Hermes Familia

I stumbled through the doors of the Hermes Familia’s home, the Traveler’s Inn, and staggered over to the wall before sinking down against it. Normally, I could have run the distance between the cafe and here without breaking a sweat thanks to my Falna, but I had spent the trip running into several signs, poles, and one very angry dog because I was unable to take my eyes off the numerous bare feet around me on my way back. I’d never been so grateful for wearing my faulds to avoid ‘little Auray’ popping out to say hello.

For a bit, I just sat there and caught my breath. Then, I regretfully said my goodbye to the comfortable floor and pushed myself to my feet. I had to find Hermes and Asfi so I could confirm my suspicions about the earrings. I couldn’t stop for pleasure.

Deciding to check for them around the mansion, I started heading into the mansion. Before I had gone even two steps though, I heard a string of curses coming from the parlor. Poking my head in, I saw Lulune sitting on one of the couches glaring down at something as she mumbled some more expletives. I decided to make my presence known.

“Lulune!” I called, raising a hand. Lulune’s doglike ears twitched, and the chienthrope looked up with an expression that was half-cheerful, half-upset.

“Sup’, Auray!” she replied, waving a hand cheerfully, trying to hide a wince of pain.. As I got closer, I could see that what she had been glaring at had in fact been her own foot. Though I could only see their tops, Lulune’s feet were bare and quite attractive, with her darker skin tone compared to Amazons and their slender shape. I only just managed to limit myself to sneaking a couple of stares. Lulune, though, was staring at her feet like they had wiped out her entire bloodline and insulted her for it.

“Something wrong?” I felt compelled to ask. Lulune sighed heavily in response, her usually friendly manner much more dismayed this time.

“You know. Just the usual.” I was about to tell her that no, I didn’t know shit, when she turned her foot upwards to give me a good view of the underside, causing me to gasp and recoil.

Lulune’s feet looked terrible. There was no better way to describe it, because that was probably how they felt. The sole was bruised and blistered, the ball was heavily calloused, there were a few cuts on the heel, and the entire underside was covered in a layer of dirt. As I looked on with horror at the sight of such wonderful feet so badly abused, Lulune reached into a bottle of ointment she kept beside her and began to rub it on the cuts, hissing in pain as she did so.

“I know it’s normal to go barefoot, but it’s always a pain to walk without any protection, you know? Literally and figuratively,” Lulune complained as she rubbed the quickly darkening lotion into her dirty feet. “I don’t even want to know how women without falna handle this kind of stuff. These streets are **** on your feet.”

When I heard Lulune’s words, I felt a blade of guilt stab into me. My selfishness had caused these problems for her. While I hadn’t meant to change reality this way, I’d had plenty of time to try and undo it. I hadn’t attempted to though, as I was too busy enjoying the women’s new exposed feet to consider how fulfilling my actions might negatively affect them.

Did that mean I was going to undo it now? Absolutely not. Or at least, not until I tried to fix this first. I need to think carefully about the exact wording before I do anything this time though. Nothing justified making the same mistake twice; if I was just going to make people go through a new type of pain just so I could fix an old one, I might as well change everything back to the way it was before and take off these earrings right now.

“You’re right, that does suck,” I said after a long silence as I chose my next words with the carefulness of a poet composing his next verse. “I wish women’s feet were always really soft, smooth, and sensitive, and couldn’t be hurt or damaged by the terrain.”

Nothing happened. Lulune’s feet still looked as battered as ever while their owner kept wincing every time she touched her heels, and slathered the ointment against the shallow wounds. “Tell me about it,” Lulune groaned dejectedly. “If they were, I wouldn’t have to spend so much on medicine.”

Okay, that didn’t work. Perhaps I wasn’t able to make changes that affected people’s physical biology. Or maybe the key to changing something wasn’t to wish for it? I thought over what I said and compared it to the wish that started all of this. Maybe…

“I really don’t know what you’re so mad about,” I tried again. “After all, it’s normal for women’s feet to always be really soft, smooth, and sensitive, and be impervious to damage or discomfort from the terrain.”

Lulune stared at me for a moment, and I wondered whether she was going to ask me what the hell I was talking about. Then her expression brightened and her attitude became more laid back- more like the Lulune I was used to.

“Yeah, it's weird that I was mad, isn’t it?” She chuckled, looking mildly embarrassed with herself. “I mean, these babies don’t ever wear down or need repairing, unlike boots. Damn, I must be out of it today!” Grinning, she stretched all her limbs out, which coincidentally put her feet right in front of me. Except for a layer of dirt dusting her feet, the medicine she had been using had vanished, giving me a good view of the undersides of her feet. And they looked just as good as they did all the times I had seen her bare feet before today. No, even better! Lulune was an adventurer after all, and it was natural for her feet to pick up some blisters and calluses. But now, her dusky brown feet were as smooth as a baby’s bottom. These were the kind of feet you’d expect from a goddess or a prostitute who’d never walked farther than leading you to the bedroom, and these wonderful feet belonged to my hyperactive friend and Familia member.

I only had a moment longer to admire those beauties before Lulune hopped off the couch, planting her feet firmly on the carpet and wiggling her toes in delight at the feeling underneath. “Well, I’m gonna go wash up, then start working on my maps.” She chirped cheerfully, a stark contrast to her frustrated anger when I came in. “Thanks for listening, Auray! Even if I was talking nonsense!”

Focused on drinking in the sight of her cocoa feet as she walked away, she was halfway out the door before I remembered my original intention for coming here. “Hey Lulune! Do you know where the captain and Lord Hermes are?” I shouted.

Lulune poked her head into the door frame. “They should be in Asfi’s office!” she shouted back.

