When Mokou first saw flickering lights ahead, she couldn't tell if they were a hallucination or not. It was usually safe to assume any unnatural phenomena in the woods were real, especially during a full moon — there were always night owl youkai and moon-flower fairies roaming about tossing sparkling magic around wherever they went — but just then, her surroundings felt so inconstant and dream-like she wasn't even sure she was still within her own body.
Regardless, she dragged herself towards the lights. Moving made her head spin and her pulse rise to a fever pitch, but what did that signify? There were only so many hundreds and thousands of times someone could contract an illness before they simply stopped caring about the symptoms.
Whether she cared or not, she was short of breath by the time she stumbled into the clearing. She bent over to draw her lungs full before finally managing a good look ahead.
A youkai in a green dress stood in the middle of the clearing, bathing in moonlight. The air around her shimmered, especially around her upturned horns and her long, pale hair. For all the noise Mokou had made while approaching, the youkai seemed unaware she had company: her eyes remained closed as she mumbled something inaudible into the night. Flashes of red and blue manifested themselves between her hands each time her lips stopped moving, vanishing as swiftly as they appeared.
And then, without warning, the youkai was staring at Mokou.
Mokou stared back, noting the youkai's gleaming red eyes. It was funny how often she saw such eyes these days, considering how many centuries had passed when she had only encountered them in her own reflection.
"...What are you doing so close to the Human Village?" The youkai's voice carried across the clearing without any apparent effort, each syllable perfectly enunciated.
Huh. Mokou hadn't noticed she was anywhere near the human settlement. Now that she knew it, however, she thought she could see silhouettes of buildings beyond the trees on the other side of the clearing. She pushed her hands into her pockets. "I was just on my evening walk."
The youkai scrutinised Mokou as though hoping that if she studied her outward appearance for long enough, she could see through it into her thoughts. On her part, Mokou continued to slowly sway from side to side and struggle to keep her eyes open.
Finally, the youkai gave a nod. "Very well. If you behave yourself around humans, I have no quarrel with you. However, if you attempt to harm them in any way, you will regret it for the rest of your life."
Well then. It was obvious from both the youkai's words and the intensity of her gaze that she wasn't concerned that another predator had entered her territory but that she sincerely meant what she said. A youkai concerned with humans plural? That was something of a novelty.
In any case, Mokou shrugged. "Not that I have much of life left to regret, but I rarely pick fights with fellow humans these days."
The youkai's eyes widened as Mokou turned away, squinting in hopes of discerning the easiest path back into the wilderness proper. What she had said was true enough: while she wasn't that ill yet, she was convinced she would die within a week. Nor had she attacked any humans for quite some time now. The strange guardian youkai had nothing to worry abou from her.
"Wait." The youkai took a half-step towards Mokou, her hand partially raised towards her. "You're... human?"
Mokou waved without looking back as she plunged herself back into the shadows.
When the world around her began to spin, Mokou decided it was a great time to find the nearest flat surface and lean against it until she died.
She was forced to back to alertness after only a few moments when she was overcome by a coughing fit so violent she suspected it rattled a couple of her bones loose. Once it finally passed, she was surprised to find herself sitting almost upright against a wall. Blades of grass tickled her palms, but everything beyond her immediate scope had turned into a muddle of dimly coloured blobs.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to pass out. The onset of the disease which had first ravaged her lungs and now claimed her entire body had been as sudden as it had been violent, and with no strength left to either fight it or to immolate herself, the best she could hope for falling asleep and waking up reborn.
She only became aware of the footsteps approaching her when they halted right next to her.
Re-opening her eyes took a heroic effort. Raising her head was out of the question, and so she simply allowed her gaze to fall wherever it wished to land. Someone wearing ribboned shoes and a blue skirt over a white petticoat was standing directly before her.
"Will you be able to stand with support?"
A dry snatch of laughter quickly morphed into another coughing fit as Mokou tried to respond. She just about managed to croak her answer afterwards. "It's hopeless. Don't bother."
With that, all of her remaining strength was spent. She fell eagerly towards the oblivion waiting in the darkness behind her eyes.
In the few hazy moments it took her to fully lose consciousness, she was faintly aware of a pair of arms snaking around her and trying to lift her up. She wished their owner good luck and expired for the time being.
When Mokou next woke up, she was staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling and felt like she had been trampled by an army of kishin.
She relaxed, partly because she had no choice and partly because it would have felt silly to attempt to escape from what seemed to her like a perfectly comfortable futon. She might as well take the opportunity to investigate how her body was holding up.
