats. Her fists clench in frustration as she glares at the Youkai. “He’s a friend! And I’m being serious!”

I’m a friend?

Kazami gives me a side eye, staring red daggers that could kill by will alone. Luckily, she decides her priority is to attend to Eternity, and with a smile allows, “Then mayhaps I’ll take your offer seriously. Let’s call it a diversion for tomorrow, yes?”

“Mm!” Eternity hums in excitement, that little bubbling smile glowing like the sun came from it.

---

“… And you decided to ask Yuuka Kazami to join you– why, again?” Keine’s bemused wonder solidifies how strange my whims have been, lately.

She asked me to sit at the table and recount the day as soon as I got in, my location being a real point of concern for her. It’s not only a good way to ease the creases on her forehead, but also an excuse to review my notes, so I told her everything I could think of.

Except for the door.

She tries to act like she’s working on new tests, but every mention of Yuuka Kazami causes her face to tense up and stops her pen. I save any direct comments the woman had for my wellbeing, but the nature of our conversations are nearly impossible to hide when half of everything she said was vaguely threatening.

And for her previous question, I don’t have a good answer to give, but I make the attempt to reason, “She seems to know Eternity pretty well, so I want to pine whatever information I can from her.”

Her pen stops again, and this time she looks up from the papers. “By keeping the Youkai most distrusting of humanity attached to your hip?” she points out the flaw in my argument.

“Well, I mean it’s not like I’ll die,” I beggar.

Keine heaves a sigh at the comment. The lack of reprimand is more scathing than any direct verbiage. She gets back to writing up her tests, letting the conversation trail off from there.

“… Sorry. That’s not fair to you,” I retract my previous blunder.

“So long as you can tell,” she murmurs under the scratching of her pen.

The room goes back to the stillness of a late afternoon between us, only the flipping of pages and scratching of pens breaking up the otherwise bottled stretch of time that we sit together. At one point I notice Keine has a purse to her lips like she wants to say something else, but by the time I strike up the courage to ask, something thuds at the front door. Not a knock, a thud.

I step away to check the front, finding no visitor outside the door, but instead a rolled newspaper. The Bunbunmaru papers made by that tengu Shameimaru. They’ve come with plenty of my research materials, but never to my doorstep.

“Did we get the papers?” I present the thing to Keine.

She tilts her head, taking it from me and noting, “I suppose now we do. I’ve told her to stop delivering to me previously, but she will occasionally send one my way for some attention.”

She unfurls the front page to full width, this issue a little on the thin side for how Shameimaru usually writes. It’s always a treat to watch Keine piece apart something she’s reading, the way she can contextualize something in seconds regardless of how recent or old the news.

“Ah, this front page is about you,” Keine tells me before her face flips into a collage of disgusted worry.

“What? The hell does it say? I’ve never even spoken to that damn reporter,” I grumble, settling down beside Keine and hovering over her shoulder.

The headline article is quite striking. Famous Human Village Researcher Found Swooning Over Dangerous Youkai. The picture attached is that moment I had staring at Miss Kazami, curious as to why she favored plaid so much. That crow works fast to put out something that happened several hours ago.

“Tanner,” Keine grunts my name, “you only spoke with Yuuka Kazami, yes?”

“And stared for an inordinate amount of time when she answered the door,” I joke, hoping a light heart might keep Keine’s anger at bay. I scratch at my chin as I follow, “Actually, that seemed to be part of why she invited me inside. My natural airiness caught her attention. Or maybe it was just that I arrived with Ran… yeah it’s probably the latter.”

“You should keep your eyes in check, young man. Did you happen to anger Miss Shameimaru recently?” she asks, now scanning the body of the text for anything of note.

“Recently? No– well, on second thought, I did shut the door on her a couple of times,” I recall that small stretch after I was revived and the period after the shrine incident with Nyx. Yeah, I can imagine she wasn’t very happy about those occasions, what with everyone being so tight-lipped.

“Haah… I guess it was only a matter of time for that tengu to put you on the front page,” Keine ruminates. “We should be glad that her rival did an article on your first assignment.”

I harrumph at the thought, “Think this is gonna change how people view me? I’m pretty sure I’m already worse than a leper.”