“Thank you!” She grinned and waved a hand before disappearing from view again as I jogged in the direction of the captain’s office, mulling over what had just happened. If I had had any doubts before, they were now completely gone. Somehow, I had gained the power to make the things I said and did normal, even to the point of altering the fabric of reality itself. I could make people give me a million valis, steal from shops, even kill someone, and no one would bat an eye so long as I told them it was normal.

Instinctively, my pace quickened as the terrible possibilities this item could bring flitted through my head. I needed to show these items to Hermes and Asfi. One was a millions of years old god, the other was an item maker of great renown; surely they would know something about them.

“Captain! Lord Hermes!” I burst into Asfi’s study with a cry, scanning to see whether both of them were there. They were in fact there, Hermes perched upon the desk juggling a trio of what I was pretty sure was Asfi’s explosives, Asfi seated at a table with her with her back turned to me. Both have then turned to look at me, Hermes with amusement, Asfi with long suffering exasperation.

“If it isn’t the good adventurer Auray! Back from another adventure, or perhaps here to offer us one himse-“

“What did you do, Auray?” Asfi interrupted her god’s lighthearted narration with a question that was more of a tired demand for immediate confession of guilt. It might have been easier to feel offended at her tone if not for the massive bags under her eyes showing that she was staying alive solely off of coffee and the desire not to put off whatever project Lord Hermes had dumped on her this time.

“I didn’t do anything! You see, I found these really interesting magic items that I need you to- what’s that on your ankles?” As I had been trying to explain why I had come over, my eyes had naturally been drawn to the blue-haired woman’s feet, which I could see were completely bare below the table. That is, except for a thin band around either of her ankles that I had never seen her wearing before. Her legs twitched, perhaps in surprise at the question, and I saw that the bracelets were decorated with a pair of ornate wings on either side, a design that I knew well. “Are those… Talaria? You changed them?”

Asfi cast a confused glance at Hermes as if to ask if he knew what I was talking about, but he looked just as clueless as she was. “Of course,” she said with an undertone that it should be obvious. “The first ones were always the prototype. You should know this.”

“No, weren’t they- ooooh. Because women don’t wear shoes any more, so they wouldn’t- right, doesn’t matter. They look good on you.” I tried to compliment her, hoping to come out of the exchange looking at least partially smart, but Asfi just nodded, still looking a little befuddled. Well, time to move on and pretend that never happened!

“Like I was saying before, I found some really weird magical items I need you to take a look at.” Unwilling to meet her gaze, I busied myself with removing the earrings with careful fingers. As soon as I took them out, I felt a sensation in my ears, like the one I felt back in the magic shop, but I ignored it in favor of handing the earrings over to Asfi. “These are the ones.”

She raised an eyebrow at the inconspicuous items, but took them nonetheless, setting them on the table so she could pull out her appraisal kit. As she immersed themselves in examining my earrings, I entertained myself by sneaking glances at her bare feet under the table; at least until my attention was stolen by Hermes adding a fourth explosive to the trio he was juggling, tossing them alarmingly high and catching them just before they hit the ground.

After five minutes of growing increasingly closer to just taking the explosives from Hermes, respect for the divine be damned, hearing Asfi inform us that she was finished with her examination was a welcome thing to hear, especially when the explosives disappeared from Hermes’s hands into places only he knew. The results of her analysis of the earrings though, were less welcome.

“What do you mean, they’re just normal?” I demanded. Perhaps I shouldn’t be taking this tone with my captain, but in my defense, I‘d had too many mind-boggling revelations in one day to stay composed. Asfi gave me an annoyed frown, but answered me patiently anyway, a skill she had perfected after working for Hermes for so many years.

“It means exactly what I said. They have no magic stone, no enchantments, nor any traces of being created by skills. They have a magic signature on them I can’t identify, but there’s nothing strange about them. Hence, they’re normal.” I opened my mouth to argue against that, but paused.

…Why did I think the earrings were strange?

I’d brought them to Asfi because… girls were going barefoot? No, that didn’t make any sense, that was normal. After all, what was the point of wearing shoes if your feet never got damaged? If anything, I was the weird one for forgetting about that and wishing for something so obvious. Not only that, but the greatest Item Maker in the city had looked them over and found nothing wrong. Which could only mean…

“Well well, Auray! It seems that you jumped the gun a little!” My ears felt alarmingly hot all of a sudden as I heard the amused note in Hermes’s voice. Turning my face away from him, I tried to ignore his words, despite knowing that my actions were only egging him on even more. “Oh, no need to be embarrassed! Such beliefs are one of the charms of mortals, after all! Believing ordinary objects to be magical items, pretending that-”

“Stop embarrassing him, Lord Hermes.” Asfi interrupted him. I couldn’t help but notice the corners of her mouth twitching upwards though, which only increased my embarrassment. Sweeping the earrings into her palm, she dropped them into my outstretched hand. “And Auray, next time you think something is a magic item, try and test out its abilities before getting worked up about it, alright? I have enough work from Lord Hermes to even-”

Only half-listening to Asfi’s lecture, I slipped the earrings into my ears once more - and almost ripped them right out as my memory came back to me. It was as if my mind had been enshrouded in fog without me realizing, and it was only once I put the earrings back on that the fog cleared and I realized just how much was hidden from me before. And with it also came a couple realizations; namely, that the Orario’s greatest item maker and most-traveled god were unable to realize that there was anything wrong with the earrings. Meaning, I had a pair of artifacts that would allow me to do whatever I wanted, and likely no one would realize that anything was even wrong.

And if I wanted, I could even have a little fun. With my captain in front of me... or anyone else...