The news wasnt't great. Her fever seemed to have finally broken, but it had left a wasteland in its wake. It was pointless to make exact estimations — the human body was as bizarrely tenacious as it was ultimately fragile — but it was clear to her she was still dying, just a bit more slowly.
She closed her eyes. It had been a while since she had died indoors, and under real covers at that. It was a luxury she shouldn't get accustomed to unless she wished to suffer the sting of its loss later, but there was no harm in enjoying it when she had no way of avoiding it anyway.
"Are you awake?"
Mokou blinked. She must have fallen asleep again: she had definitely been alone in the room last time. Or had she?
She stared as a woman in a blue dress knelt down by her head and placed the bowl in her hands on the floor. She looked vaguely familiar, but it was her voice specifically that made a little bell ring in Mokou's head. Obviously, she was the one who had found her collapsed wherever she had been, but Mokou had a feeling that hadn't been their first meeting.
The woman ignored Mokou's stare and re-arranged the covers. "If you think you can eat something more substantial, please let me know. Given how weak you seem, however, I thought it best to begin with some miso soup."
Even soup sounded like an ordeal. Mokou swiftly forgot it when recognition set in."You're the youkai from the other week."
She nearly laughed as she heard her own voice. Could the youkai — who now appeared wholly human — even make out any words from the rasp rattling out of her throat?
Evidently she could. A shudder momentarily warped her features, but as soon as it passed, she looked at Mokou as though nothing had passed. "My name is Keine Kamishirasawa. I'm a teacher here at the village."
Pleasure, I'm sure. But small talk was something Mokou couldn't afford just then. It was better to get out the essentials first. "Fujiwara no Mokou."
There was a definite spark of curiosity in Keine's eyes before she abruptly smothered it. She picked up the bowl. "Now then. Soup?"
It was an awkward procedure: Mokou was unable to raise her head on her own, and so it was left to Keine to hold it up for her while also tilting the bowl against her lips at suitable intervals. Mokou supposed she ought to be grateful for the aid even if the mere act of swallowing was an ordeal. The warmth of the soup did make her feel marginally better, after all.
"Enough," she finally croaked after managing no more than a quarter of the bowl.
Keine settled her back down without comment, then placed her hand on her brow. Her own brow furrowed. "I'll get some cold water and a cloth."
"Don't bother."
"You will feel much better afterwards."
"It's fine. Really." Mokou tried to chuckle, but all that came out was a cough. "I'll just be sweaty again in a moment."
Keine looked like she wished to argue, but instead she gathered her things and stood up. "We will see about it later, then. I must go soon anyway. I will find someone to watch over you while I'm gone."
"Don't bother." The only thing anyone could do for Mokou at this point was to witness her death. "I'll live."
"...Very well." The hat Keine put on by the door was bizarre enough Mokou half thought she was hallucinating it. "I will come back to check up on you as soon as possible."
Mokou was left alone with the dust motes floating in the morning light poking in through the window. Despite the death knell already ringing in her ears, she felt almost at peace.
Fujiwara no Mokou died quietly in her sleep in the early afternoon.
A moment later, Fujiwara no Mokou opened her eyes, groaned at the pain which had followed her to her next life, and decided to lie down for just a few moments more while she had the chance, hoping it would settle the throbbing in her head.
There was a crack of crockery as something broke against the floor. Mokou forced her eyes to focus and saw Keine hovering nearby, suddenly pale.
"You..."
"Was it another soup bowl?"
"...No. A cup." Keine glanced at her feet for just a moment before returning her attention to Mokou, her stare almost accusatory. "Your heart stopped beating."
"I hate it when it does that." Mokou grimaced as she sat up, but decided she felt better than she had in days. In fact, she was more than fit enough to be on her way. "Sorry about scaring you. There's no need to worry. I'm used to dying."
Silence took hold of the room as Keine studied Mokou like she was a particularly intricate puzzle box. Whatever solution she found to her, she ultimately crouched down to pick up the largest pieces of the broken cup. "You must be hungry by now. I'll make you something once I've had this cleaned up."
Usually, death and rebirth thoroughly cleared out any wax build-up in Mokou's ears. Despite that, she struggled to believe she had heard correctly just now. "What?"
"Do you eat meat? I was thinking of making a stew."
"Let's go back a step. Why are you making me food?"
Keine's renewed stare was less curious and more puzzled. "Surely you must eat."
