Melody of Mana

Other than the influx of work, spring brought with it a host of things. Most importantly to me was the food. While it wasn't quite as good as summer food, that of the spring actually had some fresh ingredients. It was sad to say, but most of what we ate over the winter were stored products, or things made from them, and it really put a damper on my mood sometimes. The coming of spring though, that brought salad, sprigs of veggies, and even a few different fruits.

So it was one morning that I came to Lucien. There was a lesson I needed and I had something I would trade for it.

"Hey boss!" I chirped as I came over.

"What do you want?" He easily read me.

"I'd like you to teach me to add sound to my illusions. I need to take them to the next level before my exam."

"You could figure that out on your own you know." His normal method was to tell me a general idea of what to do and leave me to it.

"Sure I could, but if I had someone explain the basics to me before going off and trying to make it work myself it might speed me up a bit."

"It might, but you might learn something new. It would also take hours that I could be doing other things. You could ask Jackson, he hasn't buggered off yet."

"I could, but you're the best at illusions."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"How about a trade?"

"What ya got for trade?"

"A few new drinks."

He had to think on that one for a few moments. "Bring me an example later and we'll see."

There are a handful of basic things one needs for a cocktail. I now had most of them, even if I had to improvise a bit. With the various things I could make using magic I could easily enough whip up a small batch of cherry syrup. Add to that a few early citrus that were being brought into the city from warmer parts of the country and a bit of mint and it was easy enough to make some light drinks. Sadly I didn't have tonic water of any kind, something I might have to work on.

The first drink was a rather potent cherry lemonade, I did a full pitcher of that as it was easier to measure it that way. The amount of summoned alcohol was not terribly much per volume, but it just didn't need to be. That was followed up with me making a batch of cherry cordial. It would take time to make, but would be well worth the effort. I ended with a very, very rough approximation of a cocktail called Blood and Sand. For that I had to sub out most of the ingredients, but we had several whiskeys and a high alcohol wine or two, so it was not too bad.

I had to be careful when making these. I was still tiny and not fully grown, and the last thing I needed was to get fall-over drunk trying to figure out how to remake cocktails. Eleanor had been backing off a bit as of recently, and me inebriated would probably turn that on its head so fast I might get whiplash. I also really didn't like being drunk, and even worse were the hangovers.

That night I presented my creations to Lucien. He looked over the three drinks while giving me a bit of a look.

"What in the world are these?"

"Drinks, they're sweeter. I think a lot of women will like them, even if they will be a bit pricey."

"So should I guess there's lots of sugar and alcohol in them?"

"Yup."

He took a few moments to try each of them, though I warned him the cordial would take some time to come together.

"Not bad, though I'm not sure how popular they will be."

"What's all this then?" Eleanor asked as she came over, looking at the two of us.

"They're drinks. Wanna try?"

"Very well, I suppose there's no harm in that." With a look at each the rather annoying woman decided to try the lemonade. "Oh, that's not bad, that's not bad at all."

"Well there's a pitcher of it there, but I wouldn't drink all of it Eleanor."

Lucien and I slid down the bar a bit so that we could continue our discussion in private.

"See, even she likes it. There's decidedly a market for them. Even if they are a bit expensive." I pointed out, trying to get the best price.

"Alright, I'll give you that much. You just want to add sound to your illusions then?"

"Yup yup."

"It's easiest if you have a sound you can move to where you want it to go. Otherwise you need to know the sound you're making almost perfectly."

"Fair enough, and that should work for most of what I want to do."

"What are you trying to do?"

"Heh heh. Don't worry, just a joke that's been a long time coming."

He explained to me how he did it. Which seemed a rather inefficient method of hearing then making what he heard appear somewhere else. That wouldn't quite work for me, I knew my voice sounded different to me than it did to other people. When I asked Lucien didn't actually have a solution to this issue, so I tried to come up with one of my own. He apparently didn't have a good way to project his own voice other than to make it louder. I wasn't sure if he was lying to me about that to make me do my own work or not, but some of his insights on using an 'ear' as a receiver were nice.

This information and considering my own changes that I'd have to be making to the spell took awhile to go over. I knew passing off how to make the drinks even though he hadn't helped me much was a bad deal, but Lucien had been a friend for a long time, and I was going to give them to him anyway.

By the time we'd finished Eleanor moved over to us. She squinted as she looked at me and sat down.

"Alana."

