"Yes, that's what I mean, more or less. Don't worry, you're being escorted by the finest, and I can recommend a flight path to you, too."

Visibility is good, fortunately, so this is fairly simple. She'd cast some visual aids, but that's actually tough through glass; fixing that problem might be worth some research later.

"That mountain to your right is a dangerous area, but let me use it as a point of reference. We're south-southeast of it. If you look to its south, about three compass points clockwise from your current heading, there's a town; the gondola between the town and the mountain might be hard to see but it's almost perfectly north-south. If you're not going to fall out of the sky and crash anytime soon, I recommend circling over the town as tightly as you can; my friends and I will vastly outmatch anything hostile in the sky. If you are going to fall out of the sky soon, let me know."

"Is there no way to reach an airport without... hostilities?"

"There isn't. It's unclear how you got here," this is not quite a lie but she has a fairly good guess about how, "but unless you can hover indefinitely—I really don't know anything about airplanes, but I don't think you can—the best we can do is land you here."

He didn't realize it was that sort of not knowing anything about airplanes!

"We have a minimum speed beyond which we can't slow down, yes."

"Are the negative consequences of slowing down beyond that speed simply that you'll fall out of the sky, or are there other considerations?"

"We'd fall out of the sky, yeah. Not straight down like a stone, but below a certain speed we can only descend, not stay level or ascend. We're at around the slowest speed we can handle already."

"Definitely fly in a circle, then. This place isn't really that large, and you don't want to go too far. And you're going really fast, my friends are actually having to work at catching up."

"Already working on it. Does it need to be a literal circle? Our ordinary procedure is a rectangular path."

Being directed by a witch outside your cockpit window is actually very reassuring compared to the alternative on offer.

"That's fine too."

Sanae drifts into Marisa's general vicinity. This plane is going really fast, which is normal, she supposes, but it's hard to keep up with. Mortifyingly, she's performing a minor miracle right now, though no one must ever know.

"The Mountain's airspace is at the disposal of our guests," she says.

Sanae isn't conferenced in, but the pilots of this airplane also likely don't speak Japanese. Marisa casts the extra spell anyway.

"My green friend here says the mountain's cleared you to fly over. Don't change your flight path about it, but it's less danger for you, so it's good!"

It's not good; the subtext is that the Mountain is interested. But that's a problem for future Marisa when she's getting drunk with these pilots, not present Marisa.

"I hope that's taken care of. What do you need to land? If you could just set down in a field you probably would have, right?"

"This aircraft is very heavy, and landing is still at a fairly high speed. Barring a real runway, we need a large flat area without obstructions. Landing on a large body of water is also possible as a last resort."

There aren't really any suitable large, flat fields, this area is all more or less mountainland and doesn't seem to have large farm fields anywhere. (Not a single sign of paved roads, of course.) If they really have to stay around here or get shot at, that lake isn't huge but might be the best option.

Sanae can barely follow this conversation at all, which is mortifying. But if she uses a miracle for translation, Marisa will know.

She can't even pretend to be distracted by sweeping the flight path for fairies, because Reimu is just doing that without any apparent effort. Or actual effort.

Curiosity tips the balance, and helps her enter the right mindset. After all, for a god, there are no "foreign languages".

"I can see why you'd have trouble! Don't worry, we can help."

Any one of the three of them are in principle capable of gently setting this airplane down in a field. That doesn't make it a good idea to rely on one of them to do it.

Marisa knows how to move objects around with magic. It's not really one of her specialties, though, and she isn't well practiced. And the known tolerances on her developed spells in that area definitely don't include something this heavy or moving this fast. She's reluctant to use something untested if she can instead find a more reliable way.

Sanae could probably perform a miracle, but similar considerations apply; she doesn't actually perform major miracles often, and they don't necessarily go quite how they're expected to.

Reimu, of course, doesn't actually inhabit the logical universe. If Reimu happens to drift over and nonchalantly say "okay, let's lead it to the ground now," Marisa will go along with this; it'll work. But you can't make plans involving Reimu.

After a bit of thought, she has a few ideas.

"Can you describe a runway to me?"

"We'd need a flat paved path, wide enough for us, at least six thousand feet long, clear of any obstructions. I don't see anything around here that would fit the bill."

"English feet? And a flat, empty field is second best?"

"I think so? American feet. English imperial. We can work with an empty field, but we're in the mountains here. I've been thinking that lake is our best bet, though it's smaller than I'd like."

"I'm going to ask some acquaintances for help. If they come through, we can enlarge a field for you. I think we can give you more than enough room. I'm not sure we can get you a paved road, I've never seen one but I know what they are. I'm going to make a call about that, though."

"How long does it take to... enlarge a field?"

"Most of the time will be assembling the right people to try it, we'll just do it right away once they're on board. Can you hold on for an hour? If it doesn't work out, we can review our options then, if that isn't cutting it too close."

"We can spare an hour."

He's worried about this plan! However, he isn't being asked to commit to anything dubious beyond spending an hour of fuel, which he'd want to do anyway before attempting his current best option, the dangerous water landing.

"I'll work as fast as I can. Sanae, can you go to the Mountain and ask about paving?"

If anyone in Gensokyo can pave them a strip to be enlarged, they're in the Mountain. Sanae's already as much as said she's representing the Mountain here, and she might as well make herself useful because of it. If someone thinks they're owed a favor, Marisa can deal with it later; more likely, the Mountain will be spending more than Marisa will.

Not as important, but still relevant, is that she's seen paved roads before and Marisa has not.

Oh no, she said that in English, she knows. Sanae really wants to go bury her head under a pillow. Too bad she's on the clock.

"I can. We're leaving Reimu to escort?"

"Yeah. I know it's overkill."

She addresses the plane. "Your escort's pretty distinctive, she's in red and white. Can't mistake her. I'd introduce you but I want to take care of this fast."