"Do you see the sun, Patchouli Knowledge? I, the Scarlet Devil, have conquered her."

A tiny vampire, back straight and proud, wrapped in her finest dress and carrying a brand new parasol. There had to be a certain grandeur about a new possession, she maintained – some pomp, and more than a little circumstance. The sun may well have been Remilia Scarlet's greatest enemy, but it seemed like a quiet life was next on the list.

The witch half-smiles, a waning sliver of a crescent moon. It seems that her job will be easy, today; all that is required is ritual, and ritual is as easy to her as breath. "Of course, Remi. How does it go again? That little fairy's tale you're so fond of."

"Once upon a time, my dear Patchy, there were vampires," Remilia replies, whirling to face her friend sheltered under the great doorway of the mansion. (The sun is the enemy of more than vampires). "They were as fierce as wolves, as strong as oni, as fast as tengu. When they walked, the earth trembled at their footsteps. When they flew–"

"'The wind shivered as it felt the cut of their wings', yes. A legend that lasted a thousand years hasn't changed in the last three, I see. I have a cup of black tea waiting for me in the library, so perhaps we could skip a passage or two."

The vampire pouts; her wings droop, and she is a child again. "It's a new parasol, Patchy. A new parasol! The fruit of mankind's ingenuity, stolen and re-purposed to serve the children of the night. We're showing the sun just who rules around here. There has to be some ceremony. It has to know it's been beat."

"Then perhaps you should shout louder. I very much doubt the sun can hear from such a distance," Patchouli remarks. "Begin at the part where everything else is jealous. We can at least get by without another sermon on the superiority of vampires."

"Fine. But only because I am magnanimous, and you are my friend. Anyway, eventually, the rest of the world became sick of how amazing vampires are, and one by one the forces of nature declared themselves our enemy to balance things out. First we were rejected by water, which refused to reflect us, and forbade us passage."

"Which has proven a fine excuse to avoid taking a bath when you don't want to, hm?"

This earns her a scowl. "Patchouli, I am the mistress of this house, and if I don't want to take a bath, then no force in all Gensokyo will compel me."

"And I, Remilia, am the One-Week Witch, and if I ever smell you coming before I can see you, I'll call down such a deluge as to sweep the mansion straight into the lake."

"And all your precious books with it!"

The witch smiles, and touches a finger to the brim of her cap. "Koakuma and I just finished waterproofing the mundane stacks just last week. As for the magical stacks... I'd be more worried about the lake than the books, if they were to be swept away."

Too late, she notices the glint in Remilia's eyes. There was much to be said for avoiding the wrath of vampires. Whatever overblown claims about her power Remilia might make, it could not be denied she was strong beyond the dreams of common youkai, possessed of a sharp mind, and full of a child's mischief.

"Oho. So, I take it something interesting would happen if we were to take a few tomes and toss them into the water? An incident, perhaps, that might bring that lazy red-white miko running to entertain us for a few hours?" the vampire asks, her smile curving into a malicious grin.

"You won't find it quite that easy. They're trapped, to keep out mice and book thieves."

With the slightest movement of her wings, Remilia takes to the air, flying slowly and deliberately toward the mansion. There's power in the gesture, certainly, almost as much as there is petulance. "Even better. I could use a little light exercise before the real festivities begin."

Patchouli sighs, although she can't deny that a little excitement would be pleasant. With only a modest cough, she begins the day's incantations.

A/N: Before we go further, I have to tell you the story of a story. A long time ago, in the FFVII fandom, I wrote a story called Pyjamas and Ironic Harmonies. The way it worked was people gave me prompts and then I did the prompts, which allowed me to crowdsource creativity and simply focus on the process of actually writing.

Now, Pyjamas was years ago; in the meantime, I've fallen out of practice, and become a different person entirely. So, as a way to get myself back in the groove, I thought I'd re-examine those prompts under a different light, and see how I react to them. Since I'm somewhat more prone to tackling things in a more esoteric way now, I'll add a little note whenever the link between the work and the prompt isn't immediately obvious, explaining where my thought processes were. Oh, and before I forget: unless noted, there is no continuity between pieces.

In this one, for example, I was thinking more about the actual quality of youkai diaries. Considering how long-lived most youkai are, and the fact that Gensokyo is fairly closed up, there must be a lot of repetitive entries. I wanted to look at two different ways of dealing with that – either embellishing everyday achievements/accomplishments, or wilfully subverting established rituals to make them a bit more interesting. I didn't quite get all that I wanted done with this piece, but it's the first of hopefully many in what is unabashedly a vanity project, so I can forgive myself.