Work Text:
“Ugh…” Yu Mei-ren crinkled her nose as she looked over the crowded room, packed with shelves filled with all manner of components, doll-parts, instruments and containers. Feeling like she was being contained was always an experience she disliked, and in a room so filled to the brim as this, she couldn’t help but find her mood worsening.
“I know this is a mage’s workshop…” Yu Mei-ren said, turning to the room’s owner. “But do you really need all of this… stuff?”
“I-I apologize, Lady Yu,” The thin-framed girl stammered, her chair in front of her workshop swiveling around to face Yu Mei-ren. “I have a very resource-intensive style of magecraft, but there’s only so much space Chaldea has to offer any individual Servant… I have to work with what I have.”
Yu Mei-ren leaned against one of the shelves, looking up at the opposite wall to see a cluster of dolls shaped like herself, almost seeming to look down directly at her. It would come across as ominous, if it weren’t for her knowing that the woman at the center of everything here didn’t hold her any ill will like other humans did… well, at least didn’t any more. “Couldn’t you do that one trick that some of the other Casters, like the purple-haired elf, do? The one where the room gets bigger?”
Xu Fu grumbled, biting the edge of her thumb lightly. “That spell’s… a little outside of my capabilities. And even if I thought I’d get results by asking for help… I might not have my magnus opus any more, but I still have my pride as a magus…”
Yu Mei-ren let out an exasperated sigh. Of course, despite everything, Xu Fu was still a human, with all the incomprehensibility and idiosyncrasies that carried. Pride in an existence that after everything she’d experienced, Yu Mei-ren couldn’t help but resent and shun.
Well, at the end of the day, it was still an old friend, and one with at least some values worth respecting. “Well, even if this stuff is all worth keeping, you could stand to at least organize it better. Just being in a room so cramped makes we want to start smashing things.”
“Please don’t do that, Lady Yu,” Xu Fu squeaked.
Yu Mei-ren narrowed her eyes, but after a moment let herself relax. “Anyway. I came here because you said something about getting some tea leaves…”
“Oh, y-yes!” Xu Fu got out of the chair and walked along the wall, Yu Mei-ren following. Scanning the wall as she went along, Xu Fu stopped, eyes lighting up as she crouched down to one of the lower shelves and pulled out a simple, earthenware jar.
Getting good tea was a pain within Chaldea. Even established as it was, resource shortages still proved to be an issue more often than not, especially with how by now it had effectively grown into a self-contained small settlement of its own by now. Finding worthwhile tea to share with lord Xiang Yu would otherwise be difficult for Yu… if not for Xu Fu, who was much better at keeping her ear to the ground regarding supplies thanks to her experiences coordinating her apprentices and keeping Mt. Hourai supplied even amongst its isolation.
Yu took the jar from Xu Fu and opened it, wrinkling her nose at the strong smell of the leaves within. Looking them over, they were so withered and dried she couldn’t even be sure they were tea leaves at all.
“Hey. Are you sure about this?” Yu said.
“Oh, yes. Those are the height of luxury,” Xu Fu answered, already having turned and started heading back to her workbench. “Please enjoy them, Lady Yu.”
Yu frowned as she looked over the dried-up bunch of leaves left on the tea table in front of her. She’s like things to be as simple as being able to trust Xu Fu regarding this… after all, for all of the issues she had, her talents were usually pretty clear. That being said… across her long, long life, these were some of the strangest looking tea leaves she could recall having come across. And their smell was strong, but not in a way that indicated any sort of flavour or other property she could put her finger on.
How frustrating, to have something she couldn’t trust the quality of based on first impressions. Xu Fu was eccentric enough that it was quite possible these were good, but when it came to something she intended to share with Lord Xiang Yu, she couldn’t take any chance. Only the best would be allowed, without room for mistake.
Yu set down the electric kettle she had borrowed form the kitchen. Of course, hand-brewed would be better, but if all she needed to do was get an impression, than she was more than willing to cut out the bit of extra work.
Time to put the leaves that Xu Fu gave such a growing recommendation of to the test.
Xu Fu let out a sigh of relief and leaned back in her chair, putting down her brush. With that final scroll, she had finished transcribing the current set of spells she had been working on.
