“No? Auly, what does she mean no. didn’t you say your barrier forced her to speak?”

“It does…”

“Can’t you just change the question? Like, overight it?”

“No…”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t design the spell with the idea that I might not want them to tell me something!”

They both paused, staring back at me as I continued to bite my tongue, literally, keeping my jaw clenched to render myself incapable of speech.

The guild master sighed. “The reasons I am using this spell is to confirm you are innocent, and find facts from what you know… The sooner we resolve this, the faster we will move on to what's important and forget about whatever it is that you are about to say…”

“The only thing I know how to do is fight…” I growled before clenching my jaw again.

“Right… Well…” She slowly turned her eyes to the side, suddenly unable to look at me. “Like I said, your body will force itself to find ways of relieving stress you feel… And so after a while, it will just force your muscles to relax, your heart rate to slow, your adrenaline to calm down… And… Water will start coming out of… More delicate places than your eyes… After that, you’ll probably be unable to resist any longer… And I’ll have to clean the floor…”

I growled again. ‘You call this divine magic?’ Sure enough, just at the thought of it, my eyes started to water again, and in the end, I decided to cut my losses… Besides, they were the only two people in the whole room… And it was just a stupid story from a long time ago… “It’s… What made me give up… On finding a party… Why I haven’t looked for one for the past four years… Not that anyone would take me when I occasionally did…”

‘The longer I draw this out the more it’s going to hurt… I know that… But…’ Another chill ran down my arms and legs as I finally relaxed. “You owe me Plutia… I better be able to use tier three divine spells after this…”

She chuckled nervously. “Well, that’s kind of…”

Aurelia growled at her.

“I mean yeah sure I’ll help you with that. But you’ll still have to work for it.”

“Good…” I rested my chin on my knees and stopped trying to fight the magic, letting it control what I said. My hair fell past my face as I looked down, dimming the light that reached my eyes and helping me to feel more at peace. Although, the tightness in my chest never fully went away. It was like threads around my throat suddenly stopped constricting me and eased up, controlling my voice, my mouth, and even my lips.

“So after we formed a party they said we had to do a job to raise money, so we could buy our knight a sword before we left. Apparently, he had lost his old one on their last job. I was just excited to finally be in a group more than anything so I went along with whatever they said and we ended up performing at an inn where the patrons would tip based on how good they thought it was. So, naturally, I got to show off my magic… At least that was the plan…”

“Did you freeze up?” Plutia asked before once again getting smacked. After a short pause, the magic got a hold of me and forced me to continue.

“No… It started out fine, no one was really impressed, but since I could use so many kinds of magic at once they seemed to like it, and they were all smiling… It was… fun…” I let out a soft sigh, wishing I had something to lean against. Almost on cue the guild master moved up next to my side and forced me to lean on her. I wanted to object, but at that point, I Was too tired to even react.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“The boys had a plan of their own. From out of the crowd one of them threw a slime at me and it stuck to my skirt. I panicked, not sure what to do at first so I tried to shake it off but it was stuck like glue. Eventually, I used a water whip to kill it, but I really hurt my leg in the process… Even worse than that, I lost control of the spell and it ended up looking like I wet myself… Which was fine… Except my spell tore a huge chunk out of my skirt too…”

I thought for sure Plutia was going to ask another question, but she just let out a soft sigh, her face clearly telling me she didn’t think it was funny anymore.

I paused, trying to fight the truth spell again as my chest tightened, but ultimately caved again, deciding to just get it over with and move on. “When I finally got rid of the one on my skirt two more fell on me from above.”

Hugging my legs even tighter, I quieted my voice. “I didn’t want to hurt myself again so I tried brushing them off but I started to feel them sting as they ate away at my skin, so I took my jacket off and threw it to the side, using my fire magic to heat up my skin enough to melt the bits that were still on me… But I accidentally set my shirt on fire, so I used water to put it out… but that made what little was left of my shirt see-through… Not that there was much left anyway…” I paused again, rolling my eyes to the side as I thought about how stupid it all sounded.

“Only after the fact did I remember I was standing on stage in front of a crowd, and when I finally did I froze. After a few moments I squatted down and grabbed my knees, and after a few more I grabbed my jacket and ran to the bathroom where I snuck out the window and went home…”

Plutia chuckled nervously. “I mean it could have been worse right?”

