/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Gritting her teeth, she pressed her hands against Meiling's head and felt a scream tear her throat apart as pain lanced through her head. The world went white. She stopped feeling. Sound became an illusion and scattered into the wind.

And then, she wasn't there anymore. The world was gone, and Patchouli Knowledge was somewhere else.

Sunlight filtered through an open window and the sound of birdsong washed over her. Patchouli Knowledge blinked. She was warm, but felt like she wasn't breathing in as much air as she usually did. Frowning, she looked around. The window - It wasn't glass. It was a swinging wooden shutter over an open frame, and through it, she could see a winding trail of cobblestone. It led down, twisting and turning, but more interesting were the surroundings. Trees with leaves of red and gold hung over the path on the left side, and unlit lanterns hung every few paces. The right side had a simplistic fence, and beyond that...Nothing. A sheer drop, because she was clearly high up in the mountains. Valleys and peaks stretched out ahead of her, each one with more colours combining into a rich tapestry of golds, reds, and greens. There was a slight haziness to the air that helped Patchouli identify the time as late summer, but you wouldn't get colours like these in Gensokyo, so...

Yes, she was somewhere else. There was a slight smell in the air. Something sweet and filling. Food, most likely. She could hear it. A sizzling sound that could only be someone cooking. She looked away from the window. The room she stood in was packed with items. Mementos, it seemed. Items that could only have come from a life spent traveling. They covered the shelves of the room and sat upon the rich red wood of the drawers. Right next to the window was a table with two chairs. The surface, both of the table and the chairs, was woven. When Patchouli reached out to run her finger across it, it felt very real.

It couldn't be real, obviously. Patchouli might have just had her mind torn almost to pieces, but she'd just received a year's worth of memories of being trapped somewhere else, and she could feel the differences already. But, if she was here, having linked her mind to Meiling’s in order to bear the burden before Meiling’s mind could collapse, there was only one reason.

She turned and stepped outside of the room, finding herself in a corridor. More sunlight beamed through slats high up in the ceiling, and a polished wooden floor muffled her footsteps. She followed her nose. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear noise. Vague shouting, like there was some sort of work going on. She paused at the next room and glanced inside, wondering what sort of world she'd been drawn into. Not Sekai's world, but... In this room, there were far fewer personal items. One or two, but the room seemed to be that of an ordered soul. The window was shut here. Patchouli carried on, heading in the direction of the smell. She had a fairly good idea of what she was in for. She came to a doorway - A large, slightly translucent red cloth hung down, and Patchouli could see a shape moving behind it. Yes, she recognized those movements, even more than she should have. She raised a hand and pushed the cloth aside, stepping through.

A kitchen. Very well-stocked, which was surprising for somewhere so high up. And of course, here she was. Hong Meiling gracefully spun through the kitchen, working on multiple dishes at once. Bao buns steamed in a pot - That had been the slightly sweet smell that she had detected - and rice fried in a large wok. Meiling didn't seem to notice her as she took the wok and threw the rice up in a perfect toss, catching it on the other side.

She was dressed differently. White trousers, like usual, but much tighter. Her shirt was gone. Instead, she wore a vest that was tied loosely at her collarbone and had a small open gap below it. It was longer than typical clothing and cut at the sides, so it hung down in two long trails at the front and back to about her mid thighs. On the front, a pattern seemed to have been painstakingly embroidered, and Patchouli was unsurprised to see that it was a dragon. Her hat still saw askew on her head, but her hair was shorter. Still two long braids at the front, but only shoulder-length at the back. This, then, seemed to be how Meiling saw herself in this world. Patchouli watched as the gatekeeper worked her way through the kitchen, finishing all the dishes. She wore slippers much like the ones that she wore at the mansion, and there was a bracelet around her wrist. A small, black thing that bent upward at the top of her wrist.

She should have said something by now, but she was finding Meiling's movements and general skills rather interesting to watch. She felt like Remi, watching Patchouli summon books and perform experiments.

>>45307019
always.