It was a real nuisance to have to do everything by herself, when she had made so much use of her apprentices when she was alive and beyond to do work for her. Of course, she still worked as hard as ever even then, but when it came to simple, repetitive tasks like this that were still too complex to have any of her doll familiars do, it was a whole new level of mind-numbing. Even with Lady Yu having stopped by earlier, she had been so focused she hadn’t even had time to be a proper host.
Well, she could afford to show a little kindness to herself. Now that the current work that was expected of her was over with, she was free to enjoy a break for herself. Feeling a little dehydrated, making some tea for herself would be appropriate.
Xu Fu stood up from her desk and walked over, tracing a finger along the shelves as she searched for a kettle and some leaves to boil… and as her finger slid off of a familiar-looking jar, she continued past, until she stopped and did a double-take.
That jar! It looked exactly the same as the one she had handed to Lady Yu earlier… so how was it still…
Swallowing, bad feeling quickly building, Xu Fu quickly grabbed the jar and opened it… and looked in to see a bundle of tea leaves.
Xu Fu felt her stomach plummet, and she began to shake, almost dropping the jar. This was bad, this was bad! If the leaves were actually in this jar, then she must have given something else to Lady Yu… and even though she recalled her saying something about them when she took them, she had still taken them anyway! Xu Fu had no way of knowing what it was she had accidently given instead, but with what sort of things were in this workshop… It was almost certainly something which absolutely should not be drank or boiled!
Xu Fu stood frozen for just a moment more, before she tore off, slamming open the door to her workshop and running down the hallway. She needed to find Lady Yu now, even if she was going to judge her for this mistake… if she let her make that into tea, it was going to be a disaster!
Xu Fu barged into the lounge, shouting. “Lady Yu! Don’t drink that-” Xu Fu froze, shaking, as she saw Yu Mei-ren, slouching over the tea table, crossed-legged on a cushion. She slowly, too slowly, turned her head to the sound of Xu Fu’s voice. Looking at Xu Fu with half-lidded, faraway eyes.
“Oh… Xu Fu… what is it?” Yu asked with a small smile, voice slow and flat.
Xu Fu felt her face redden at the sight of that cute smile directed at her, and quickly walked over to the teapot, looking down to see the pot partially emptied. The fumes coming off the kettle wafted over to Xu Fu, and she resisted the urge to gag at the raw intensity of the smell.
Xu Fu began to shake again, biting at her thumb to try and suppress the urge to descend into panic. Okay, okay, breathe, breathe. Through pure incompetence, she had accidently drugged the woman she cared about more than anything else in the world. A woman with a freakishly strong super genius monster of a husband who could kill her in the time it would take her to blink. It was fine, it had to be fine. She could fix this, she just needed to…
Xu Fu froze like a statue as she felt something softly brush and grab at her arm. She swallowed hard, looking down to see Yu languidly crawl along towards her, running her hands along the length of her arm.
“Xu Fu…” Yu said, yawning, as she pulled the arm down close to her and began rubbing her face against it. “I don’t know why, but I feel really gooood…”
Xu Fu’s face burned, and she let out a drawn-out, high-pitched squeak not unlike a kettle herself.
Okay, breathe, breathe! Sure, she had just experienced something so transcendent she was on the verge of spontaneously combusting from happiness on the spot, but she was still in a bad situation! She needed to do something, now, before Xiang Yu did his weird calculation thing and came charging in to disembowel her! She couldn’t spend any time around Lady Yu if she died now, and if Master heard she had done this she probably wouldn’t get resummoned for her transgression!
Xu Fu shook off Yu, who was clinging to her and letting out contented hums, and scooped up the kettle, dashing over to the nearby sink and dumping the tea down the drain, before rinsing it as thoroughly as she could and using magecraft on it to conceal any traces of the liquid for good measure, before laying it down with trembling fingers on the counter.
Xu Fu ran back to the tea table, grabbing the pot, placing the lid back on and hiding it beneath her robes. Trying hard to stabilize her breathing, she let out a weak, forced smile and turned to Yu, who was mumbling something while spread across the floor.
“L-lady Yu…” Xu Fu stammered. “…Um, could you follow m-me?”
“Oh, sure…” Yu said. “That sounds nice…”
Trying very hard to keep her heart from exploding, Xu Fu took Yu’s hand in hers and walked as fast as she could back down Chaldea’s hallway, trying very hard not to attract attention… which proved difficult, as Lady Yu clung to her arm.
