"Helena! Get up. If you don't wake soon you'll be late."

Helena groaned and tried to pretend she hadn't heard those words. Normally she was fine with waking up in the morning but…

"Helena." Her grandmother's voice was stern. "You're going today no matter what. The only question is if you'll have packed what you want to bring instead of just what you need."

"I packed yesterday." Giving up on the pretense of sleep, Helena rolled out of her bed and faced her mother and grandmother. "And I still don't know why I need to do this mother. What's the point of this summer camp nonsense? You're both better than that witch, and Gensoukyo's just some backwater realm. Not like our Nova Thiva. Why not send me to the countryside instead?"

"Hmph. You're going precisely because it is a backwater." Her grandma snorted. "The only danger you face in the countryside is wagging tongues and jilted lovers blaming you for selling potions. And the wilds would eat you up without a second thought." Grandma shook her head. "No no. This Gensoukyo seems a much better place for you to learn the basics of being a witch."

Her mother nodded and Helena's hopes of escaping the trip fell back into Hades. "And this Marisa girl seems like a fine tutor. She was apparently handling the local god spawn at quite the young age, not that she's much older than you now. Worthless as an advanced teacher, of course, but a perfect short term guardian."

Helena sighed deeply and headed to her closet. "Fine. Let me get dressed."

After they finally left her in peace she changed into one of the few outfits that wasn't already packed and grabbed some of her charms and talismans that she didn't want to just stuff away. She was thankful at least that her witch outfits were acceptable clothing for this trip. Nova Thiva fashion tended to be variants on the peplos, but Helena preferred more modern wear.

Sighing again she stared down at the travel bag as if glaring at it could make it disappear. Well admittedly, Helena could make it disappear, but her mother could just magic it back, so it would be no use.

Eventually she gave in to the inevitable and grabbed the bag. Hopefully she'd at least get out of the house without too much of a fuss.

Her hopes ended up being in vain. The whole family turned up to see her off, complete with a sacrifice to Hestia and Hermes, in addition to Hecate. And every one of them had some piece of advice to give her, most of which she already knew, and all of which she forgot. As the well-wishing dragged on so long she eventually started looking forward to leaving. A little.

The journey was staggeringly anticlimactic. Her grandmother cast a simple spell, and suddenly they were in a forest. Looking around Helena didn't see too much different from the forests of home, other than the types of trees and the number of mushrooms. A simple cottage sat nearby.

"Ah! It's Helena!"

She turned to see the familiar faces of Lyudmila and Kseniya Doroshenko. As two of the few magicians her age Helena ran into them often at events. Lyudmila looked just as annoyed to be here as she was, which made sense. The Slavic witch was pretty reasonable, even if she was a year younger then Helena. Kseniya on the other hand was peering around like this was some grand adventure. She hoped she didn't get pulled into babysitting duty on the young girl. "Hello," she said. Lyudmila nodded grimly in reply.

The two girl's parents bowed to her grandmother. "Honored matron Aoede. It is a pleasure."

"The pleasure is mine," her grandma replied. "I'm glad to see my little Helena will be in good company."

"Oh hey, you're all here."

Helena looked up to see Marisa circling in for a landing on, of all things, an actual broom. While Helena wore witch's robes often, actually riding a broom was utterly unthinkable. It was just so… old fashioned.

The black white witch ignored the stares her odd flying garnered and simply landed. "Welcome to Gensoukyo. Traditionally we're supposed to get in a fight right about now, but since y'all are paying me, and the kids don't know danmaku we'll skip that." Marisa smiled. "Instead let me show you the place you kids will be staying."

Helena blinked as the older witch began to walk towards the cottage. "We're staying there?"

"Yep!" Marisa glibly ignored Helena's disbelieving tone. "I hear it's traditional to use tents and all, but that's not exactly the best idea with all the youkai wandering about. So I cleaned out this little place and replaced the wards for you kids." Marisa opened the door and waved everyone in. "Come on, I'll give you all the tour, such as it is."

Helena looked up at her Grandma, but the woman's expression indicated she'd find no solace there. Sighing, she forced herself past Marisa and looked around the living room. The floor was covered with strange reed mats, a couple of chairs and tables were the extent of the furniture, and there wasn't even a hearth. The back door obviously led to a food storehouse of some sort, while the other led to a hallway.

"Kinda primitive," Lyudmila muttered as the other girl walked in next to her.

