Double Trouble (Final Draft) – Chapter 2 – History Repeats

Mikaela

“Do you have the money?”

“Yes, I have the money!” Charlotte grumbled back at me in annoyance. “Just like I had it the last three times you asked!”

“Yes, but are you sure it’s the right money?” I pressed. “Human coinage? Not Fallens?”

“You do realize the gate here takes both, right?” Charlotte countered, crossing her arms and glaring at me.

“Yes, but not everywhere does, so it’s in our best interest to get used to things now,” I explained to her as patiently as I could. I don’t know why I bothered, though, because all I got back was another irritated glare and huff.

“Yes, I have the right coins. Three virtues.” She opened up her palm as she spoke, revealing three copper coins with stylized bursts of light stamped onto their surface. “Why do humans still use the Church’s coinage, anyway? I mean, with how much power the Church lost in the aftermath of the war, you wouldn’t think anyone would be eager to leave them in charge of minting all the money…”

“It’s not that easy to replace a universal currency,” I replied, deciding to give her an impromptu lesson. Since she’d asked, and all. “You have to realize that most countries aren’t going to easily hand anyone the right to print money. At the same time, if they all start making their own money after so long with a shared currency their economies are likely to collapse into chaos, making everyone suffer. Rulers need to know which battles to pick and leaving the Church this one bit of power was likely the least disruptive option available to them.”

“Maybe Granny Liz can just conjure up a new money system?” Charlotte suggested. “I’ll bring it up with her next time we chat.”

“Please don’t. You know she’ll just leap right onto any request you give her, without any consideration for the consequences…”

“So you’re fine with the bigoted church that literally demonized our people minting all the money people use?” Charlotte asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I just think it’s better not to meddle in human affairs too much. Especially without knowing any of the complex geopolitical factors that have probably gone into why things are the way they are today!”

“So you’d rather let things just stay the way they are, without even trying to change things?” Charlotte countered. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly looking forward to being reminded of the Church that hates me everywhere I go.”

“It doesn’t hate us anymore,” I pointed out. “At least… officially. The Church has improved a lot from what it was before under Mom’s reforms, and most commoners don’t really care whose face is on the coin as long as it can be spent.” There were certainly those who held onto old beliefs, though. After Granny Liz – or rather, ‘Liz, the Goddess’ – officially ended the war between humans and demons, it caused a schism between those who wanted to cling to the old ways and those who were willing to accept the changes Granny Liz wanted to implement within her religion. There were unfortunately still a large number of people who held grudges against demons on behalf of family and friends who’d died during the war, but as time went on they’d surely become outnumbered by those at least willing to give the new state of affairs a chance.

“Uh-huh,” Charlotte muttered, crossing her arms. “Whatever you – Oooh, looks like the guard’s ready for us! Come on!”

“Wha-” I blinked, caught off guard by my sister’s sudden change in topic. I realized, suddenly, that a large gap had opened up in the line during our discussion. In fact, the people behind me seemed rather irritated… What’s more, I was belatedly realizing that we’d been talking about fairly sensitive topics in public. Thankfully, whether because they didn’t realize exactly what we were talking about or because they didn’t care, nobody seemed in a rush to question us about it.

“S-sorry,” I murmured, giving them an embarrassed nod before hurrying to meet my sister at the gate. She was currently talking to one of the guards – a blond man with an unremarkable appearance. The only notable quality about him was that he was in fact a him – we didn’t exactly have any of those in Dimona Tower. In fact, it was probably the first time my sister had ever talked to a man outside of international social obligations… not that she seemed to be paying much mind to that.

“The trip’s been going alright, yeah, but I’m mostly just looking forward to getting into town! It’s three virtues per person, right?”

“Y-yeah,” the guard stammered out. Charlotte didn’t seem to even notice the way he was looking at her cleavage. The poor man had no idea he was so far away from being a romantic option for her that his interest probably hadn’t even registered for her. “I… Uh… You know, if you’re new around here, I could… I mean, after my shift, I could-”

“Ah-hem.” The cough came from a tall, muscled woman who filled out her guard uniform far better than her male counterpart. “Dogor. Your job is to take their ID or money and let them through or not as appropriate. Not hit on them.”

