After Princess Asperia left, I cleaned myself up a little and put my dress back on, adjusted my hair a little. It still didn't look quite as good as when Sasha had done it.

Shortly, Sasha opened the door and came in, cheeks flushed and hair a mess, and smiled at me a little sadly. I picked up the brush again, and walked over to brush her hair. "You okay?"

She pressed against me as I brushed her hair. "Well, you ran off and left me with them... and Princess Asperia told them to make me cum before she left to check on you." She pushed down her pants and showed off the rune tattoo she had inscribed on that body, and my body tensed a little as I remembered how each pinprick had hurt before I had just zoned out.

...Ah. She couldn't cum without me, now. "...yeah. Why did you put that tattoo on that body right before swapping without being sure I'd swap back?"

"Well... I wanted a connection with you that you wouldn't break. But you aren't going to break your promise, right? You're going to keep me, right?" She pressed up against me, her breasts pressed against me and her head a little into my chest as she looked up at me, and I looked away, my face heated, feeling slightly guilty.

I had, indeed, been sort of thinking about getting rid of her, mostly because I had no idea how to deal with her.

A smile broke out across her face. "You've been thinking about swapping back, haven't you?" Without mind reading, she no longer knew exactly what I was thinking.

"Well, that, and getting rid of you, honestly, but neither seem like really good ideas. But keeping you as my slave also seems kinda...."

The smile immediately vanished, and she wrapped her arms around me, clinging to me tightly. "You promised, Mistress! I sacrificed everything just to be with you and keep you alive, and you're going to get rid of me!?"

I looked down at her for a long moment. "...that's kinda how I felt when you swapped bodies with me after saying you wouldn't."

"I'm sorry! You can beat me up and torture me until you've done enough that you'll forgive me! I'll teach you how to break slaves and turn me into whatever you want, just please don't abandon me!" She was trembling pathetically, tears in her eyes, and while she was a good actor, I don't know if she was that good of an actor.

I could hardly cast her aside after I had promised, when she was so desperate to be with me. I loved this girl, unfortunately. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, smiling down at her softly. "...I'm sorry. I'll keep my promise, of course... just, I did want you to know how I felt." As if I hadn't seriously been considering it.

"Thank you, Mistress!" She nuzzled her teary face against my breasts, and then looked up at me pleadingly. "Please impregnate me? Make me into your proper concubine?"

"...I thought we agreed it was better not to."

"I know, but I'm afraid, and... I need to know I belong to you. That you know I belong to you. I can't live without you, Mistress. I tried, and I just started falling apart... please...!" She trembled against me.

I slid my hand between us and stroked her tattoo. "You already marked your womb as my property, we don't need to hurry, do we? Let's wait until things are a little less chaotic."

She relaxed against me a little, and nodded against my breasts, her body still trembling slightly. Was this really the woman who had cruelly dominated me? In this role, too, perhaps she was trying to exert what means of manipulation she had... even if they were utterly pathetic means.

But she had also genuinely cast aside her pride and power to solidify our alliance with Princess Asperia and make us safe. Well... relatively safe. But she did love me in some sense, even if she also had a weird obsession with control in general.

"...fuck. Right, we still need to go pick up Lady Wren." She stiffened a little, but nodded.

"As... as you wish, Mistress. I can lead you to the exact location-- assuming she hasn't been resold yet."

"...yeah, guess we shouldn't wait on that." I belted my sword around my waist, threw a large black cloak over my attire, and after I left a message for Princess Asperia telling her what we were up to and asking to be informed once it was a good time to depart to try to meet with her sister, the two of us headed out into the day, her slightly ahead but frequently glancing up and back at me to confirm I was following her and check my mood.

My mood could've been better. "Why'd you do that to Wren?"

"I... I didn't want to kill her, and making people into slaves the way of breaking minds that I'm most confident with. It was the safest way to remove her from the picture. And... I wondered if I could be be happy without you, since you seemed to be so set on not being mine. It just... seemed like the best idea to test out mutiple things at once, with the least loss of life."

"...well, I guess I am glad you didn't kill her. Couldn't you have told me before you started, though?"