"Hm?"

"How... how strong is that lemon drink?" she slightly slurred out.

"Um... pretty strong why? How much did you..." I looked at the half-full pitcher and began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Lucien leaned over.

"Oh, don't worry. It's gonna be a good night."

"Alana... ALaNA, you never pay attention, pay attention." I almost felt bad for her. If nothing was done she'd certainly be feeling this in the morning.

"Eleanor, you're drunk. Get some water."

"Fine fine..." She didn't get up to get water, so I kindly filled her cup with some.

"Drink, you'll thank me for it in the morning."

"You waste too much mana. Spending it all here and there on things. You should use it smarter." She did in fact drink now that she had something in her glass, but still babbled on about my failings. She'd been on me a bit recently about how I shouldn't just use magic to solve as many problems as I could.

"So," Lucien now took his turn to ask. "how strong is that stuff?" He then took a chance to look back down at the recipe. "Oh, oh dear."

"Should we get her sobered up now or wait till morning?" I asked, trying not to laugh.

"Honestly I don't care."

I opted to wait. Watching my normally cross guardian bumble about was a source of untold amusement for me. Eventually it was time for bed though. It took a bit of cajoling from both Lude and I but we managed to convince Jackson to haul her back to her bed and help her lay down. He asked why I didn't do anything about her drunken state, but I just shrugged.

The next morning Eleanor rose from sleep with a groan.

"Good morning." I said as I went about getting ready. I had the day off today.

"Ugh. What in the world happened?"

"You drank a bunch, I did warn you."

"Of the lemonade? it didn't taste that strong though, and I didn't drink that much." I slid a bucket over as I saw her face, and just in time. She spent several moments emptying her stomach into it.

"It's the sugar, it hides how strong it is and makes the hangover worse."

"Good grief."

"I could help a bit, but you went on a whole thing about me wasting mana last night." Her glare met my shit-eating grin.

"Alana."

With a last laugh I began to cast the poison removal spell. Alcohol was mostly just a poison, and a hangover was at least partially that. Getting the small quantity of alcohol she hadn't yet digested out was easy. Of course many of its byproducts were also a problem. While I didn't specifically know those I could imagine that they were there, and I knew they were making her hangover worse, so pulling them out was my next step. That done I could only do one more thing for her.

"Here," I said, putting down a pitcher and glass with cool water in them. "drink up, that's all I can really do for you."

With the toxins gone all she had to work through was the dehydration. It ended up with her getting a nice quiet morning while I went to my old room to practice my magic.

I worked on a receiver/broadcaster model for my sound spell, not unlike a telephone. Half of the spell 'heard' something, taking in the sound-waves, while the other half put out a copy of them. I could also alter this to make sounds from my imagination rather than the receiver, but that was really difficult, and not quite what I needed. It took me most of the day going between casting and studying to get it to a place I was happy with, but by the time I was done it was at the very least workable.

Eleanor found me at dinner, parking herself across from me.

"Last night was a bit of an embarrassment. I hate to say that I was taken completely off guard by that drink. I thought it was more akin to a beer or cider than hard liquor."

"I could tell, but you were well and drunk by the time I realized your mistake."

"I would prefer it if we didn't speak of it again."

"Okay, if that's what you want. Jackson might have words for you later though." I felt that was an empty threat, but it did get a good look on her face.

"What? Why?"

"Because he's the one we got to carry you to bed and dump you there." I tried, and failed, to keep a straight face as I said it.

The flare of embarrassment on her face was perfect. I knew I was being a bit pointlessly mean here. I could have sobered her after she fell into bed, or before. The poison removal spell would have stopped it dead in its tracks, ceasing the drunkenness and preventing the hangover. On the other hand, it was really funny to me, so...

"Why Jackson?"

"Because I'm too small and Lucien is getting on in years."

At my answer she put her head down on the table. I patted her on the shoulder a bit. It wasn't that bad. Sure for about as long as I'd known him Jackson had been a playboy, but he wasn't evil or anything, and he probably wouldn't even mention it if she didn't. I imagined he'd had to been thrown into a bed once or twice in his long career of drinking and chasing women.

So far as I knew the man never did say anything to her about it. For the rest of the spring though she ended up studiously avoiding anything she wasn't particularly familiar with. Not much else of note happened for the season other than a few visits from friends and a good bit of hard studying. By this point I could almost quote the study book line for line, it was kinda sad.