“R-right,” the man – Dogor – said. “S-sorry… Uh… You can go through?”

The woman nodded, seemingly satisfied, and didn’t say anything further.

“Thanks,” Charlotte said, “but I can’t actually go through without my sister. She’s got her own coins.”

“Your s-sister?” the man asked, looking about – only to freeze when he made eye contact with me. A rather rude reaction, but I suppose the look I was giving him might have been… a touch harsh. I just had no patience for masculine flirts. “You… uh… Wow. You two look… are you twins, or something?”

“Identical ones!” Charlotte volunteered. “You can’t tell?”

“I… uh…”

“It’s probably the difference in our hair styles,” I suggested. Certainly not that the man was so focused on my sister’s chest that he hadn’t properly registered the similarity between our faces. “You keep yours in a pony tail, I keep mine in a braid – add in your tendency to slouch, the different ways we carry ourselves… you’d be surprised how it all adds up to create vastly different images.”

“Huh… I guess so? I’m more used to people just… knowing about us.”

I let out a noncommittal grunt at that before holding out my hand with the coins. The guard reached out his own trembling hand, almost dropping the coinage as I slipped it to him. If he had, the female guard would have likely caught it anyway.

She was – if I wasn’t mistaken – a valkyrie. One of the powerful, artificial guards that Granny Liz had assigned to protect this town, after it started down the route of becoming a trading hub for demonkind. It apparently held a special place in her heart as the area where Mama and Mom had first met. In other words, the place where the Demon Queen and Heroine had begun their journey towards ending the war and ushering in an era of peace.

As for why human guards were even necessary with them around… Well, let’s just say that they were a little… simplistic in nature. They could stop criminals in their tracks, but had little ability to converse or provide helpful directions to newcomers. In other words, she was the muscle, and the babbling, stammering idiot in front of us was somehow chosen as the town’s face.

“You’re having rude thoughts, aren’t you?” Charlotte accused as we walked past the guards.

“I’m having truthful thoughts that could be read as rude, if that’s what you mean.”

She stuck out her tongue at me.

“Real mature…” I murmured, rolling my eyes. “Come on. Let’s find the guild.”

“We could have asked the nice guard where to find it,” Charlotte pointed out. “He probably would have told us.”

“If he could stop staring at your tits long enough to remember,” I replied. “We can ask someone on the way. I doubt it’ll be hard to find someone who can tell us.”

“Hmmm… I guess,” Charlotte conceded, looking around. “Maybe a cute girl, this time? Seeing as how you don’t seem to have any patience for men.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I mean, aren’t you interested in them? They’re so… different from anyone in the tower!”

“You mean they’re weak, hairy, and smell bad?”

“Pretty much! The weak thing can be applied to pretty much everyone, though… And the bad smell might have more to do with sweating in the heat? Some girls can get pretty hairy, too… But he was way too angular. And flat.”

“You do like your curves,” I murmured, laughing a little to myself. “The poor man has no idea how little of a chance he had…”

“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked, tilting her head.

“Nothing,” I told her, shaking my head. I wondered how many broken hearts she’d leave in her wake over the course of our journey. “Nothing at all. Now come on. To the guild!”

***

Charlotte

***

Finding our way to the guild was actually pretty easy. As Mikaela had suggested, we just flagged someone down and asked. A cute girl, this time – red hair, about our age, but a little frazzled with her hair going off in every which direction. She seemed to be in a hurry, but she still gave pretty thorough directions.

As for the building itself? It was… squat, I guess? Kinda biggish? Compared to the buildings around it, at least. No two story building could compare to the marvel of magical engineering that was Dimona Tower, though, so if it was built to impress then it wasn’t doing a very good job of it so far as I was concerned.