"You shouldn't waste more of your care on me." Mokou gestured at her chest roughly at where her newly started heart was beating. "You just saw proof I'll live no matter what happens to me. Save you effort for those who can die."
For a long moment, Keine simply looked at Mokou. When she finally spoke again, it was in a very deliberate and clear manner. "Even if you cannot die, you can still suffer."
With that, she whipped her head around and left the room before Mokou could make a rebuttal. Which was just fine, since she had no rebuttal to make.
Mokou allowed her hands to fall on her lap. She sat in place for a long time.
When the night had grown still and Keine's breathing in the other room had grown so soft it could no longer be heard, Mokou crept out of the house and navigated through the silent village until she found her way back into the nearest woods.
She had considered leaving behind a thank you note, acknowledging Keine's care and surprisingly good cooking skills, but in the end, it had seemed wiser to forego it. She shouldn't leave herself room to take any more advantage of Keine's kindness, and besides, she had no words to express what she truly owed her. It was therefore better to leave no reminders of her presence.
The forest embraced her like an old friend. Which was just as well, as she didn't mean to leave it again for the foreseeable future.
Striations of moonlight flowed like rivers on the forest floor. The crunch of dry plants underfoot and the pleasant night air made it surprisingly easy for Mokou to live in the moment despite the fact she had been walking since the early afternoon and that her legs had been aching since before the sun had set.
It occurred to her belatedly that she had wandered around these same glades in far worse health under the previous full moon as well. Or had it been two full moons ago? She hoped it hadn't been longer than that: it was never a good sign when her memory started slipping too much.
As she was trying to decide whether she was retracing her exact steps from before, she reached the edge of a clearing. A sudden sense of recognition struck her still.
A youkai in a green dress stood in the middle of the clearing, bathing in moonlight. The air around her shimmered as she turned her head, her gaze grazing Mokou in the subtlest of acknowledgements before she resumed her contemplation.
Mokou walked over to her almost as an afterthought. A great tree had fallen across the clearing since the previous full moon, its network of roots dangling in the air and blending into the shadows. Its bark felt scratchy even through her shirt as she leaned against it. "What are you doing?"
Keine kept her eyes fixed on the moon. "I'm creating history."
"I thought history created itself."
"Time passes on its own, but what happens during it doesn't become history by itself. It needs to be moulded into it."
Mokou followed the subtle but decisive movements of Keine's fingers. Occasionally, a spark of light threaded its way between her hands, but for the most part, the night remained still. "How do you do it?"
"I choose what should be remembered and what should not." Keine halted in her explanation as a particularly vivid red spark briefly illuminated her face. "More importantly, I decide how something should be remembered. As for how I decide what kind of history to create... I can make conscious decisions about it, naturally, but I generally guide it to fall in place as it wishes to settle."
"So you can feel it somehow?"
Slowly, Keine's hands came to a complete standstill. She sat down on the fallen tree and said nothing for a long moment, as though Mokou's throwaway question merited serious thought. She was still looking up when she responded. "The day I first felt I could shape the flow of history was the day I became what I am now. I still can't decide whether I transformed because I felt it, or if I can feel it because of my transformation. I suppose all that matters is that they're interlinked."
Mokou studied Keine's face. What she saw in it wasn't sorrow, exactly, but perhaps a kind of lingering nostalgia for her lost humanity. Above all, she was struck by how gentle Keine looked, and how the silver radiating from her seemed less like the effect of moonlight and more like some innate quality of hers unleashed into the night.
She sat onto the trunk next to Keine. "Don't let me bother you."
Keine nodded. "We can talk later. I still have most of the month left to cover."
With that, she said nothing more. Her lips moved at times as she continued what looked like weaving an invisible cat's cradle.
It was soothing to follow. So soothing, in fact, that Mokou barely noticed she had begun to lean against Keine's shoulder, suddenly tired enough to fall asleep right there and then. She meant to get up once she became aware of it, but the pull of gravity felt suddenly overwhelming.
Didn't I tell myself not to take advantage of her kindness?
"Stay," Keine said suddenly as if reading Mokou's thoughts. She adjusted how she sat to better accommodate Mokou's weight, clearly not minding in the least. "I find it easier to focus with you there."
It sounded like a lie, but perhaps not entirely like one. Either way, Mokou found herself unusually willing to believe it. Perhaps it had something to do with not just her exhaustion, but the scent of Keine's hair, a curious mixture of old paper and something gently floral.
Whatever the case, she remained where she was, slowly carried off to slumber while the history of Gensokyo was being shaped next to her.