"Right," Annabeth started, speaking in a low tone. "If I run something by you, can you confirm if it's a single wish or not?" She was definitely going to try and get past her intimacy issues, but maybe she could get a bit more out of this wish, if they were only getting seven.
"I suppose, but I'm the one who decides it. If it's sexy and tied together, sure," the Ifrit purrs. "But if you're just going to make one boring wish and try to add something sexy on the side, then no."
"But you'll tell me if its not good enough?" Annabeth asks to confirm.
"Sure, sure, I'm willing to just say no, if you ask ahead of time. I'm nice like that, plus it's more fun to have you guys make the wishes yourself, with the consequences being on your heads." Inara smirks, then lounges back on the air. "So, hit me, what are you thinking."
"So, hypothetically-" Annabeth starts, hedging to start with.
"I'm not going to just randomly grant it, you know," Inara points out. "Dealing with mortals trying to watch out for a catch is such a pain. If I wanted to fuck you over like that, I'd just not have told you about my conditions."
"So, hypothetically," Annabeth continued in a slightly louder tone, as if to speak over Inara, "if I wanted to change my kinks, sexuality, and body so that I both don't have my hangups around sex, and so that I'm extremely compatible with Percy's kinks and sexuality and body, without changing any of those for him... that'd be acceptable?" After finishing her idea, her cheeks tinted a bit. It was more frank than anything she'd said to Percy, but... they'd barely explored their kinks yet anyways, and it couldn't be bad to make them more sexually compatible. And she wasn't going to change Percy without his consent, so it made sense to change her own kinks.
"Sounds fun to me, I suppose. But you're sure you want to tie yourself down to him? You could sample the field, and I could even make it so that he was fine with it, turn up his compersion to the maximum. As your wish stands, your desires and even attraction to other people is going to be reduced to whatever is most compatible with him." The ifrit's tone was light and breezy, but there seemed to be a bit of chiding in it too.
Annabeth's jaw clenched. "No. I love Percy, and we're going to stick together, especially with this taking away any problems of sexual incompatibility, so it doesn't matter if I'm not attracted to other people. And why do you care, exactly, anyways?"
"I'm wounded, Annabeth, truly. Of course I care. You two are heroic types, and while he does pull off the dashing bad boy look quite well, there's a good chance he's into monogamy and missionary, or something equally as boring. Well, either that or he's kinky as hell. Always one of the two with your types. And that would be true tragedy, if it ended up with me limiting your tastes."
Annabeth remained silent for a second, attempting to remain stonefaced. Percy was, she supposed, not... unkinky, exactly. But there was no chance in Hades she was going to give this ifrit any more information than she had to.
However, the woman in question merely stared at Annabeth for a second, and then smiled. "Oh? I see a bit of a flush on your cheeks. Well, if it's closer to the latter, I suppose I can't complain too much. And, just to hedge my bets, do you want that to cover kinks that he has but he hasn't yet figured out? What about ones that come up in the future, those too? I'm willing to toss those in as a freebie."
"Because it makes it more likely that we do kinkier things?" Annabeth asked wryly.
"Now you're getting it. So, yes or no?"
Annabeth thought for a second. There didn't seem to be a trap there. And the worst case scenario either way was that she got some kinks that she wouldn't have liked before, and she just wouldn't have that many hangups about it. "I guess... yes." She closed her eyes, bracing for the change.
"Yes, what? I told you, you have to say the word wish, otherwise it doesn't count. You can just say you wish for what we agreed on to happen– oh, unless you want it to be retroactive?"
Annabeth... stopped. Retroactive? As in, straight up changing the past? They'd thought about saving Bob and Damasen, but with this, they could do so much more.
Despite Annabeth's sudden stop, it seemed like Inara hadn't noticed how much of a bombshell it was for Annabeth. "In that case just wish that it had always been the case. Don't worry about losing me, you can wish to ensure that the course of your life didn't change much, if at all, and you can also keep both sets of memories. Even keep your boytoy looped in, if you want?"
"He's my boyfriend, not my boytoy," Annabeth said, but her mind was racing to try and figure things out. "But... no one would know, if you changed the past? And if you changed the present, could you make it so no one would comment on it?"
Inara smirked, "I can do anything, babe. All the power of the world at your fingertips."
"Can I split it up? Make some of it in the present, some of it retroactive?"
"You're really pushing the limit, you know... but why the hell not, it seems like it's for a good cause. Or, why the Hades not, I suppose, if you guys are Greek." Inara let out a small laugh at her own joke.
"So, you're not even an ordinary monster, or goddess, are you?"