Still, I couldn’t help the pep in my step as I walked inside and saw all the adventurers milling about. Some of them were at the job board, studying the pieces of paper that were hanging from hooks. Others were at the counter or waiting in line, all there to either take quests or show off proof of having already finished one. Yet more were milling around, likely waiting for their party members to finish some bit of business or another. In Earthen stories there was usually some sort of kitchen and bar attached, but in this guild… not so much. It was strictly guild business here.

It was also all humans. Not a demon in sight, excluding my sister and me. Not that anyone could actually tell we were demons – not so long as we kept our tails wrapped around ourselves and didn’t conjure our wings or turn our eyes black.

“Let me do the talking,” Mikaela said, taking her place in one of the lines. “You can just… do whatever, I suppose, as long as you don’t try to cause trouble.”

“Uh-huh. Because you’re such an expert at staying out of trouble,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “When’s the last time you even spoke to a commoner who didn’t work for you?”

“That’s… Are you trying to imply that I can’t talk normally to commoners?” she asked, frowning.

“No, I’m outright stating it. You speak too formally, stand all prompt and strict, basically scream highborn with your every move – the same things that got Mama in trouble when she went to the adventurer’s guild. Or have you forgotten the story she told us?”

“I have gone on trips to the lower floors with you, you know,” Mikaela pointed out. “And considering our perfect recall, I can assure you that I still know how to talk to those of lower stations.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, rolling my eyes to show exactly what I thought of that. “Why don’t you go and show me, then? The line is moving.”

“Fine. I will,” she replied, scowling at me before moving up in the line. 

I decided to follow. Less because I was worried about her fucking it up – as much as I loved to tease her on the subject, she was actually pretty good at peopleing – and more because it was fun to mess with her. Though maybe not as much fun as hitting on some of the cute girls I saw milling about…

Eh, but the receptionists were pretty cute too, come to think of it… at least, the one we were standing in line for was. The one to her right was a burly dude, and the one to her left was a mousey looking girl – not bad looking, either, but her tits were a little small for my taste.

The receptionist in front of us, though? Red hair, green eyes, a bright smile. Though that last feature seemed to be stiffening a little as she talked to the woman right in front of us in line.

“Miss, I understand that you risked your life to fight these horned rabbits, but the request was specifically for their pelts and you shredded them. I’m afraid we really can’t pay more than-”

“Are you saying my life’s not worth more than a single silver cross?!” the adventurer demanded.

“A silver cross and five virtues to be precise,” the receptionist calmly replied. 

“The dude before me had a corpse that was mutilated to hell and back, and you paid him more!”

“The man before you was bringing back the creature’s organs. The creature looked so ragged because he bled it to death through a multitude of cuts rather than direct damage to their internal organs.”

“Yeah, well… that’s… Look, you gotta give me at least two crosses!”

“I’m afraid one cross and five virtues is the best I can do, miss,” the woman said patiently. “Unless you can find another buyer?”

“Fucking…” the adventurer trailed off, shaking her head, before letting out a groan. “Fine. Whatever. Just give me what you can…”

“Of course, miss,” the receptionist said, sliding the money across the table.

The adventurer snatched it off the counter, still grumbling under her breath as she turned around and stomped her way over to the job board.

“Our turn, next,” I pointed out before elbowing my sister. “Be nice to her, alright?”

“I’ll be polite,” Mikaela replied, rolling her own eyes, before stepping forward. “Excuse me, miss, but… could I please see the Guild Master?”

I stood there in silence for a moment before face palming. This was exactly what had happened with Mama…

~~~

Author’s Notes

To be fair to Mikaela, this is not how things went with Devilla. Devilla caused so much trouble that the guild master voluntarily came down himself. Still, it’s Charlotte’s right as a sister to complain about how her twin handles things… I think? I’m an only child, honestly, but I’m doing my best to write a proper sibling dynamic all the same.

Many thanks to FallingLeaf for editing, and suggesting the title. Many thanks to all of you for reading, as well! (Not to mention the likes and comments that help brighten up my day~!)