"It is supposed to be a camp dear," Lyudmila's mom said.

Helena and Lyudmila looked at each other again and sighed. Kseniya on the other hand ran to the hallway. "Ah! It has three beds! Wow!"

"Well that's something," Lyudmila said.

Helena gave her friend a disbelieving look. "You don't have your own bed?"

"Not everyone's magical realm comes with a city filled with architects," Lyudmila muttered.

"It seems a very solid building," Mr Doroshenko said. "But I didn't sense any wards. How good is the protection?"

Marisa laughed. "Ah well, I stole most of the wards from Reimu so they only activate on hostile intent. Don't wanna fry the friendly spirits after all. You probably don't notice them because they're spiritual wards."

Grandma nodded. "A very good protection. Eastern religion to keep Eastern chimera in check."

"I've also got something of a reputation myself," Marisa said proudly. "So if I say a place is off limits people tend to pretend to listen." Helena slumped as the black white witch's smug gaze fell upon her. "Still, you kids will have to beat off the less deadly troublemakers on your own. That's part of the fun though, right?"

"How can that be considered fun?" Helena muttered.

"Seriously, banishing goblins is booooring," Lyudmila whined.

Marisa chuckled. "Good thing you won't have to deal with those then. You get to banish tanuki, karakasa and fairies instead. But we'll go over that later, after you've settled in a bit."

The woman paused to brush off some lint before heading towards the kitchen stores. "Anyway the food's here. We'll restock weekly but there should be enough for three girls, even if you all are still growing. I'll be helping you with meals for a while until you get the hang of the ingredients. And I made a deal with Sakuya so you can have some homey food every week as well." Helena perked up a little at that. She was afraid she'd be kept away from yogurt and lamb meat all summer in this backwater.

Marisa paused then turned to face all of them. "Oh yeah, don't think it'll be an issue, but I probably should ask. You okay with eating human, or should I tell Sakuya to just save that for the youkai?"

Helena grimaced. Eating human flesh was something that appeared in a few of the darker rituals, but her family didn't keep many of those spells. Lyudmila on the other hand looked insulted. "Do we look like hagkin?" Lyudmila asked harshly.

Lyudmila's mother put a hand on her shoulder. "Now now dear, they can't know what that means in our realm."

"Nah it's cool," Marisa replied with a smile. "I swear, the gals around here all seem to think I'm weird for ignoring the stuff, but if you ask me they're the weird ones. Anyway I'll tell Sakuya to serve us real food. You don't need to worry about her breaking that promise. She's still human, sorta."

As the adults started asking Marisa about "activities" and "schedules" Helena walked over to the hallway. The bedroom looked decently sized at least, and there was an interior bath and a toilet. It was at least a step up from a tent in the woods. Though she still thought it was barbaric to not have a hearth.

Lyudmila moved to her side. "Kseniya, stop making a fool of yourself."

Kseniya pouted before flopping down on one of the beds. "Hmph. Fine, I won't tell you which beds are the good beds!"

"Oh come on, there isn't going to be a difference in beds," Lyudmila said with a roll of her eyes.

"I'm surprised she was able to find three beds on short notice," Helena muttered as she looked over the furniture. There was a little placard on the head which read 'Eientei Recovery Ward.' Strange. Marisa must have bought spares off of them.

"Well are you settling down Helena dear?"

She looked up to see Grandma standing in the hallway. "If I say no can I spend the summer in Crete instead?"

"No," Grandma said with a smile. "Now, we must be off. Try not to give Marisa here too much trouble."

"Hey, don't spoil my fun before the camp's even started," called Marisa from the main room. Helena ground her teeth at how childish her new 'teacher' was acting.

Mr and Ms Doroshenko stepped in and hugged Lyudmila and Kiseniya. "Now Kseniya, you have fun. And Lyudmila you keep an eye on your little sister," Ms Doroshenko said.

"Yes mother," the two replied with varying levels of enthusiasm.

They all headed off to the front of the little cabin, where the two families each set up their teleport rituals. The finality of it was all starting to sink into Helena's mind as Grandma finished up the sleek lines of the ritual circle. Even Kseniya's good cheer was fading. "Remember to write every week," Grandma said.

And then they were gone.

Helena looked around the strange forest that was going to be her new home for the next three months. The trees were a mix of reasonable maples and strange pines. There were mushrooms and lichen everywhere. And the whole area simmered with a strange magical power.

"This is going to suck," she sighed.

