"You call me a supernatural threat?"

The strange man sitting in the high-backed wooden chair chuckled as the Wanderer stood before him.

"You travel from world to world by magic."

"Like all Wanderers do. Bards and Sages, too," Emily replied a bit defensively. She had arrived in this place to find people concerned about a local magician who might have been using mind-bending tricks, and so, she had investigated.

"You wear a collar that magically prevents mind control."

Emily's fingers went to her silver collar. "That's not a supernatural threat."

He shook his head, laughing. The earrings he wore dangled, the cheap green gems catching the light. The same green, Emily noticed, that adorned his right ring finger, and no doubt hung on a pendant at the end of his neck-chain. "If anyone's a supernatural threat here, Wanderer," he said, rising from his seat—the necklace popped out from under his shirt, proving her assumption right—"that would be you, not me. I'm just a simple showman."

"That's not what the people say, though."

"And what do they say?" he asked, holding up his hand. "That with a wave of my ring, the gem ensnares the gaze of all who pass by? That the pendant around my neck draws the eye and traps the mind? That those who are... weak-willed find themselves under my sway, unable to resist my charms? Where you, Emily, you're unable to be controlled. You're invulnerable. No matter how often you glance at my jewelry, no clouds form in your mind, you don't find yourself relaxed or relaxing, you don't nod your head along with my words, in time with my melodious cadence."

Emily nodded. "That's right. That's why they—"

"Sent you, yes. And you came, to see what the threat really was. And now that you know that I'm harmless, that there's nothing to me more than you can see, that I'm not a threat to anyone..."

Emily blinked. "Wait, you're—"

"Not a threat, that's right. I'm safe. Trustworthy. It's easy to see that there's nothing magical about this pendant." He took the chain from around his neck and held it out for the Wanderer to inspect. "Nothing magical at all. It's just so finely made and beautifully crafted and it catches the light so perfectly..."

She nodded again. "Perfectly," she muttered.

"That's it exactly. And this ring." He nodded towards the hand holding the pendant. "It's the same stone, cut the same way, and it catches the same light, and the same minds, do you see?"

"Yes, I... wait... what did you say about—"

"You see, of course you do. You noticed the earrings immediately, and I saw your eyes linger on them, assessing them, assessing me, finding me easy to talk to, easy to listen to, easy to follow."

Emily nodded. "Easy."

"Very easy. And easy to trust. You can tell that I'm not a threat. There's nothing magical about this floating you're feeling, nothing supernatural about the warmth in your chest, nothing sorcerous about the fluttering in your eyes, it's just hard to keep looking at all the green. But if you close your eyes gently, like that, you can still see the green even in the dark, and the way the lamplight spreads its patterns over everything as it's reflected through the gemstones, and you know that I'm not using magic to control you because I can't, because of your collar, so when you tell me that you trust me it must be because..."

There is a moment of silence.

"Because I trust you," the Wanderer said, her eyes closed and her mind floating in a sea of green.