Princess of the fish
Swimming in the freshen'd lake
Buckets here always.

Today was another beautiful day around the Misty Lake. Despite Gensokyo entering summer, the area around the lake stayed cool as usual thanks to the mist covering it. Youkai would commonly come to the lake to cool off and socialize, meaning that summer wasn’t the best time for your ordinary human to visit the lake.

“Dear God, why are there so many buckets…” Licorice groaned as she slowly climbed down to the lake. It wasn’t a long walk from the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but carrying four buckets at the same time made it feel a bit longer. She had been tasked, again, by Sakuya to carry water to the mansion after her first failed attempt.

Our heroine was determined to not fail this time. She came right next to the lake, and put down all four buckets. With her newly freed hands, Licorice checked under her apron to make sure she was ready in case she had to use a spell card; she was relieved to find that her spare shoes were still intact under the apron. She also had a frying pan, in case of close combat, and a bottle of sake, in case of close bribery.

“Alright, let’s do this.” Licorice carefully approached the lake with one bucket, constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure no errant fairies were approaching her. She felt the cold water slowly envelop her feet as she got closer. I hope I’m not going to catch a cold after this… Slowly lowering the bucket, our heroine managed to finally draw water for one of the four buckets.

The second bucket went without incident as well, so did the third. Licorice didn’t want to jinx it, but it felt like she might actually be able to draw water successfully. Our heroine approached the lake for a final time, with the fourth bucket in hand.

This was it. Soon, it’d all be over. Unless…

“Po dyavolite, what is that?!” Licorice took a few steps back upon noticing a large black blob swimming deep under the water. She ran away to the shore of the lake, dropping the bucket in shock. The bucket filled with water sank to the bottom as our heroine watched with great dread. Great, I just lost another bucket.

Unlike her lost bucket, the black blob was quickly rising up to meet the surface of the water. As it got closer, Licorice realized that the thing approaching her wasn’t a big black blob. It was a person (?), quickly swimming up the lake to reveal themselves. “Hm? I thought I heard someone run…”

Licorice had hidden herself behind a local tree. Her unexpected encounter was with another woman, with dark blue hair that was dripping with water. Our heroine noticed a lack of proper human ears on this woman, she instead had small, fin-like appendages in place. Her green kimono, with extra frills like anyone else in Gensokyo, made her look like a living seaweed.

“Did she fall and drown? Oh no. That’d be quite bad…” This woman of the sea seemed to be quite worried about having potentially drowned someone. She was scoping the area around her in an attempt to find Licorice.

Licorice, feeling bad for making the woman so concerned, decided to reveal herself. “I’m still alive, don’t worry.” She slowly walked toward this greenly clad woman, noticing another detail under the clear lake water: She didn’t have legs. The bottom portion of her body was that of a fish, which was wagging around to keep her afloat. I guess she’s probably a mermaid of some sort… Though, don’t mermaids usually live in ocean water?

“Ah! So sorry for scaring you. My name is Wakasagihime.” The mermaid bowed down in a mix of apology and greeting, her head submerged into and back from water as she did so. “I was so excited to have a guest, you see. One doesn’t get to see new faces around this lake… The faces that are frequently here are usually the cold, mischievous kind that want to freeze me for entertainment.” She shivered, even though she herself normally swam in the coldest parts of the water with no problem.

“I see…” She must be talking about that ice fairy. “I’m Licorice Meidou, the new maid at the Scarlet Devil Mansion.” Licorice suddenly had a genius idea. “Say, if you can swim so well, could you help me out and bring my bucket back? I just dropped it, and the head maid will give me quite a bit of trouble if I don’t retrieve it.”

“Head maid? Do you mean Sakuya?” Wakasagihime wasn’t unfamiliar with what happened when one crossed Sakuya. She quickly went back to the lake to search for the bucket, returning as quickly as she submerged. Wakasagihime now had two buckets in her head, one shining like silver and the other one shining like gold. “Was this what you had lost?”

A golden bucket and a silver one… I know how this kind of tale goes. “No, that axe- Ahem, neither of these buckets are mine. Mine was a simple, wooden one.”

“There are plenty of wooden buckets down there. Let me see…” Wakasagihime dove again, this time taking a long time to resurface. She was holding an intact wooden bucket that Licorice had lost. “Was this what you had lot?”

“Yes, that’s my bucket. Thank you, Miss Wakasagihime.” Licorice took the wooden bucket, conveniently filled with water, back.

“Glad to be of help.” Wakasagihime, now bucketless, politely bowed again to Licorice. “Let me not keep you from your work any longer. Please visit me again when you’re not busy, it gets quite lonely around here.”

Before Wakasagihime could dive back, Licorice called out to her. “Wait, wait. This isn’t how this is supposed to go!”

“Huh?” Wakasagihime stopped just before she jumped back into the water.

“Aren’t I supposed to get the silver and golden buckets as a reward for my honesty?” The Honest Maid was surprised at the sudden change of script.

“…Is that how it works?” Wakasagihime looked down to the water, where her shiny buckets lay. “But I don’t want to part with my shiny buckets if I don’t need to…” She looked a bit sullen and unwilling.

Licorice, upon failing to convince the mermaid to give up her material possessions for free, decided to switch tactics. Her hands began digging around her apron for help. Shoes? I’ll just lose them if I throw them at the lake. Pan? I don’t think getting into close combat with a mermaid in her home turf is good idea. Besides, I’m not some sort of hooligan! Why is combat the first thing to come to my mind?! The logic of Touhou had infected Licorice, making her think of initiating danmaku as the first choice of conflict resolution. Her mind was set on the path of peace when she heard the tingle of a large glass bottle.

“You don’t have much booze in this lake, right? I’ll give you this entire bottle if you give me both buckets.” Licorice extended the bottle of sake she had “borrowed” from the pantry. “Besides, a mermaid doesn’t have much use for a bucket, right? This bottle is a real fine one, it’s the kind of stuff that the mistress herself drinks.” Actually, Remilia preferred wine, tea, and blood, but how was this mermaid supposed to know that? Such innocent little lies about the mistress’ preferred way of committing underage drinking was okay in Licorice’s book.

“Oh…” The prospect of alcohol was sufficiently tempting, even for a mermaid. She took the bottle, and went back down to return the buckets without further word. “Here you go, Miss Licorice!”

“Pleasure conducting business with you.” Licorice took the buckets as Wakasagihime disappeared back into the lake to sample some fine sake.

“Aren’t these buckets a bit too light for being gold and silver?” Licorice knocked on the golden bucket. A light, plasticky thud resonated back.

It’s plastic…

Thus Aesop had the last laugh.