Adagio was frustrated, no she was beyond frustrated. She had put off shopping for a new gift for Sonata for too long and was now suffering for it. She was never a big fan of shopping in the first place. Nor was she a big fan of large crowds - with the exception of any large crowd that was magically under her control, but alas, that was now impossible. The mall was absolutely packed with people. Everyone was rushing about frantically trying to find the perfect gift, or, at the very least, something that wouldn't look like it was grabbed at the last minute. How was she to know that there would be almost nothing left at any store on hearth's warming eve. It wasn't like she was in the habit of putting off gift shopping. She had gotten Aria's gift months ago. The strange thing was that Sonata was usually the easier one to shop for of the two.
The last few years had been strange. It was a good strange though. It was only within the last few years, following the loss of their pendants, that they had started actually celebrating the different holidays throughout the year, instead of just exploiting the naturally increased strife that would occur. It was Sonata that had first suggested that they try and celebrate each holiday - to enjoy themselves. Adagio had ignored her at first, since she was too busy plotting revenge against the Rainbooms. For once, that did not deter Sonata. She had forced them to participate in some holidays and it had helped Adagio get over the loss of her pendant.
"I don't see why I had to come along," Aria complained. "I finished all of my shopping already."
"You are here helping, since you forgot to pick up Sonata’s gift like I asked you to a week ago. If you had, I wouldn't be in this mess," Adagio sighed. "Now it wouldn't have been so bad if they had some left, but they are all gone now. Now stop complaining and help me find a gift."
"How about a gift card to the Taco Palace?" Aria suggested.
"That won’t work. Everyone knows that gift cards are what you give if you leave shopping to the last minute, so we can't go with that."
"Well, there isn't much left to choose from."
"There has to be something left in one of these stores that will work."
"Wait, that's it!" Aria exclaimed, pointing at a taco plushy in the window display of a nearby shop.
"Finally, something that will work," Adagio sighed with relief.
Adagio hurried over to the display where the lone taco plushy was perched upon the shelf. It was the very last one of its kind left in the shop. She quickly took the plushy and hurried to the checkouts. Thankfully, there weren't many people in this particular shop, so she didn't have to wait long to pay for it.
"You know, for a last minute gift, this is a pretty good one. Heck, I think she will like it a lot more than what you were planning on getting her," Aria commented.
"If you ask me, I think she would have enjoyed that taco shell cooker mor-" Adagio's foot got caught in an abandoned shopping bag, causing her to slip. "Oof!" Adagio cried when she hit the floor, the plushy slipped out of her grasp and went flying through the air.
Snickering, Aria helped her up. Adagio gave her a glare. She glanced down, dread filling her as she realized that her hands were empty.
"Oh, no," Adagio exclaimed.
"What?"
"The plushy, it's gone."
They both looked around desperately, hoping to find where Sonata's gift ended up.
"There! I see it."
The plushy had landed in the open bags of a passing teen shopper.
"I knew things were going too well," Aria lamented.
"Oh, no. We are not giving up that easily. We have spent hours searching and this is the first thing that we have found that would work. It. Will. Be. Ours." Adagio growled, storming after the teen.
Unfortunately, for them the teen was rapidly disappearing into the crowd of the packed mall.
"Don't let him get away," Adagio called.
"I see him. He's heading up the escalator."
The two sirens rushed through the crowd and sprinted up the escalators, only to find that no matter how fast they tried to go they were only getting further away from their quarry.
"Agh. Get to the other escalator! We aren't going to catch him with us trying to go up the down escalator. They rushed over and up the right escalator. Their mistake with the escalator had cost them greatly. Their prey was barely in sight in the distance. Thankfully, he didn't seem to be in much of a hurry. The two sirens were able to close the distance and were within reach of their goal…
*Crash*
It was a small detail, one that wouldn’t have been relevant if it had happened a few minutes later. The buzz of a phone. Some people will ignore it. Others will immediately check their phone despite knowing that it was not their phone that vibrated. In this case it was the teenaged boy whose phone vibrated. He was also the type that would stop in the middle of the busy mall to check it.
His sudden stop caused the sirens to run into him. The taco plushy fell out of the bags and landed at Adagio's feet. She quickly snatched the taco before it could get lost in the chaos. At last, they had retrieved their prize.
~+{}+~
"Wow! It's perfect! Sonata hugged the taco plushy. "I hope you didn't go to too much trouble to find this."
“This one is from me,” Aria said as she slid a package over to Sonata.
Sonata quickly decimated the colorful wrapping paper revealing a plain cardboard box.
The box did not last any longer than the wrapping paper.
Inside the box was a machine. This specific machine was designed for a specific cooking task. One could even say it was a specialized machine. Its task was a simple one, to take tortillas and turn them into taco shells.
Unfortunately for Aria, that particular machine was one that Adagio was very familiar with. After all, Aria supposedly forgot to pick it up from the store.