An Accessory to Remember

After our night out at the strip club, Aranea had gone right back to the inn without saying much of anything,

I feel I've caught onto how Aranea's brain works.

When she's not quite sure what to say, she prefers to say nothing at all.

She'd fallen asleep quickly, and I'd almost immediately entered her memories to resume playing around with them.

Honestly speaking, I was torn on how exactly I wanted to play with the memory, and I was very concerned about causing an instant blackout, Aranea seemed pensive and on-edge for the entirety of her time at the club, but she diligently stared at every stripper I asked her to, on one occasion, I'd claimed that my eyesight was getting blurry, and asked her to describe the strippers for me.

She'd complied in a very still, yet somehow also stilted tone of voice, describing the extremely large rack of the brunette wearing nothing but a smile. Honestly, I wasn't expecting her to be willing to follow through, I just wanted to hear her excuses for why she wasn't going too.

Despite this willingness to comply with my perverted requests, I knew I was walking an absolute tightrope of plausibility while editing her mind, one of my main issues was I completely ignorant of Aranea's sexuality, I knew that she could be turned on, her masturbating to the sounds of two other inn patrons going at it proved she had some form of sexuality.

Beyond that, I have no real concept of what she finds attractive, it's possible she's so sexually repressed even she doesn't know what she finds attractive. That's the worst-case scenario, more likely, she's just some combination of shy and prudish.

I still have no idea what changes would sound plausible to her, so even a seemingly minor change could knock me out and force me to waste the night.

Maybe for now, the best thing to do would be to try and coax her into making this a repeat thing, make her feel like the experience wasn't awful, and maybe smooth over her feelings towards me, make sure she didn't believe I was being pushy, being manipulative.

Honestly though, I think I did a pretty good job tonight getting her to agree to increasingly more unreasonable requests without ever applying any form of strong pressure, I even told her to leave a couple of times, praying she wouldn't take me up on my offer. And it had worked, perhaps I've found a viable method of manipulating Aranea, probably wouldn't be wise to overuse it, but I could think of a few uses.

I could probably get some really embarrassing encounters going on repeat visits, maybe I could convince Aranea I'd become infatuated with a stripper, convince her that I really wanted a private show.

The funny thing was that Aranea had been trying to keep me secret, so when making the request, she'd need to pretend she was the one who wanted the private strip show.

I love everything about this plan.

For now, it was simply a matter of making sure she continued to trust me, to owe me. So, I made a few simple alterations.

"Aranea, you remember thinking that Keon was being incredibly nice and understanding of your discomfort."

"Aranea, you remember feeling like you might be ruining this night out for Keon, you remember feeling bad about that."

"Aranea, you remember enjoying spending the night out with Keon, despite the locale."

The earlier two alterations had consumed a low amount of energy, yet my last request used no energy at all.

It would seem she enjoyed the night out after all.

I didn't have any great ideas for what to do with my leftover energy, so I instead opted to "refresh" Aranea's masturbation memory, and deleted another memory with what was left, the less memories she had that didn't involve me, the better.

With that, I found myself unconscious, satisfied with my progress, as I awaited the next dawn.

Waking up, I was surprised to find Aranea still in bed, I didn't have a great way to tell time, but still, this felt far later than usual, judging by how far the sunlight had crept into the room.

"Aranea, you up?"

"I've been up for a while; I've been waiting for you."

"I see... is there something you want to talk about? Because that's so ominous it's worrying me."

"Don't be worried, it's about last night."

"I see..."

"I figure I should probably explain to you why I was feeling so uncomfortable last night, and I wanted to do that within the relative privacy of the inn."

Aranea cleared her throat before starting her story rather unsteadily, as if she wasn't quite sure where would be the appropriate place to begin.

"Nowadays, I'm an elf living amongst humans, but I didn't grow up here, I was born in the elvish homelands to the north-west, and that's where I matured, and so I inherited a lot of my cultures views towards sexuality."

"And those views are?"

