Before she starts, Annette needs a man's help.

Despite her promise to help study the Boom Box, and despite the sun starting to get lower outside the library windows, Annette hadn't made the first bit of progress. The reason behind this was obvious: as she'd already stated herself, she'd never read a book about anything like the Box. White magic, dark magic, and all the shades in between: she could find no place similar enough to start. A magic that had the power to control another's body was already incredible, but to make such a powerful enchantment come from a metal box on command felt unheard of. It reminded Annette of the Fire Orbs the monastery used for defense... However, those only channeled the power of an already-trained mage. This clearly came from the box itself, without any participation or prowess from the wielder.

Annette was dead on leads for that kind of magic. There probably wasn't a book that could help her. As such, she found herself staring at the Boom Box, her reason and her nature at war with one another.

Reason was the foundation of the black magic she studied, and it told her this: magic, especially unknown magic, wasn't for messing around with. Many a mage had met their ends due to beginning magical experimentation without laying proper groundwork, understanding fundamentals, and beginning studies on a measured scale. This would imply that, having no place to start, the responsible course of action was to seek the help of a more experienced mage... Only, there was no more experienced mage within the Blue Lions than herself.

Her stubborn nature wouldn't let her give up. Against reason, it told her there was a quick and easy way to start studying the magic: let the magic work and study it in action. So far, she'd only heard the snippet that she'd played to try and press Ingrid. That was enough to know it was dangerous, and powerful... And mysterious... and...

"Addictive," Annette muttered. That was a scary word when it came to body-controlling magic, but she couldn't deny it. If her will and reason were a little bit weaker, she was sure she would already have started playing that music again... Not to study it, but just to feel the incredible sensation of her body moving impossibly to unimaginable music. "And, when you start it, it's like your body doesn't want to let you shut the magic up. What if I start it and can't disable it?"

What if...? "Well, what if? Worst case scenario, I end up dancing uncontrollably like an idiot. It's not like the library is sealed off... If a woman comes, she'll join me, and if a man comes, we can get him to turn it off... But what if the man won't turn it off? Or what if the woman has stronger feelings about the dance than I do? Or what if it does something else if you let it play long enough...A-and I'm supposed to keep it secret in the first place, which I can hardly do in a public place like this. Aaaagh! This is so frustrating! I need some help... Someone who won't be affected by the box, who is a member of the Blue Lions, and who I can find by himself... A-and preferably, who I'm comfortable making a fool of myself in front of... Ahah! I know just the person! I knew I'd think up something if I just stuck with it!"

"Absolutely not." The young man Annette had dragged from his training shot her down immediately once she delivered her pitch in private. Felix Hugo Fraldarius, wearing his dark hair in a ponytail, was still covered in sweat from a hard afternoon of training. If he was exhausted, however, he didn't let it show on his sharp features. There was no ambiguity in his voice. He'd let himself be led from the training grounds, where he alone was still swinging his practice sword well into dusk, and into the equipment shed, which would be crowded if another two joined them. His face told her now that he regretted it. "If you want to practice those silly songs you sing, do it for someone with free time."

Annette pouted, putting her fists on her hips. "I told you, Felix, this is dancing, not singing! Did you not hear everything I said about magic, and the mysterious music box, and how it forces women to dance, and how I need you to help me test it so you can turn it off if something goes wrong, and- Hey! I thought you liked my silly songs."

"Calm down. I heard what you said, and my answer's the same. Also, I never said I liked your songs. I said I found them interesting."

"Well, you're going to find this dancing far more interesting. A-actually, this isn't about how interesting the dancing is. Actually, I chose you because I thought you wouldn't care about the dancing! I need someone from the Blue Lions who'd be willing to act as a lookout for me and turn off the box if someone is coming."

"To ask the obvious question... You intend to find out if this magic can be controlled for the Kingdom, and you want a man who doesn't give a wit about dance. If so, isn't the obvious choice to present it to the Boar himself?" Felix used his usual disrespectful nickname for their king, Dimitri, while inspecting the equipment around the room with disinterest.

"Uuuh... That's not a bad point, but..." After a moment of pushing her fingers together and trying to figure out how to say it, Annette came out with it. "I think I would die of shame if I had to perform this kind of dance in front of his Highness. Also... you already know about my silly songs, so I felt like showing you a silly dance on top of it wouldn't be as painful. N-not that I want you to watch the dance! It's enough for you to watch the door. I just want enough time to myself that I can play it a while and see if I learn anything."

Felix sighed, crossing his arms. Finally, to Annette's surprise, he relented. "Fine. That's fair. It must have taken some nerves to come right out and tell me this. I can continue training and watch the door at the same time." Picking up another training sword and comparing the weight of it with the one in his other hand, the young man continued with apparent disinterest in Annette. "If someone's coming, I'll turn off the music. In turn, if you need me, shout for me. I'll stay close by."