"So gloomy. I thought Greece was supposed to be sunny and stuff." Helena looked back as her 'guardian,' Marisa, spoke. "You kids need to learn how to brighten up a bit. Which, in fact, will be our first activity!"

"Huh," Kseniya turned to join the conversation, her expression shifting to confusion. "You're going to teach us a light spell? But we know those."

Marisa laughed and pulled out a card. "Well, it is technically a light spell, but I'm sure you haven't seen this one before. Watch and learn kids. 'Orreries Sun!'"

The three young girls all hopped back as a mystic rune formed around Marisa's feet, then four colored orbs spun out around her. The witch woman pointed towards the sky, and the orbiting spheres began a colorful barrage of lasers and bullets. Helena gaped at the sight. She knew instinctively that a powerful witch could do this, but she'd never seen anyone actually perform the feat.

After a bit Marisa closed her hand and the spell faded away. "One of my first cards, though I've improved it a lot. That'll be the first thing we learn."

"Wait, you're teaching us an attack spell first thing?" Lyudmila asked incredulously. Helena nodded in agreement. It seemed too dangerous. Sure Marisa made a big deal about being childish and irresponsible, but there was no way an adult could be that out of it!

"I'm teaching you danmaku," Marisa said simply. The woman adjusted her hat and her face became serious. "The first rule is you don't go anywhere in Gensoukyo without at least one spellcard you can use. If anyone gives you trouble you demand a spellcard duel. Winners can't eat or seal the losers. That's the way we settle things here. Heck most people will just start off slinging spellcards without the whole dueling nonsense. So before you can wander about, you need a card to your name."

Helena frowned. "But what happens if someone doesn't use spellcards? I mean, there are a lot of chimeras too stupid to use magic."

"We kill them," Marisa replied flatly. All three of the girls flinched at the declaration. "If something threatens you and isn't playing by the rules, slap it with the deadliest curses you can think of and run. I'll handle it from there." The three girls shuddered at Marisa's cold reply. Helena's worries about being bored were starting to be replaced with more concrete fears…

Marisa shook her head, then laughed. "Ah don't worry about it. Most of the youkai who are too dumb to play along get killed off real fast. Almost none of them are real threats. You should worry more about getting laughed at by people for not having spell cards. Even the fairies can manage that much."

"Um," Kseniya raised her hand. "So, how do we make the cards? I don't have any paper or pencils."

"The cards are magically created as part of the spell ritual that makes the attack non-lethal, Kseniya," Lyudmila said. "But how are we going to use your spell? Aren't spell cards supposed to be representations of people's skill? Shouldn't we use our best spells?"

"Good catch there kid," Marisa replied. "Nice to see one of you studied how we do things around here. Anyway that's the beauty of things. I'm not going to be teaching you the spell."

Helena slumped and glared at their teacher. "So how are we supposed to turn it into a spellcard?"

"The same way I learned how to do it. I'll show you what you need to do and the basic framework for the spell. You kids will finish the spell, customizing it to fit your own particular types of magic." Marisa held out her hand and a runic circle appeared over her hand. "So gather round. As you can tell the spell is based around the movement of the planets and stars…"

Helena stepped forward as Marisa began her lecture. "The important part of the spell is forming the orbs and getting them to orbit right. Can't build a solar system without planets. That's the innermost circle. After that you just start them orbiting, that's the surrounding circles. Slap on some limits so the orbs don't blow up and you should be good. The stars will just spin out naturally."

Helena looked at the spell, then over to her fellow victims. Lyudmila and Kseniya looked back at her with blank expressions. This time it was Kseniya who broke the silence. "But that doesn't make sense at all."

"It makes perfect sense," Marisa pouted. "Look just grab the runes and fix it up how you all want. Trust me it'll work."

Sighing, Helena mentally traced the rune and looked over it. At least the base spell itself made sense. The orbiting was well defined and she could vaguely understand the formation spells, but the important details that made it a useful spell were covered by nonsense runes and ridiculous ideas. She took a step back and constructed her own version, stripping out the useless bits. Then she peered at the holes left over. It was missing a proper definition for the planets, and some way of making the whole apparatus actually shoot something.

Well the first part was at least easy. She placed in the planets, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares and Zeus. The solid weight of the names made the spell seem more real in her mind. Now from that how would she manage the attacks?