"It'd probably help if I gave some context first, we elves live far longer lives than you humans, unless a human manages to get their soul trapped in a fashion accessory like you did, you'd be lucky to last a hundred years normally, 400 with the benefit of a gift... we elves live for over a thousand, and that's before you start factoring the longevity multiplier that is a gift."

"Where are you going with this?"

"The point is that elvish culture believes everything should be done slowly, and dragged out for years at a time, even unnecessarily so, for the sake of keeping our long lives interesting. In elvish culture, kissing someone before you've been dating for ten years is practically considered a whirlwind romance. There's also so much emphasis on etiquette and appearing refined in what you do, and if there's a mindset that reigns supreme in our culture, it's a mindset that values gossip and shaming others for arbitrary slights."

"So, you feel weird about last night because your culture finds quick sex to be abhorrent? That's fine I'll respect your worldview."

I was saying that to be not raise her suspicions, I planned to alter her views to suit my needs, I already had a plan for how I was going to twist this, first I'll convince her th-

"I'm not done telling you the story, you see, I didn't really fit into elvish culture, still don't."

Aranea continued "I don't know if It's because of the demon blood running in my veins, or if I'm just differently minded, but I've never been eager to engage in courtly etiquette, and our fun national pastimte of pointless gossiping. No, I thought it was far too languid, far too pointless..."

Aranea's loathing for her homeland was starting to seep into her voice. "Shortly after I turned 30, adulthood for my kind, I became infatuated with one of my peers, I followed all the rules, I did my courtly song and dance, did a high class serenade to try and win his heart, and soon after we were officially courting. But I wasn't interested in waiting twenty years for us to finally kiss or whatever arbitrary length society decided we must sit around and pine for each other." Aranea's voice was starting to shake from anger.

"You see, I wanted to be bold, wanted to act..."

"What did you do?"

"I asked my boyfriend of three years if he'd be interested in hugging me, while wearing naught but the clothes we were born in."

"How naughty of you, so how did that go."

"I don't think it could have gone any worse... hahaha..." Aranea broke into an intense laughter that slowly gave way to a quivering voice.

"It turns out my boyfriend loved to gossip far more than he ever loved me, far, far more. as I was finishing my sentence, he sprinted out of the house to announce to everybody who'd care to listen what a slut I am." Aranea was clearly trying to keep laughing as she spoke, if only to dull the pain.

"That is... I am so sorry." For once I wasn't just being manipulative, I could hear the hurt in her voice as she spoke, and I did feel bad for her, I had to remind myself that Aranea was the reason I was stuck as a disembodied voice, someone I was obligated to hate.

"So not long after that, I found myself at the fringes of elvish society, because my now ex-boyfriend was intent on not only continually shaming me for what he apparently deemed uncontrollable nymphomania, but he started making stuff up as well, started climbing up the social ranks quickly doing so, I was practically a celebrity amongst the nobility for all the wrong reasons."

"Sorry you had to go through all that."

"Yeah... well, after all that happened, I started to get more interested in human culture, I read all about the chosen hero's, the kingdoms of the south, a legendary unchosen champion who had once united and defended humanity against countless fell chosen, namely, the great and mighty Keon whom I grew to admire."

I suspect she put that last one in to make me happy, shame I'm not actually Keon.

"So, I decided to move to one of the eastern kingdoms which had an elvish settlement at the time, When I arrived, I found myself in a small township, and I just started introducing myself to everyone, I was just happy to be among a less stuffy class of people..."

In my mind, I could already sense where this was going.

"But things took a turn, while I found myself stifled by the restrictive dating rules back home, I found the humans I was talking to were... overly provocative, one man just buried his head in my breasts as soon as I walked up to introduce myself, another returned my greeting, and then immediately tried to kiss me... then there was the gang, which tried to do what it is gangs do with naive young women... I remember one of endures a lifelong limp after what I did."

"So, you went from one extreme to another?"

"Pretty much, then things reached a kind of crescendo when I tried dating a human, long story short, he seemed nice, we were together for about three week, he asked for sex, I said no, but I tried to be a bit more accepting, so I tried to imply that I'd be open for it another day, if he asked nicely."

"Let me guess..."