Aurelia let out a disappointed sigh. “That’s not what you're supposed to say…” She wrapped her arms around me, slowly brushing her hand through my hair. Given she was a stranger though, it felt as uncomfortable as you might imagine. “That’s all in the past now, so try not to let it bother you so much… That was an awful thing that happened to you, but it’s ok now. I bet no one even remembers it anymore.”

They may have been words from a complete stranger, but they were what I always imagined my mom saying if she was still alive back then. In that sense, hearing them out loud, They were… Comforting… In a way…

Plutia growled. “It’s not fair to lie in your own spell. No way someone could forget that.”

Any comfort I found… Gone… Instantly vanished... I felt like I might as well have turned to stone, becoming almost completely emotionless.

“Y-you don’t know that… I mean, it was several years ago, right? I’m sure it’s all in the past…”

“Not a chance.”

“Maybe… you’re right…”

I felt another chill run through me, but I felt like I was at peace in a strange way. My chest wasn’t tight anymore, and I didn’t feel like I wanted to cry. With the spell's effects on me vanishing, I started to feel like I was myself again. My voice steadied as I pushed Aurelia away and casually crossed my legs underneath me. ‘Yeah, They’re probably right.’ I sighed. “I stayed in my house for three weeks after that… And people still recognized me when I came back out…”

Plutia gestured towards me with one of her hands “See. It could have been worse though.”

Aurelia grabbed onto me again as if trying to somehow protect me from her. “I’m actually kind of curious, how could it have been worse.” She groaned.

“Well…” She started thinking for a moment. “At least you didn’t accidentally rip your skirt off completely right?”

I rolled my head to the side with another groan, starting to find the whole thing annoying. “No, I just flashed the whole audience several times trying to shake a slime off of it… And then tore the whole front off with a magic spell.”

“O-oh… You did, did you?”

“It wasn’t a very long skirt… And water whip is a combat spell… I guess it wasn’t bad when I wore it sideways. That’s how I wore it on the way home…”

It wasn’t a pleasant memory I just relived, and one I certainly never wanted to talk about. It wasn’t the kind of thing that felt better after I talked about it either, if anything it just felt worse now that more people knew about it. “I want to go home and die now…” I muttered emotionlessly.

They slowly looked at each other and then back at me. “Truth telling barrier…” Aurelia mumbled.

Plutia grabbed my shoulders and started shaking me back and forth. “NO! Please don’t do that!” she whined, almost starting to cry. “I’m sorry ok. I’ll help you reach tier three holy magic just like you asked, so please don’t die yet! You still have so much to live for.”

I raised my head, acknowledging her for a moment, still void of any emotion mentally drained. “I’m really upset with you right now, and I don’t know how to express that, so I’m going to ignore you for a while…”

Aurelia snorted. “Truth-telling barrier.” She said again, hiding a laugh.

I slowly pushed myself away from her too and stood up, brushing my dress off and straightening out the wrinkles from sitting on the floor. ‘This is stupid, why am I even here right now?’

“W-well having a torn-up skirt is better than nothing right? And even if your shirt was see-through it’s not like that means they saw your chest. See, it could have been worse…”

“I was fourteen…” I groaned again. “I thought tough adventurer girls didn’t wear bras.”

“You’re making it worse!” Aurelia yelled under her breath, smacking her again.

I let out a soft sigh, offering a hand to help the guild master up. “This is a waste of time. Ask me what you wanted to already…” After she stood up she tried to give me another hug but I raised my arm to create space. “And no more of that, go hug her if you want one so bad.”

Her face instantly sank like that of a puppy told they weren't getting any treats until Plutia patted her on the head. “Awe, did the mean Chika scold you for trying to make her feel better? It’s ok, she does that.”

I lifted a hand to my face, covering my eyes before gently rubbing my forehead and sweeping my hair back. ‘Honestly… It’s like there's two of them… This is the vicious guild master that spearheaded the reform to execute sex offenders?’ “Aurelia…” I growled.

Finally, she brushed herself off and began to look a little more professional, at least in regard to how she carried herself.