As Xu Fu made her way back to her workshop, gently corralling Yu inside, she quickly threw herself inside and slammed down on the panel to close and lock the door. Immediately casting spell after spell to apply bounded fields to the workshop, Xu Fu cast spell after spell again and again until she collapsed to her knees, exhausted.
Okay, immediate problem solved. With how many layers of defense she had just put up, that would keep even Xiang Yu’s calculations from determining his wife’s current state (hopefully). Now all that Xu Fu needed to do was find a way to nullify the effects of the drug which she had inadvertently had Yu Mei-ren ingest.
While to outside observation Xu Fu’s workshop was a disorganized mess, she herself was aware of it enough to make sure she had at least some sort of system in place. To keep anything from being misplaced, she had sent up a personal inventory on every substance and tool within the room, as well as where they were intended to be placed. Evidently that hadn’t helped her earlier, since she had memorized the container which held the tea leaves which she had set aside for Lady Yu but not where it was, or having checked to see if the same sort of container was used elsewhere among the shelves… but that came down more to human error than any sort of fault with her system!
Grabbing the ledger which she had placed along the side of one of the shelves, running a hand from mottled hair, Xu Fu wet a finger with her tongue and quickly flipped through the pages of the tome. She needed to find out what she had accidently given to know its specific effects… it had to be somewhere within this section… there! She had found it.
Xu Fu breathed a sigh of relief as she found the entry for the drug she had accidently issued, as surely it also contained information on an antidote… but as she read the entry of what she had administered, she felt herself begin to sweat and shake again. A dried plant which was developed by her followers to help corral and influence intruders to Mt. Hourai… induced a relaxed, pliable state upon oral ingestion… intended to be melted down and diluted, before issued in small doses… effects last anywhere between seven to nine hours depending on individual.
Well, that explained why it had affected even a Servant with an Elemental’s constitution, if it was so concentrated… but there was no mention of any antidote whatsoever beyond the effect of the drug fading over time. And the estimate given was for the intended dosage, and Lady Yu had eaten the plant after it had only been heated in boiled water. Which meant that the effects of the drug were going to last who knows how long… and all the while, Xu Fu would need to hide what happened from Xiang Yu and Master.
So, Xu Fu was going to have to keep Lady Yu locked in here and pray nothing happened to make anyone else look for her or Xu Fu… and while Lady Yu was antisocial enough and Xu Fu was such a workaholic that a bunch of time spent with no one seeing the two of them wasn’t that unusual, all the while the two would be cooped up in this cramped room, while…
Xu Fu let out a gasp as she felt something push against her, and opened her eyes to see Yu having placed her head on her lap, eyes closed and smiling dopily.
While Lady Yu was happy, affectionate and willing to go along with anything Xu Fu said.
Xu Fu swallowed.
Well, if the two of them were going to have to stay here for a long while anyway, and Lady Yu was willing to along with Xu Fu’s ideas… it wouldn’t be that bad to take advantage of that, right? Both of them would be happy with it, and Xu Fu didn’t have any ideas of taking it too far anyway…
Once, ages ago, this sort of thing was all Xu Fu had wanted. To keep Yu beside her, happy, forever, so she could look on her forever.
And well, with how much of a mess this situation had devolved into… she could be forgiven for being a little selfish, right? Yu hadn’t had any hard feelings over Xu Fu attempting to kill her, and comparatively speaking, Xu Fu indulging herself a little here wasn’t anything even close to as bad as that.
“Lady Yu…” Xu Fu began. “…Do you want to play a game?”
“Huh?” Yu mumbled. “Which game?”
“I was thinking…” Xu Fu wiped a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth. “Dress up.”
Xu Fu held Yu’s hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze as she looped a cord around her wrist. With a gesture, the dolls positioned on either side of shelf wall tugged the cord, pulling it taut and jerking up Yu’s arm like a marionette. With that, Lady Yu’s whole body was pulled up into the air, suspended just above the floor to dangle.
“Xu Fu, this is fun!” Yu giggled, rocking slightly in the air.
“Shhh…” Xu Fu said, putting a finger over Yu’s mouth. “You’re a pretty doll now, Lady Yu. Dolls don’t talk.”