"Thank you so much, Felix! I owe you one. I'll pick up some of your chores-"

"There's no need," Felix brushed her off immediately. "Like I said, I'll be training. I was going to be doing that, anyway." The young man put up one sword and carried the other out, leaving Annette to herself.

The redhead smiled. Her smile faded as she took a look at the room around her, however. There was so much junk lying around in the storeroom that she was fighting every instinct to keep herself from cleaning it up. That said, she had her opportunity, and she couldn't waste it. "Okay. I'm going to turn on Slutty here, then whatever happens, happens. If it turns out to be something dangerous, I just call out... From what Ingrid says, even if it plays a while, it doesn't do anything to stop you from talking. I'll study the effects, and... the lyrics! Maybe I can decipher something from the lyrics. Oh, I wish I brought a book and pen to record notes..."

There was no time to worry over that now. With just a moment's hesitation, Annette's finger hung over what she'd identified as a start button. Finally, she pressed it down.

Immediately, the store room was thrumming with a beat that seemed to bounce around the shed, reverberating off of every metal plate it could find. Wincing, Annette managed to get her hand on the knob to turn it down, just before her body decided it preferred the center of the room to the bench she'd set her study subject on. Her legs carried her there, already shimmying the modest bit of junk she carried in her trunk as she stepped.

"Okay, notes, notes! What do we think, Annette...?" Already, she'd bent her knees and placed her hands on them, lowering her body to begin jerking her hips in time with the music. "Well... It's very catchy! That's not very deep insight, but I think the music is inarguably catchy. In a way, it's not like being magically **** to dance... it's like the beat is so addictive, you can't help but do so. But, so far as I know, it's been shown to work on Ingrid and me, and our musical tastes are nothing alike, so far as I'm aware... And it doesn't work on men, at all."

Annette was muttering her thoughts to herself at a low volume that would be impossible to hear over the Box, even though she'd turned it low. As Annette's upper body was a picture of scholarly thought, her lower body continued to act on its own, wiggling towards the door behind her as if to provoke anyone who might be watching. Self-consciously, she peeked behind her to find the door still cracked, just enough so Felix could slide in easily and shut down the music if he had to.

She returned her focus to the matter at hand. "Okay, let's dig deeper. How does the music make you feel? Well... surprisingly, it doesn't make me as scared as I expected." Annette put her hands on the bench and bent over, allowing her to continue shaking her ass in profile view of the door as she considered the Box closely. "Losing control of your body is shocking at first, but it isn't really that frightening if you have a way to shut it off. Plus, the dancing... is just really fun, if I'm being honest. It feels like trying something out and discovering you have a natural talent... Which, now that I think about it, isn't a feeling I have very often. Come to think of it, I think if I danced normally in a room like this, I'd likely be knocking things off the walls left and right! Still, the idea of dancing like this and knowing someone could be watching me is kind of..."

Instead of finishing that thought, Annette quickly turned her head to the doorway. Still empty.

She tried to focus again, but found it hard. The music, she realized, seemed to challenge the idea of thinking hard about it... It seemed to prefer she focus more on her moves. "Why don't I, then...? So far, I've been dancing automatically. What if I apply myself and try to do something else? I... I actually have a lot of ideas!" Annette was surprised to find that was true, but, also, humiliated. The ideas that popped into her head weren't things she was prepared to do when Felix could come in at any time. "A-are these normally things a woman does in a dance? Things like... slapping my own buttocks... lewd gestures... taking off my clothes?! How could I... W-wait, oh no!"

As if thinking about them had materialized them, Annette found herself lightly but rapidly paddling her own bouncing bottom with one hand, still positioned facing away from the door. Thankfully, she wasn't really making hard contact, so it was more of a gesture than the act itself. Still, thought of that way... "This part of the dance... What is it? Is it... It must be... an invitation! It's like... I'm inviting someone to give me a spanking?! But why? And, th-the removing of clothes..." By this point, Annette was flushing at the implications in her mind, barely paying attention to the fact that she was actually in the process of stepping out of her boots and shimmying her own leggings down her body.

The redhead found herself kneeling facing away from the bench, turning in place, and propping herself up using her arms below her and her feet on the bench. In this preposterous position, she resumed wiggling again. She was keenly aware, now that, her skirt was inches away from pushing up enough that a viewer would be getting a look at her underwear instead of her bare legs. "Well, the answer is obvious. This music doesn't **** women to dance... it forces them to dance like a harlot!"

"I'd hardly call it a dance," Felix commented. "Not much footwork to it, is there?"

"Well, that's fair, but-" Annette whipped her head to the side with a look of horror. "Felix?! H-how long-"

The knight trainee was standing at the door with one hand on his chin and one arm crossed at his chest, his eyes squarely focused on Annette's ass, as if they could be anywhere else. "Tch. As if I was going to leave you unsupervised in a room full of weapons playing with unknown body-controlling spells. Besides... I felt your attention on the door, like you were begging someone to come in and look."

