The quest for magic solutions.

That night I had another meeting with Frey, and once more the dream was set in my bedroom. I sat up on my bed and looked at Frey, who was sitting on my desk chair with a ghostly leg over her ghostly lap as she stroked her ghostly chin.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked her.

“Whether or not this is a problem,” she answered, now crossing her arms and mumbling something incoherent.

“What is a problem?”

Frey then crossed her legs. “How much you want to have sex, but how little you actually do it.”

I frowned thoughtfully, believing I understood what she was saying. Still… “I think I do it a lot. I did it with Mila just two days ago. Are you getting hungry again?”

Frey shook her head. “No, we’re good in that regard. The problem, or possible problem, is that you want to do more, but don’t. Or rather, can’t.” She sighed heavily.

“Elaborate.”

“Remember when you had that old classroom at school? There you could do it every day if you wanted, even if only for a few minutes. Now though, you need a good moment, a good place, and no interruptions. I mean, come on, you had two of your girls right here in your room, you wanted it, but since your sister was here, you couldn’t do it.”

I swallowed.

“What’s more, having to hide your relationships is beginning to frustrate you as well, right?” She continued. “I know you don’t want to brag, but you don’t like not being able to kiss the girls whenever you want to, not to mention having to hide it from your mother.”

“...” I held back a grimace. “Well, that’s all true, but what can I do? It’s a problem that I’ll just have to live with.”

“That’s why I wonder if this is a problem, boy. Sure, you can all simply hold back and wait for the right moment, but when you have to find that ‘right moment’ with five different girls, then it’s an issue. Remember, you’re not the only one who wants it. Also, they’ve told you so themselves. They don’t like having to hide, either. I’m wondering how long it will be before these small frustrations become a real problem.”

I clicked my tongue. “Should I just go and admit to everyone that I’m seeing five girls, then?”

“I want to say yes, but that’ll bring its own sort of troubles that you’ll probably hate even more. No, what we need are supernatural solutions, and quick.”

“You mentioned that before. You’re looking for a way to normalize all this, right?”

“Yes, but I’m not making as much progress as I should!” Frey furiously scratched her head. “It feels awful, actually. I have plenty of energy stored up, and our good friend Thomas is finally taking advantage of the powers I gave him, so I have even more now!” Huh. I suspected it, but this was confirmation that Thomas had, indeed, gotten laid. Good for him. “I just… don’t know what to do with it!

“I KNOW there is reality-altering magic out there in the world, but I’m not sure how to make my own! The only ideas I have are…” She sighed heavily. “I wish we could find someone who had an enchantment of this caliber to get some inspiration.”

“You’ve said before that there is plenty of supernatural stuff in the world, but it can’t be that much that we can casually run into someone who knows reality-altering magic, right?”

“Correct…” Frey admitted, slumping her shoulders in defeat. “I want to make your wishes a reality! I want you to go on dates without having to stand a meter away from a girl and I want you to fuck on a park bench while people walk by and ignore you like it’s normal!”

I smiled wryly. “That… went from zero to one hundred real quick.”

“I want to grow too, Oliver!” Frey moaned. “You’re doing your part, but I’m not doing mine! You’re giving me the power I asked for, but now I don’t know how to use it! I hate this!”

“Alright, calm down,” I told her. “Look, I want all that, but that doesn’t mean I need it now. We can figure something out and work towards it. What do you have in mind so far?”

Frey sighed. “One path is the enchantment I have on you. Remember it? That subtle, pheromone-like aura that makes you more alluring? I had another one, too, that made guys more scared of you.”

“Good thing we got rid of that one.”

“Well, the way those enchantments work is that they’re focused on you and affect how others see you. So maybe there’s something I can do with that, but…”

“It changes how I’m seen…” I muttered. “That sounds like what we want to do, doesn’t it? To change perception of what I do?”

“Yeah, but… here’s the catch. The enchantments I put on you work because they’re relatively simple and super specific. One only makes you alluring, but only towards girls. The other made you scary, but only towards guys. Something like ‘people ignore you having sex in public’ is so broad that it would require an insane amount of energy that we’d probably never get, even in a lifetime.”

“Hmm… Wait, that reminds me of something. One time, during history class, my teacher went on a tangent and told us the story of an Irish hero called Cu Chulainn.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Frey asked, sounding a little exasperated.

“I’m getting there. It was one of the few times I paid close attention because I thought the story was pretty cool. See, supposedly, the guy was superhumanly strong because of some sort of promises he’d made…”

Frey suddenly slapped her own forehead. It looked like she hit it hard, but there was no sound. Nor impact, for that matter.

“Geas!”

“Yeah, that!” I said. “You know the story?”

“No, but geas are a real thing in magic.” Her ghostly face seemed to grin. “They’re vows, or sometimes seen as curses. The way they work is that they impose a restriction on someone in return for empowering a spell. The greater the restriction, the greater the power.” Frey then held her chin. “It could work, but… We’d have to be careful. I don’t want to put restrictions on your life, but more than that, breaking them could lead to a rebound from the magic. That could be dangerous.”

I winced. “How about restrictions that I already impose on myself? Like… never tell a lie?”

“You’re bad at lying, but you do lie from time to time. I’m telling you, these restrictions are unforgiving. But maybe… What if I changed it from restrictions to conditions? I bet the empowering of the spell would be lower, but if we make an enchantment that works when a condition is met… Can I do it? And after that, we could continuously feed energy to the enchantment until we can remove the need of a condition entirely…”

Frey was talking to herself at that point. “You have an idea, then?” I asked her.

“Maybe. Maybe. I need to think more, theorize, and… consider something important. This was good, though. Glad I talked to you about it. I’ll bring you here again when I have something more concrete. I’ll try not to take long.”

“Don’t worry. I can wait.”

“My pride’s on the line, boy. You’ve been doing your part. Now it’s time I do mine. Soon you’ll be telling your mom you’re dating five girls and she won’t bat an eye.”

I didn’t want to hurry Frey. I wanted her to work at her own pace. But dammit, I wanted that day to come soon.