“Well, now the rumor mill will grind out some new wild assumptions. A human as renowned as you falling in love with a Youkai is…– I mean, one that isn’t myself,” she chokes at the end, a lapse in her priorities as she balances between village guardian, my friend, and my romantic partner. This looks to further her discomfort.

I take her shoulder and say, “Eh, give it a week. I’m sure nobody’s gonna remember.”

“I certainly hope that’s true,” she trails, tossing the paper to a budding trash pile. She’s been a bit out of sorts with her test making lately.

---

We find ourselves on a high hill of the Garden of the Sun, one overlooking what I think is the only tree in this entire section of Gensokyo. An odd landmark, but one that Eternity and Miss Kazami seemed inclined to portray in their art practice. Not that they really need practice to begin with. Ran and I arrived when they were about an hour into their work and they’ve already finished paper sketches. The texture of every black and white leaf looks like I could snap them from the page.

“Can you please not? I don’t like you watching,” Eternity pauses to push me away.

I laugh a little at her humility, taking a few paces further back, “Sorry. I’m just mesmerized by how you two draw.”

“Then be mesmerized elsewhere. Why must you be in the way during such an outing?” Kazami nags, attending to a couple of primed painting canvases she had on hand.

“As it happens, I’m doing my job,” I snark back at the woman. “I need to observe Eternity in her day to day, so I’m here observing.”

She grimaces back, lowly snarling with a click of her tongue, “Pick a different occasion to observe, one where your impetuous behavior might be tolerated.”

“And that’s why I’m waiting instead of talking. When you’re done I’ll cut back in,” I continue to argue, earning an annoyed fling of the arm from the Youkai.

Ran bumps my shoulder, looking out into the distance without apparent reason. I cease my quibbling and follow her eyes out to the field Eternity and Kazami have been drawing. Not a thing in sight out of the ordinary. Just flowers and the lonely hung tree.

“Something out there? Is the tengu here? Wriggle?” I mutter, hoping not to draw attention to myself.

“No. Compare that tree to Eternity Larva’s pencil sketch,” she whispers over the breeze. I do as she instructs, but whatever discrepancy she sees between the two I can’t determine.

She must sense my bewilderment as she passes, stopping over Eternity’s journal to point out, “Is there a reason this tree is flipped about its vertical axis?”

Eternity flinches at Ran’s proximity before studying her work, looking from the page to the physical object. Sure enough, the trunk of the tree hangs differently. The puzzled look on her face precedes the words, “Is it? Huh? I thought I was drawing it normally.” How does she not realize something like that?

Well, not that I noticed before Ran explicitly said it, but isn’t that strange on it’s own?

“Is the life energy of that tree especially distinct from its surroundings? Is that what you see?” Ran questions the fairy.

“See? I don’t really see life energy…” Eternity stumbles over herself, still clearly confused by why she drew something without noticing.

“Is it really that much to worry about, Yakumo?” Kazami chides my companion, covering Eternity’s view with a canvas and an assortment of paints. “If she should choose to draw something a little different, it doesn’t really need a reason, does it?”

“I mean, if it’s strange, then it’s worth pointing out,” I state. “She wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t important.”

“So the fox is your gong for odd happenings? Is that the best use of a kyuubi?” her smile tells of her taunting more than her words.

I moan at the implication, finding trouble in outright denying the insult. “She’s… more like the brains between us,” I posit, pointing back and forth for effect.

Kazami rests in front of her own canvas, amusedly scoffing, “Then you’re the brawn?”

“I’m the human, creative side,” I play in turn.

“Creative? Well, surely if your creativity rivals the Yakumo’s intelligence you have an excellent idea for the paintings,” she mocks with delight.

I ascend to the challenge, “Why, if you say it like that...”

[x] Have Eternity stand near the tree for Kazami to paint. Would be the perfect opportunity to grill her on what she knows of the fairy.

[x] Have Kazami stand near the tree for Eternity to paint. I’m sure Eternity would love something to hang in her winter cave.

[x] I’m sure I can really impress Miss Kazami. (Write-in)

---

Wow, it’s new thread time, is it? Felt like it’s been a while. Not to mention how much actually happened in the last thread story-wise. Again, thanks all for sticking around, and expect a new little extra credit assignment in the next day or two. Or wrack your brains on something that Yuuka would like, I don’t control your priorities.