"There's no need to guess, and there's no nice way to put what came next, he tried to restrain me, and he tried to... well... I think you can guess what he tried, he didn't succeed, not even close, but he tried and, in this case, unfortunately it's the thought that counts."

"Do you exclusively date sociopaths?"

Aranea chuckled at the question. "I ask myself that question a lot, and yeah, it would seem I'm not great at evaluating moral character, at least not when dating."

"Sorry you had to go through all that."

"It's not your fault, and you have nothing to apologize for, I just told you so you can understand why I'm a bit awkward around sexual stuff, I don't have the best experiences when it comes to expressions of sexuality. Even looking past that, I'll admit that I'm still an elf at heart, I find the concept of stripping to be... degrading. But I can recognize that human beings have shorter lives, your culture values quick thrills, and to an extent I always found that to be one of humanities more fascinating elements, so I'm trying to look past my own biases here."

"I suppose that's very mature of you."

"Everything I just said is to try and explain why I was so awkward list night, and I'm sorry that I probably ruined the entire experience for you."

"Don't worry about it, you didn't ruin anything, if anything i'm thankful you were willing to go as far as you did, given your history."

"That's reassuring." Aranea paused for a moment, seemingly thinking her next words through carefully.

"I remember what you said last night about not being able to eat or drink, of not being able to do anything besides look at the world, and I'm sorry you're in the state that you're in, once I've got my business sorted, I'll see if I can't help you get back into a normal body."

"T-that, i-is that possible? If so, that would be fantastic!" Honestly, the idea of having Aranea cure my condition had a certain appeal, the downside was making an enemy of Ruen, but I had to admit that keeping my options open was probably wise.

"No idea if that's possible, as far as I know, your condition is a first, and I have no idea how you continue to exist inside this lump of copper and string, but I'll ask around to see if it's possible, and if there's a way, I'll see it done."

"I guess I can only hope my condition is fixable."

"That's the unbreakable human spirit I've come to know!" Aranea sly smiled at me, her exclamation half mockery, half sincere, before switching back to her usual determined expression "I think I've wasted enough daylight for now, it's time to start the day."

Aranea, with surprising speed darted out of bed, grabbed her bag, then departed the inn, filling me in on today's itinerary as she did so.

"Okay, so the plan for today is to confirm the clearance of the bounties I've already done, and then I'll set out to complete another, should be the same as yesterday, although I can only hope it won't just be goblins this time, after we're done... we'll see."

True to her word, in less than 10 minutes, me and Aranea found ourselves in the town hall, Aranea clutching three bounties in her hand, and striding up to the main counter.

What followed was a lot of slow beaurucracy, the clerk was apparently checking through a large volume of reports to confirm Aranea had completed the bounty, before marking it complete, and handing Aranea a small bag, presumably containing payment.

It was a slow process, each bounty taking around thirty minutes to confirm, as the clerk slowly checked through a massive pile of reports, Aranea's expression throughout was somewhere between bored and annoyed.

Once Aranea was on her third and final contract, she whispered to me out of the corner of her mouth.

"Probably should have warned you this was going to be boring as can be."

"Yeah, well, at least you're getting paid."

"If only I were greedier, that the clink of coin might soothe my weary mind." Aranea mused.

We continued grumbling to each other, until the clerk finally returned, holding Aranea's final payment, which she slid across the counter to Aranea, who made it disappear somewhere into her outfit with movements so fast I could not follow.

Aranea gave a nod to the clerk, and turned to leave, before the clerk called out to her.

"Wait just a moment, we've been looking for someone to handle a situation in town, would you be interested? It's good pay for what could potentially be very little work."

I could tell by body language that Aranea wanted to say no but felt compelled to hear her out.

"What's the situation?"

"One of the towns more reclusive residents hasn't been seen recently, and we've grown suspicious he might have passed, as per our records, he lived alone, and we'd like someone to confirm his status, ordinarily, this isn't a task we'd bother you with, but this resident was a bit of an oddball, and may be a fairly dangerous mage, so we'd like someone with combat experience to perform the check, as a precaution."

