Double Trixie Trouble

by PrincessColumbia

400 years earlier (give or take)…

400 years earlier (give or take)…

Aria was, as usual, fuming. She’d been doing that a lot, of late, ever since Adagio declared that they should split up in their search for some form of magic that would end their banishment to this human world. Of course, given how often both Adagio and Aria blew their tops whenever Sonata went haring off after some distraction that had nothing to do with magic or their eternal quest for negative emotions to consume, the purple siren suspected the ‘split up’ order had simply been to formalize what was already happening.

So here Aria was again, for the fourth time in as many years, standing on a dock in England, having to put up with far too many randy sailors who hadn’t been in port long enough to know that you don’t mess with the purple girl, no matter that she chose to dress like a prostitute.

It was Aria’s manner of dress that also guaranteed that Adagio wouldn’t be waiting there with her. The orange siren’s current “disguise” as an upper-crust noble loosely attached to some Duchy or whatever “coincidentally” made it socially undesirable to be seen with her fellow siren. Aria didn’t have the patience for such a thing and spent her time around the Cream of the Crap, or in other words, the major Pirate lords of England.

That didn’t give Adagio the right to treat her like an errand girl, though. She had better things to do than wait for Sonata’s ship to pull in to port. Like attend a ‘party’ that was no more than a front for her captain to hold a conference with his main rival. That the man had the unwritten approval of the Crown, thus making him a privateer (in the loosest sense) was merely a side benefit the the potentially lucrative Spanish coastal trade routes being joined under one banner, if not necessarily one ship. Of course, they had to deal with the Persian pirates that were between them and the Subcontinent.

And speaking of Asia, where the deuce was Sonota’s Sun-forsaken ship?! The flighty siren had been gone for nearly a year supposedly to investigate potential sources of magic. If reports from the merchants that travelled the Silk Road could be believed even a little, then India could be the most magic-rich country on this otherwise mana deprived world. Of course, Aria had a feeling Sonata was really in it for the spices and receipts that could be found in the exotic lands they had passed through only briefly about 300 years prior.

Finally, as the sun was starting to approach its mid-day position, she spotted the flag of the ship Sonata was supposed to be aboard on one of the three ships that had sailed in the direction of the harbor town she was at. Being no mere novice at sailing herself, Aria knew it would be a good hour for the ship to pull into port, so she snorted in impatience and headed to one of the dockside pubs that she knew had some half-decent grub. Sure, the food they served wasn’t Apathy or Anger or Strife, but it was better than the Frenchified, overboiled garbage that was served for most English food these days.

One and a half hours and one mid-day meal the pub owner had called a “sand-witch” (a singularly disgusting name for what turned out to be a quite delicious assembly of food between two slices of bread), Aria was once again standing at the dock, watching the crew of her fellow siren’s ship tie down lines and run out the gangplank.

“ARIA!!!” chirped a voice that she probably could have gone another year without hearing, “GUESS WHAT I BROUGHT!?!?”

The purple siren looked up to see Sonata standing at the top of the gangplank, wearing pants (wouldn’t Adagio be scandalized!) and giving every appearance of being just another member of the crew, heaving a hogshead barrel over her shoulder like it was a burlap sack with a load of feathers instead of holding a quarter-tonne of liquid.

Sonata never did seem to get the concept of “incognito.” Or “subtlety.” Or “blending in.”

Ignoring the lack of response from Aria (as well as the groaning of the gangplank as she hopped down it), Sonata dropped the barrel, also ignoring the reactions to the other people standing on the dock as the whole wooden assembly shook like the Dover Straits quake all over again, and hugged the other girl. “I missed you and Adagio so much! So guess!”

Aria pushed the other girl to arm’s length, “Say what now?”

“Guess what I brought back from Asia!” Sonata seemed oblivious to Aria’s standoffishness. She almost always did.

Aria sighed, “Alright, fine. A magic carpet?”

Sonata giggled, “No, silly! I didn’t go to the middle east, I went to India. So guess what I brought back?”

Rolling her eyes, Aria eyed the barrel next to them. “Water from a fountain of immortality?”

Sonata was confused for a moment. “Huh? Oh!” she realized her fellow siren thought the barrel contained what she was talking about. “Nononono…it’s not in the barrel. That’s something the crew let me keep if I made them 10 more barrels of it and gave them the receipt*.”

One of the sailors from the ship happened to be near enough to overhear. “Aye, and a fine batch o’ grog it makes!” he bellowed. The other sailors nearby laughed heartily.

Sonata laughed at her travelling companions of the last year. “It’s not grog, sillies!”

Aria was getting frustrated. Well, more frustrated than usual. “Tell me that you actually found something magical!” she snapped.