Yu nodded, before letting her head loll, falling limp. Xu Fu smiled, cheeks red. She couldn’t help herself. This was just too cute.
Xu Fu crouched down and opened a chest. Out of place by the standards of the rest of the workshop, the contents of this box were for doll-making, yes, but only for dolls for personal use. But of course, for how hard-working she was, Xu Fu still had her indulgences.
Xu Fu dug through the clothes inside the chest, eventually smiling as her hands brushed over a layered white and red western-style dress.
A simple displacement spell and the dress fell over Yu’s form, unimpeded by the cords keeping her held up. Xu Fu took something else from the chest and walked around, before fastening it to Yu’s back. Xu Fu stepped back to admire her handiwork, the beautiful dress and fairy wings she had place on Yu only accentuating her ethereal beauty further.
Xu Fu put a finger to her lips in thought, before walking over to another shelf. Chaldea had had a dedicated greenhouse attached, but for many Casters, growing their own medicinal plants in their workshops was preferred, with Xu Fu being similar in that regard. Moving over to a group of flowerpots, Xu Fu plucked nearly a full bouquets-worth of blue, red and white flowers out.
“I’m going to style your hair now, Lady Yu,” Xu Fu said, having her dolls pull the wires to reposition Yu so her head moved closer to Xu Fu, easier to reach. Xu Fu brushed her hands through Yu’s hair, taking her time to enjoy the silken texture of the long strands. Xu Fu gingerly began to pull through the strands, braiding the hair, intertwining with the flowers she had picked throughout.
As Xu Fu finished, she mentally commanded the dolls to pull the wires to pose Yu upright, and stood back to admire her handiwork. With this, Lady Yu no longer looked like a human at all. Rather, she had been returned to her roots, an unearthly spirit of nature, beauty so far beyond anything a human body could possibly achieve. A serene smile adorning her face, hovering just above the ground, Yu had returned to what Xu Fu imagined she once looked like, before the bitterness of loss and millennia of living separate but together with humanity had worn away at her spirit.
Xu Fu tapped at her chin. This was almost perfect… but something was still missing for this to feel truly complete. Gazing absently around her, Xu Fu’s eyes stopped on one of the doll parts stashed amongst the shelves.
Of course! If Lady Yu was a doll now, she had to look the part. Xu Fu cast another spell, and the air around Yu began to shimmer, illusions wrapping around her. As the glimmering light faded, Lady Yu’s transformation was complete, skin taking on an artificial sheen, and ball joints along her limbs.
“Am I a good doll, Xu Fu?” Yu asked, expectantly.
“Perfect!” Xu Fu said, ordering the dolls to lower the marionette down so she could pull her into a hug. “You’re the best doll I’ve ever seen, Lady Yu!”
“Oh, good!” Yu returned Xu Fu’s hug with enthusiasm. Xu Fu felt herself suppress a squeal of joy. This was everything. If she died now, she’d be happy and satisfied.
Xu Fu found herself torn from her reverie at the sudden, sharp sound of knocking at the door. Shocked, Xu Fu found herself stepping back… but Yu remained clinging to her to Xu Fu’s surprise, causing her to lose her balance and topple forward on the ground. As she let out a sharp ‘Oof!’ at the impact, her concentration broke on her mental commands to her puppet familiars. As the grip on the wires keeping Yu suspended loosened, the wires loosely gave out, leaving Yu Mei-ren to topple forward, landing on top of Xu Fu with a surprised, cute squeak. Xu Fu let out a pained hiss as the full weight of Lady Yu fell limply on top of her, hanging-open mouth leaving her sharp canines to puncture through the exposed bit of skin on Xu Fu’s shoulder between her layered robes.
“Lady Xu Fu?” A familiar voice, one of the last which Xu Fu wanted to hear at the current moment, came from the other side of the door. “Are you alright? I just heard a crash, so…”
“Guh… Prince of Lan Ling! I’m fine, so get out of here already!” Xu Fu called.
“Are you sure? Your voice sounds a little muffled, so-”
“Everything. Is. Completely. Fine!” Xu Fu snapped. “So just leave now, so- Gagh!” Xu Fu was cut off as Yu reached out with a hand and pinched a cheek, letting out a light giggle as Xu Fu let out a sharp squeak at the sensation. Yu put her other hand through Xu Fu’s hair and stroked it, and she let out a wheezing exhale, face red as neon.