"This is just in town, right?"

"Yes, I'll give you directions to the abode in question, it's a bit hard to find, but judging from your contracts, you have no trouble finding things."

The clerk wrote down a series of instructions, directing Aranea, before wishing her luck, and confirming her payment. I have no concept of the value of money, so I couldn't tell if 10 gold pieces was good pay, or pocket change, but I figured Aranea wasn't the sort to care either way.

When we visited the strip club yesterday, it was in a seedy part of town that I assumed was the slums, however, it would seem I was being far too harsh. The part of town we were now heading towards was significantly worse, Aranea had complained that she could smell rotting corpses, and while I lacked a sense of smell, I had no problem believing her, this entire section of town reeked of desperation and poor hygiene, houses were constructed out of makeshift parts, and I got the sense that a stiff breeze would be more than enough to collapse a few of these houses.

Aranea spent most of the walk trying to interpret the instructions, apparently, the clerk's directions were slightly vague, and warned that the architecture here tended to change without warning. Sure enough, hastily constructed wooden fences blocked off random stretches of the ghetto that our map indicated to be road, yet Aranea seemed to navigate well enough.

"This section of the city would likely be full of the war refugees, the entire frontier is full of these ramshackle buildings, the surviving population of the five eastern kingdoms all settled here on the frontier, displaced souls, unable to find footing, living in squalor."

"It's pretty bleak."

"I still remember the early days of Ruen's invasion, entire families uprooted, at the time it seemed like the entire world was ending, nowadays I can't help but feel for many of these people, it may have, you'd be surprised how many of these wood shacks belong to former royalty, the kingdom does it's best to support the refugees, but resources are spread of thin that relocation to the frontiers is the only housing plan available."

"So, it's like this everywhere?"

"This is one of the nicer towns, most of the frontier is dealing with far greater threats than mere goblin raids, the frontier is poor, yet needs to fight for its very survival daily. I remember just after the shining wall went up, leading operations to try and rescue the unfortunates on the other side of the wall, precious few made it back here, yet even now they have no lives beyond this... death to Ruen."

"Good speech, I feel inspired."

"Well, don't feel too inspired, we've got a house call to make, and I think we both know the pay is suspiciously high for knocking on a door and confirming a death, so I'm expecting complications."

Apparently, we'd arrived, before me was one of the better built structures in the slums, made from both wood and stone, but haphazardly, in a way that made me believe that the structure used to be entirely stone, before being repaired with wood, thankfully the door appeared to be both wooden, and flimsy, so we'd have no trouble making a forced entrance.

Aranea loudly pounded on the wooden door, trying to provoke some kind of response from the occupancy. Nothing.

Frustrated, Aranea muttered "I wasn't given a name, so I've no idea what to yell... it'd be a bit weird to just yell 'are you dead in there?' wouldn't it?"

"It's worth a shot."

Aranea seemed to think it through for a second, before shouting "Anyone alive in here?"

Once more, there was no response.

"Well, time for a visual check."

Aranea placed one hand on the door and with surprisingly little exertion, ripped it off its hinges, throwing it back into the streets in a display of strength I could only gawk at.

"Your stronger than you look." I struggled to keep the shock out of my voice, as I suddenly became keenly aware that if she were to learn of my identity, she could simply take my medallion in hand, and squeeze until I was naughty but a few shards of copper and torn string.

"Thank you." Aranea's pride in her abilities shone through, as she stepped through the now unblocked doorway.

"It feels mean to say, but I hope no-ones alive in here, or I'm going to have to spend the rest of the day fixing the door." Aranea whispered under her breath.

"Yeah, you probably should have thought of that before you tore it clean off its hinges."

"Live and learn." Aranea muttered playfully.

The house was made up of four small rooms, each separated by doors, Aranea was slowly working her way through the house, trying to listen for any signs of life before entering each room.

"People tend to startle when someone with bright red eyes suddenly bursts into the room, so I'd rather avoid an unnecessary fight, almost everyone in this slum would have lost someone to a demon, so they're not exactly quick to trust me."