Helena spent several minutes puzzling over stars and orbits and other nonsense before it hit her. The purpose of the spell wasn't specifically to shoot stars and lasers. It was an attack spell, which meant it just had to shoot bullets. She just had to get it to fire an attack of some sort.

Carefully she wrote in runes connecting the planets to each of their elemental virtues. She frowned as she got to Zeus, then scribbled in herself as the element of earth, before granting the giant planet quintessence as its element. She looked over the figures again frowning, before scratching out the work and rewriting it as lightning. Helena knew that lightning wasn't a real element in any sense, but she wasn't going to give Zeus the honored element of quintessence. The planet was fine, but the god was generally insufferable.

"That looks like something Patchy would do." Helena started and nearly lost the spell as Marisa spoke up behind her. The older witch ignored her angry glare and peered over the runes. "You'll wanna fix up your bullets though. Right now you're just calling on elemental stuff. You want to make it bullety."

"Bullety isn't a word," Helena muttered, but she looked over the spell anyway. Maybe if she asked the spell to act as it should it would acquiesce. It was worth a shot, right?

As she scribbled in her final request the spell seemed to snap together all at once. The rune glowed brightly, then seemed to meld itself into a small rectangle. She reached out her hand, and plucked the card from the air. The back was an intricate crossroad of vines, with three torches and a key hidden within the tangle. She found liked the design, though it could probably use a touchup.

As she finished studying the newly minted spellcard, Kseniya gasped then laughed as her own rune solidified. "Ah! I did it!"

"Nice job," Marisa said with a smile. The older magician walked over to where Lyudmila was still scribbling. "Huh? You don't need to fix the orbits there you know…"

"Yes I do. They're sloppy," Lyudmila replied before turning to the rune again. "Besides I'm almost done." Sure enough within a few moments Lyudmila's rune glowed and solidified into a card.

Marisa smiled and lazily sat down on her broom like it was a fence. "Good work all of you. You've each got a card to your name, which means tomorrow we can start running around and doing the fun stuff." Marisa's smile twisted into a smirk. "But first we gotta test them. Let's see what you got!" Marisa pointed across the clearing. "Your target is that stump."

Helena looked at Marisa, then down at the card in her hands. "What, we're just supposed to shoot it?"

"Yep!" Marisa replied.

"Alright!" Kseniya said. "Orreries Sun!"

Four twinkling orbs exploded around the little girl, then to Helena's surprise a shadowy cloud swirled out around Kseniya. The cloud expanded into a firmament then a swarm of stars and what looked like birds appeared spinning within the shadows before flying out towards the stump randomly. It was hardly the amazing barrage Marisa had performed. But it was still impressive for a ten year old.

Helena turned back to her own card, then mentally shrugged and pointed at the stump. "Orreries Sun." The card seemed to click in her mind, and the magical circle she'd carefully created flashed to life again. From it her own four orbs arose, but hers were far more solid than the ethereal spheres Kseniya had created. More interestingly each seemed cased in the proper element of the planet she'd called upon. They felt powerful, and somehow eager.

With a flick of her finger she directed the spell towards the stump Marisa had indicated. The orbs began to spin quickly, then fire. The bolts were actually similar to Marisa's bullets, but each was wrapped in an element. Water, wind and fire splashed across the landscape, while electricity crackled with each hit.

Helena allowed her barrage to slow down a bit as Lyudmila took a few steps to the side and held up her own card. "Orreries Sun." Lyudmila's circle seemed to form around her waist, and as the orbs formed the circles didn't all disappear, leaving silver lines of light in the air. The orbs were odd as well, each a colored orb with runes engraved in it. They began to spin along the lines, elliptical journeys that closely matched the actual planet's orbits. As Lyudmila pointed they began to fire as well, silver blasts of energy that from erratic positions.

At this point the stump was starting to look fairly ragged. Danmaku was designed to be nonlethal, but it wasn't very discriminating towards inanimate objects. Lyudmila's bolts didn't do much damage, but her flame bursts and Kseniya's stars seemed to be more solid.

"Okay, that's enough." Marisa said. Helena stopped her spell, letting the orbs fade back into the aether. "Now for your final test. You're going to get to use your powers against a real dangerous youkai!"

A blast of wing rushed across the clearing as Marisa spoke, causing Helena to gasp and shield her eyes. As the windstorm died down she opened her eyes to see a woman wearing a checkered skirt with twintails punching stuff into what looked like a cell phone from the outside world. A closer look however showed the woman had pointed ears and an aura that no human possessed. "Hah! This time I'm first to the scoop!" The woman looked down at all of them. "Hatate Himekaido, of Kakashi Spirit News! Do you all have time for an interview?"

