/jp/ - Otaku Culture

She reached the gates and paused. Meiling, of course, didn't seem inclined to dress warmly. Instead, she had actually shed clothes. Her vest and shirt lay draped over the gate, and the gatekeeper herself stood in front, wearing only a black vest and her lower wear. She had her eyes shut, and her body swayed in seemingly unconscious movements that still managed to be rather mesmerising. Tai chi at work, it seemed. She was keeping warm by performing dances.

With Marisa no longer breaking into the mansion to steal, it seemed that Meiling's workload had suddenly decreased. No one from the village would bother trekking out here in the snow, and everyone was so embroiled in conspiracies lately that Patchouli doubted they would remember that the Scarlet Devil Mansion existed at all.

Of course, they would all remember once Hata no Sekai graced the halls.

Patchouli cleared her throat and Meiling cried out in surprise, trying to turn around and jump forward at the same time. The end result of this was Meiling crashing face-first into the snow, which elicited a second cry as the cold seeped into her skin. She rolled over and looked up to see Patchouli, then groaned and let her head fall back. Patchouli floated slightly closer, then crouched down beside Meiling. There was snow all over her face, so Patchouli used a minor spell for wind to blow it off. "Good morning, Meiling." She murmured.

"L-Lady Patchouli...I - You startled me..." The gatekeeper weakly replied. "S-Snow's cold..." She shivered, scrambling to her feet.

"Perhaps wearing your clothes would alleviate this problem." Patchouli asked as Meiling shook the rest of the snow from her hair. She watched the gatekeeper shiver, then shook her head and waved a hand, sending a low-level heating spell over the area. Immediately, Meiling soon sighed in relief. "Meiling, I need to ask a question of you."

"Er, okay. Go ahead, Lady Patchouli." Meiling scratched her head and furrowed her brow. After a moment, she sighed and turned, pulling her shirt from the gate and sliding it on.

While she did up the buttons, Patchouli thought. She thought about the body, and what drove it. "What means life?" She asked. Meiling paused, her hands halfway to a button as she frowned with slightly more intensity.

"What...Means life? Um, I don't-"

"You do." Patchouli didn't bother waiting for her to finish. "You do understand, Meiling. If you didn't, I would not have asked." Meiling stared at her in confusion, but when it became clear that Patchouli wasn't budging, she finished buttoning her shirt and looked out across the Misty Lake pensively.

"Hmm..." Meiling hummed. Gods could inhabit anything. That was the whole purpose of goshintai. An object or some form of receptacle for the god to reside in. Patchouli could create the most perfect body even seen, but it would still, at the end of the day, be an object. Sekai's soul might dwell in it, but would she give it life? Or would it just be her goshintai? No, the body needed that spark. It needed the essence of life. That - That was the reason she had asked Meiling.

"Do you mind if I think about it, Lady Patchouli?" Meiling was scratching her head with an apologetic look on her face. "I...I think I know, but I would like to be sure." Patchouli nodded. She didn't necessarily need the answer immediately. "Is this...Is this for Sekai?" Meiling was more hesitant here, and she leaned down to Patchouli's height as she asked. "For her body?"

The problem was that answering her might colour Meiling's answer. What Sekai had wasn't life. It was very much the opposite. A being born out of captivity seeing the worst in both humanity and youkai, unable to leave and unable to communicate outside of very specific ways. That wasn't life. With the success of the ritual, Sekai would have a real life. A true life. If Meiling was to think about Sekai as she and Patchouli knew her - As the god stuck in the HSE, then Patchouli risked bringing a very difference essence to the ritual. No, she needed life at its purest. The speech she had given to Sakuya - She needed that in its most concentrated form. "Think about it, Meiling. I must leave to gather certain ingredients for Sekai's ritual. I'll await your answer once I have returned."

Meiling looked back into the snow with some confusion, then looked back at Patchouli. "You're...Going out? Out there? In the cold?" That was the second time she'd been questioned, then. Perhaps it was a good thing that she hadn't been caught by Remi.

"Unless you'd rather I didn't gather the ingredients?" Patchouli tilted her head, and Meiling quickly backpedalled. "Yes, very good. I am not made of glass, Meiling, as you should well know. I can handle an excursion."

>>17254996
I like to imagine that Meiling is actually some sort of well-read Bertrand Russel-esque figure but is just so old that she can't be bothered to say or do anything intelligent anymore.