“Right!” Sonata dug through her waistpack and pulled out a small wrapped bundle. She handed it over to Aria. “It’s not much, I know.” The sirens sighed in frustration. They could both feel the tiny, weak magical signature in the artifact. Purple hands cradled it gently as she unwrapped what turned out to be a small statue, one of the Indian gods with multiple arms. “For serious, that’s, like, the most magic I could find there. I think it’s just some ambient Belief that’s attached itself to the statue for a couple thousand years and just became self perpetuating.”

Aria didn’t even bat an eyelash. By now she was used to the otherwise flighty siren suddenly revealing the genius that hid beneath the childlike surface of Sonata’s personality. “This is what you got so excited about?”

“That is in the barrel!” she turned to the ship again, “Hey, Cap’n! You still got that open barrel in the galley?”

The ship’s captain poked his head over the rail, “I think we do, but no promises on anything being left.” he said with a wink.

Before Aria could say anything, Sonata bounded back up the gangplank and disappeared back into the ship. Moments later, she hurried back with two mugs, their contents splashing just a little in Sonata’s eagerness to show off. The blue siren handed her one of the mugs and then started quaffing her own. Aria sniffed the drink, catching no small whiff of alcohol fumes wafting from the concoction, then sipped.

Determined not to show Sonata any sign that she liked the drink, she surreptitiously turned her sip into a chug, downing the beverage in a single pull. She caught her breath and stared into the now empty mug, “…yeah, it’s alright. What is it?” If it had a secret ingredient and Sonata just gave away the receipt for it, Aria was going to murder the other siren in her sleep.

“It has five ingredients in it, one part sour; that’s the lime juice you’re tasting, two parts sugar, three parts strong drink…we only had arak, so that’s what’s in it, four parts weak; I used the tea we had aboard, and…” she trailed off for just a moment, her eyes rolling upward as if in ecstasy, “…yummy, yummy spices!”

I knew it! Aria thought, I knew she went to that damn subcontinent to follow her stomach!

Sonata was oblivious to Aria’s mental fury, “I call it paantsch, ‘cause I came up with it on a trip to India, and paantsch is the word they use there for the number five!”

The purple siren glared at her blue counterpart, “’Punch’?”

“No, no…paantsch.”

“You invented a new drink, and called it ‘punch’?”

Sonata was a little distressed by her repetition of using the ‘incorrect’ name, “Noooo, it’s paantsch, not punch. Punch is such a violent word! Food doesn’t like violence, Aria.”

Aria tucked this new piece of ammunition to use against Sonata way in her mind and shoved her mug at the other siren, “Whatever. Just bring your barrel, we gotta show Adagio that you found some magic on your trip or she’ll skin us both alive.”

Sonata handed the empty drinking vessels to her now-former shipmates still getting the ship rigged for being in dock, picked up her barrel over her shoulder again, and skipped after her fellow siren.

---

* - This was what recipes used to be called. No lie!

Author's Note:

If you're a writer of FiMFiction and know the history of Fruit Punch and you HAVEN'T thought of a scene like this, shame on you!

And yes, this does relate to the rest of the plot!

Comments

[PrincessColumbia]

6637599

You'd be shocked how much of a bludgeon you have to write with sometimes to make sure a point is made. 'sides, it drives me crazy when I'm reading a story with obvious references in it but I'm unfamiliar with the source material and they never say what the source is in any way, leaving me with no way to track down what the author has made sound so interesting. I thought I'd make it easier on my readers.

[TheDriderPony]

Surprisingly, I've never read anyone go this route with the Siren's backstory. Usually it's just "with time differences between the worlds it's only been a few years for them" or "they got sent to the human world and the future". I like this idea that they've been hiding and blending in for hundreds of years, changing along with the times. Headcanon accepted!

[TheDriderPony]

6637629
Alright, I'll agree with that. I've been on the ignorant side of that situation before. There's this one author I read who loves to put tons of minor references in each chapter, then lists them out in authors notes with spoilers tags, so people can guess how many they spotted.

[PrincessColumbia]

6637634

Thank you! I hope I can keep the happy surprises coming for you.

[Towkio]

6637648 I miss you...

[seki108]

I'll admit I favorited the story before I read it, so I'm just doing a comment for all the chapters. This story has turned out completely different from what I imagined, but in a good way. The jumping around isn't too hard to keep track of, so that's good. I still hope to see the Trixies' initial encounter some time.

[Emperor]

Well, let's hope that the artifact Sonata found actually becomes important down the line.

[Lithl]

6639253
Well, in the earlier chapter with them, they had a magical dagger...

[Wandering Eye]

So sonata made what is now called punch.

no wonder she knows about good fruit punch! I like it! Go sonata *waves tendrils*