Helena looked back and forth between the woman and Marisa. Was the creature dangerous? Was Marisa making a joke? And interview? Why would this land have reporters, much less someone who wanted to interview them?

"She's a crow tengu. They're insufferable rumor mongers," Marisa said cheerily. "If you let one chat with you without shooting them in the face once or twice the whole mountain will be bugging you twenty four hours a day. Best to discourage them."

Hatate looked offended. "That's slander you know. Not everyone's a pushy tabloid reporter." The older girl held her cellphone out like a weapon. "But if you kids want to give me some action shots before the interview..."

That was what decided it for Helena. She looked at Lyudmilla and got a nod in return. The two raised their cards followed shortly by Kseniya.

"Orreries Sun!"

Helena flopped back on the bed. Today had been... different than what she'd expected. Then again she really wasn't sure exactly what to expect. More setting up tents and stupid rules rather than an attack spell and a firefight.

"Too bad we lost," she muttered.

Lyudmilla looked over from where she was stitching up her clothes. "Well it was our first battle. And I swear that 'tengu' or whatever was cheating."

"Yeah but even so..." Helena shook her head. "To get all that power and then be immediately shown up. It's a bit disappointing."

The trio's attacks had forced Hatate to retreat briefly, but somehow the tengu's camera dispelled their shots. Even with all three of them working together the tengu managed to dash around and dizzy them with her flash. After a few minutes they were spending more time doging each other's misfires then trying to hit Hatate. The ordeal finally ended when Marisa blasted the tengu with a huge laser. After that massive show of magical power the older witch had unexpectedly invited Hatate in for dinner.

The meal itself had been smoked fish with rice, along with a number of pickled vegetables. It was a little light on meat compared to the dishes back home, but the sticky rice had been more filling then she was used to. Helena and her fellow campers had been a little suspicious of the tengu girl, but Marisa and Hatate had chatted like nothing had happened.

Lyudmila's shrug broke Helena out of her reminiscing. "We learned a new spell at least. And an attack spell at that." Lyudmilla patted her spell card. "Mom and Dad won't even let me near the advanced attack grimoires! I have no idea why they let us come here if Marisa was going to teach this kind of magic."

"Well, it isn't a deadly spell. We would have to alter it a lot to make it the equal of a crossbow barrage, much less a true killing magic," Helena said as she sat up. She picked up the card giving it an appreciative examination. "Still, it's combat power. A very useful power."

"Power?" Lyudmilla frowned at her. "Why would you want specifically combat power?

Helena looked over at Lyudmilla. "You've studied the famous witches of my homeland right?" Lyudmilla nodded at her question. "Well, Kirke's the only one alive. The rest ran into someone they couldn't turn into a pig, or charm or curse, and got stabbed." Helena leaned back and reached towards the ceiling. "Having the ability to blast people with lightning seems totally cool compared to that."

Lyudmilla shook her head then shrugged. "I guess. I just liked designing it. It was fun getting the magic to all line up."

"I liked making the stars and birds," Kseniya said as she conjured up another small bird out of quintessence and set it circling in the room. Helena smirked as Lyudmilla sighed.

"Just don't summon them up when we're sleeping," Lyudmilla told her sister before returning her attention to mending.

Kseniya pouted but dismissed the bird. "Fiiiiine." The little girl hopped off the bed then headed to the main room, probably to practice her conjuring more.

Helena stretched, then picked up her training grimoire and fished a pen out of her pack. It was time to write this spellcard down properly.

The canon train derails even more.

So yeah I hinted this was going to be a thing, and I've decided to occasionally throw words at it. It'll be a bunch of connected scenes, more a three fairies manga rather then a giant plot thing, and it'll be fairly sporadically updated, but I have three or four ideas that should solidify into additions at some point.

One of the interesting things I've noticed is that there aren't a lot of Touhou fics on outsiders who know the rules, but not the people. Most OC are either non mages or crossover characters bringing a ton of setting baggage with them. It's very rare to see things from the view of villagers working with the cast or magically inclined people from other cultural hideaways. With Helena, Lyudmilla and Kseniya I wanted to work into that second space. A group of people who accept the rules of magic, but are from a different culture. I think that viewpoint kinda find some ideas that haven't gotten their time under the Yatagarasu's blessing.