"Does anything about me strike you as ordinary? I suppose you could view me as a fragment, or reflection of a goddess, but one far greater than any of yours, not limited to even one universe. She's the true Inara, but she scattered reflections of herself across many, to spice up the multiverse a bit. So, I'm here, ready to grant your deepest, darkest desires." She coughed. "Speaking of..."
"The multiverse is real?" Annabeth murmured.
"Don't worry about it, or think about it," the ifrit shrugged. "I couldn't grant you access to it even if I wanted. My power is for this universe only, and crossings are infinitely rare. I'm just giving you some perspective on how much I can do."
"Right. Okay. Fine." Annabeth sighed. Well, if she really was that powerful, it'd be good to at least test a bit of it. She took a deep breath, and then spoke "Inara, I wish to change my kinks, sexuality, and bodily attributes so that I both don't have my hangups around sex, and so that I'm now and always will be extremely compatible with Percy's kinks and sexuality and body, even as they change naturally, without you changing any of those for him, with the change in my body type retroactively emerging naturally through puberty and Percy and I both remembering both timelines, and without history changing substantially in any other way."
"A pretty substantial first wish, even if it's a bit small. Well..."
W̵̠͘I̷̛̮S̵͇͝Ḧ̵̫́ ̷͙͗Ģ̸͘R̴͔̂A̸̬̿N̸̯͗Ț̷́Ẽ̷͎D̶̝̂
For a second, it was like Annabeth could hear the reverberations of those three syllables echoing throughout space and time, and then she was back to herself, collapsed onto her knees. Inara was still lounging on the air in front of her.
Then, the door swung open, and Percy rushed in from behind her. "Annabeth? Did you feel that!?"
"That was the wish, I think," Annabeth replied, her heart still racing a bit from the experience. Then, she looked back at Inara. "Wait, Inara, did everyone feel that?"
Inara sighed. "I'm no amateur. You two had to feel that to notice the change in the timeline, since you made a retroactive wish and wanted to keep your memories. Anyways, uh, bye. I'm just going to head out for now. Do what I would do, and by that I mean have wild kinky sex with your boyfriend!" With that, she vanished, and Annabeth sagged.
"Annabeth?" Percy called out again. "Are you good?" He uncapped Riptide.
"Fine, just... she can do so much more than I thought, and her story of her origins is wild, but it makes as much sense as anything else about her. But she's gone for now, at least as far as I can tell."
Then, Percy's brow furrowed in confusion. "... Annabeth? Why do I feel like I have two different sets of memories? And you look... different in them, just a bit?"
Annabeth stood up, and her body moved just a bit more smoothly than she was used to, and Percy's eyes raked up and down her form, once again showing confusion.
But that wasn't what mattered right now. Right now, she had to explain things to Percy. "So, I may have told a small white lie about what I was planning to wish for."
His look of confusion turns into one of hurt. "So, you didn't wish for what you'd said you'd wish for?"
She rushes to explain. "No, no, I did, that was the foundation of the whole thing, but I had some other things, too, and I just... expanded on it."
"Okay... but why not just tell me what you were planning on?" He looks a bit less hurt now, but there's still a sense of betrayal in his voice. In hindsight, maybe she shouldn't have had him keep the old memories, but– no. That would have been like what Hera did to him.
"I... wanted it to be a surprise, a good one. It wasn't anything huge in terms of impact, I just thought it'd be nice if we were more sexually compatible."
Percy's cheeks color. "So you wished for that? That's nice, but... why are my memories a bit weird? And why didn't you just tell me."
"Well... not exactly that. Something close to it. I wished for my body and kinks to be a bit more compatible with yours. Basically the same idea, except mostly targeted towards me. It's not a big change or anything, it'll be pretty limited, but I didn't want to risk changing you without your permission, so..."
Percy frowns. "I don't know if I like it, and I definitely don't like you lying to me about it, even if you were trying to surprise me. And what does that have to do with the memories thing, anyways?"
"Right, yeah. It seems like she's even more powerful than I thought. Sit down and I'll tell you about it? It's pretty fascinating, honestly."
Percy looks into her eyes with his own sea green ones. "Fine. But you have to promise to not change yourself like that again unless we both agree to it, okay?"
"Okay. I promise." Maybe that was a bit reckless and inconsiderate of her, but she wasn't really feeling the effects, and it was hard to pinpoint exactly what was different. "And, uh. After that, could we figure out what exactly changed?"
Percy lands a kiss on the tip of her nose, and pulls her close. "Sure thing. But first, what's up with the memories, and with the ifrit?"
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