"O-of course it was on the door! I wanted to make sure no one came in!" As she protested, she pushed up onto her feet again, turning her back to him. "And... I wanted to catch you if you peeked for your own interest. Let me remind you, Felix, this isn't a show for you!" As she said this, she bent her knees again and began flicking her ass up and down again in his direction, holding one hand in the air and curling a finger in a come-hither gesture. Occasionally, her skirt would flip from the motion, almost revealing the plain underwear she was wearing and the bottom curves of her cheeks.

"Of course," Felix commented in the same even voice, although his eyes didn't still didn't leave her butt. "Annette, it's not much of a traditional dance, but... it is fascinating isn't it?"

"W-w-what do you mean, fascinating?" In spite of her shock, Annette continued bouncing her butt for him while looking back at him with her big blue eyes. "Are you saying-"

"I'm talking about the movement," Felix interrupted her with sharp dismissal. "Honestly, if dances were more like this, they'd be more exciting. I know it isn't your intention, but it simply makes me think... Instead of the pointless foot-shuffling nobles do in ballrooms, this type of dance has more energy. Also, it..." Here, Felix hesitated. Annette could swear she saw a blush cross his face, although she could never have imagine Felix reacting that way. "It cuts the middle part of courtship out. All that pruning and preening nobles do just to try and catch each other's attention... If a well-endowed young woman did a dance like this on the ballroom floor, they'd leave with ten suitors eager to carry on a lineage. No need for all of the odious wining and dining."

Annette was quiet for a moment, in contrast to the room's loud energy. She continued shaking her butt for Felix's benefit, and it crossed her mind that all of her movement had been positioned that way from the beginning. Finally, she said what she was thinking. "So you like this kind of dance, then? I've caught your interest?"

The young nobleman clicked his teeth, evidently unhappy with the direction the conversation had gone. He hurried over to the Box and shut it off in the way Annette had explained. The music cut off, and he turned around...

To his surprise, he found Annette still moving her ass, working her tongue and clearly exerting herself. The movement was slowing down, like a piece of machinery grinding to a halt. Felix was startled, assuming the worst. "Annette! Do you have your body back?"

"Yes, I..." Annette sighed, rising to her feet and looking frustrated. "I wanted to see if I could still do it without the magic. You know... It might be hard, but I think... No, I'm sure I could learn it!"

Felix still looked disturbed. "Learn it? The dance? I thought you were studying magic."

"Oh! Y-yes, of course... I think I learned more about the nature of the magic, but the lyrics elude me," Annette muttered, smoothing down her skirt and feeling more aware of her bare legs. "I don't understand why the vocalist wants a rock so urgently, what he means to do by 'popping' a 'pussy'... I have no idea what 'titties' are, but from the context, maybe it refers to the buttocks?"

"I can do without a discussion of the lyrics," Felix waved her off. "I don't know how that thing manages to sing, but even without understanding the words, I can tell they're inane."

"Oh! Slutty has songs without lyrics, too! So you'd prefer one of those next time?"

"Next time? Annette, you can't be saying you mean to do this again."

"Why not? I've still got much more to learn. Like you said, if you're going to be training all the time anyway, it's no problem, is it?"

"It is," Felix argued. "As it turns out, it's distracting."

"... Hm... Distracting," Annette repeated his word, smiling slightly. "Well, I can't **** you to, but keep in mind the offer's on the table... If you find yourself considering it," she added, before quickly changing the subject. "Boy! It's dinner time, and my stomach's telling me I worked up a hunger! Aren't you hungry, Felix? You ought to leave me, seeing as I need to, um... re-clothe myself."

"Starving." Felix was eager to drop the subject, but he thought of one more thing. "Annette, don't you think you should wrap that thing... Slutty... when you carry it around? You can't have anyone else learning about this."

"You almost sound possessive of the secret," Annette commented... She wasn't sure why, but she couldn't help teasing Felix about this. She told herself it was because she finally had a secret to hold against him, like he did with the silly song he'd once heard her singing to herself... Shouldn't this be more of a secret he had over her, though? Annette recognized her thoughts weren't all in order about this, but filed it away for later consideration.

In any case, Felix was either hungry or annoyed enough that he'd left his sword on the wall and made for dinner. Annette took the opportunity to roll her leggings back up her short-but-toned legs, after taking a look to make sure she wasn't being observed by surprise again. Finally, once she was dressed again, she took the opportunity to wrap the eye-catching mysterious object of her study up in some far less eye-catching rags, telling herself that taking those was just making the storeroom cleaner.

By this point, she really was hungry... She didn't want to make an extra stop to her room. It couldn't hurt to take Slutty with her to the mess hall, could it?