“Lady Xu Fu?! Did you accidently curse yourself?! Those noises aren’t something a person should normally make!” The Prince of Lan Ling, voice ridden with such genuine concern Xu Fu felt like she wanted to slam her head into a wall, came from the other side of door. “Hold on, the door is locked! I’ll just break it-”
“H-hey! Nogh, you damn idioth, jush hold on-” Xu Fu tried to protest, but was stopped at the sigh of the automatic door’s metal frame denting inward with the sound of a loud slam, then again and again, and with the horrible sound of creaking metal, the door fell out of the frame entirely and crashed to the ground.
The Prince of Lan Ling, backlit by the hallway lights, stood straight in the doorway, sword drawn and ready to cut down whatever sort of horrible curse the Taoist had inadvertently released… to see the workshop’s owner, hair and clothes disheveled and tangled in loose cord, blood dripping from the nape of her neck, thrashing underneath Yu Mei-ren, dressed up as a fairy and rubbing her face into the back of Xu Fu’s neck.
The prince stood for a few moments as Xu Fu met his eyes, glaring fiercely even with a burning red face, before he lowered his head, mask blocking his eyes, and sheathed his sword in painfully slow fashion.
“I-I see I interrupted something… I probably shouldn’t have. I apologize for misreading the situation, and I will take my…” The prince’s voice, obviously strained, petered out, as he began to turn around.
“O-oh no, you don’t!” Xu Fu growled, finally managing to slip out from under Yu’s grip, to which she let out a soft moan of protest. Xu Fu leaped forward, grabbing the Prince of Lan Ling by the shoulder and forcing him to turn around, before yanking his mask of his face and tossing it to the ground. The prince, too stunned to move, didn’t struggle as Xu Fu grabbed the top of his head by the hair and pulled up, forcing him to look her in the eye.
“L-listen here, you damn p-prince,” Xu Fu snarled, even through her stuttering. “You’re going to do two things. One, you’re going to pay to repair my workshop door after this. Two, y-you’re going to keep damn well s-silent about what you just saw to everyone, or I s-swear, I’m going to c-curse you so hard that you’ll…”
Xu Fu trailed off as she heard a very distinctive set of footprints, and felt her stomach drop. Slowly turning her head to face the hallway, she saw the familiar sight of a certain monstrous Berserker, face impassive as ever… looking directly at her.
Xu Fu was suddenly very conscious of her disheveled clothing and hair, outer robes having fallen down her arms… and very distinctive red marks at the base of her neck, readily visible.
The Prince of Lan Ling fell out of Xu Fu’s grasp and she let out a squeak as she felt herself be grabbed into a hug from behind paired with the sound of a girly giggle.
“Oh, it’s my Lord Xiang Yu!” Yu said excitedly, noticing the other presence directly outside the workshop. “Look, Lord Xiang Yu! Xu Fu made me into a pretty doll! She’s so nice, isn’t she?”
With each word of Yu’s uncharacteristically cheerful voice, Xu Fu felt the colour in her face and her body beginning to shake more and more. Xiang Yu’s impossibly terrifying form sat still, statue-like and imposing, even at the sight of his wife’s bizarre outfit and personality.
After what felt like another two thousand and two hundred years of stillness, air itself seeming to freeze, Xiang Yu continuing to be still, the silence broke with a single set of footprints as the hegemon-king slowly began to approach.
And Xu Fu began to panic. She knew that she had thought she’d be fine dying happy only a few minutes ago, but she didn’t actually want to die again as long as she could keep staying by Lady Yu!
Xu Fu threw herself prostrate on the floor, letting out a gasping cry. Yu herself was shaken off, letting out a surprised gasp, as Xu Fu threw herself into dogeza position with such speed and force she cracked her head against the tile floor.
“P-p-p-p-p-please forgive me!!!” Xu Fu shouted, voice echoing loud enough that far away in the facility, a certain last Master of humanity found themself stirred from their cup of hot chocolate.
Ritsuka let out a sigh, putting down their drink. No hope of them relaxing while having to deal with that feeling of impending trouble, so it would be best to go and take care of it now. Hopefully it would be nothing too catastrophic.