"And all the other things I was doing? I didn't want you to know about the specifics of everything I was doing, and hate me for it... politics is ruthless. And you can't remain entirely uninvolved from politics as Princess Asperia's fiancée, you know that, right?"

"I don't know... I got pretty far without hurting anyone?"

"Because of all your power to kill. And you can't just swear obedience and prove your trustworthiness to every side when there's factions fighting over control of the kingdom." Sasha sounded slightly disdainful again.

"...maybe. But I think you and Princess Asperia are too eager to force situations even when diplomacy would have better longterm outcomes."

"Because actual control means more than diplomacy. There's nothing to force people to keep promises. It means putting all your trust in a person, and that's a very foolish thing to do unless you have no choice, and then you should do it with all your heart."

We walked in silence for a little while. I didn't know if I was right or she was, anymore. Certainly, I didn't expect great changes to be entirely bloodless, but... couldn't we minimize it more than this?

Soon enough, we were outside a slaver's, and I did my best to ignore how many girls and a few boys were caged outside as the shop displayed their highest quality wares, just like any other shop might. I did my best to ignore my urge to just kill all the slavers and free everyone, or to buy everyone, because I didn't know what to do with them if I did. I'm sure each person here had their own tragic story, their own feelings and desires that had been trampled on, and... fuck. Was I crying a little?

"...Mistress?" I turned and looked at a foxgirl with blonde hair wearing a skimpy little shift that didn't really cover up her assets. What was this ploy? Her tail wagged and she pressed up against the bars of the cage, smiling up at me desperately. "Mistress! You came back for me? Please, I don't know what I did wrong, but I'll be good, I promise!"

"...is her mind totally broken, or is this a ploy?"

Sasha leaned up to murmur towards my ear as I leaned down towards her. "...a little yes to the former... this was Wren."

She looked entirely different, and there were tears in her eyes as she stared up at me. "You don't remember me, Mistress?"

I walked closer and stroked her cheek gently, and she cried, clinging lightly to my arm. "Of course I remember you..." My gaze turned to the increasingly-uncomfortable looking Sasha. "I thought you said you wiped her mind?"

"Well... I guess she managed to shake off the Mind Magic, she was nobility after all."

"...and she's still like this...?"

Sasha looked away, unwilling to meet my gaze. "I'm very good at what I do."

How much had she changed me that I didn't even realize? But there was a more pressing matter at hand.

Wren was staring up at me pleadingly. "Mistress, I don't understand, you said you were making me into the perfect slave for you... what are you two talking about?"

"Yes, yes, don't worry, Wren, you're coming with me, I'll explain everything shortly, be a good girl and be quiet in the meantime." I broke the lock with a twist of my hand, and opened the cage, and Wren quickly and silently moved out to my side. I hesitated for a moment, but there was no reason to do more crimes than neccessary, I had a decent amount of wealth and I had a suspicion that Princess Asperia would give me money if I needed it for something, doubly so once we were married.

I walked in and paid the slaver the price they quoted when I pointed at Wren and said I was buying her, and I kept my eyes downcast as I left, trying not to look at the slaver or the other slaves, trying to just deal with the immediate problem in front of me as I controlled my breathing.

Soon enough, the three of us were in Princess Asperia's harem, and, I had no doubt, providing plenty of fuel for new gossip.

We entered my room, and Wren immediately kneeled in the sex slave position, looking up at me fervently.

"Okay, so... you can speak now, Wren. I'm actually the Hero From Another World, although I've been altering my body for a bit and I don't remember my former name and also please don't say it, currently I go by Eve, and the one who was... mentally controlling you, let's say, was Sasha here."

Wren looked between us certainly. "Is this another test, Mistress?" She didn't know who to address.

Sasha walked over to Wren and scritched behind her ear. "She spoke the truth." That dominant voice and posture she took so easily, and Wren immediately recognized her, tail wagging wildly. "Mistress! I hoped you'd come back, I'm sorry I failed you, I'll do better, I promise!" She pressed her head against her crotch and began to sniff and nuzzle, and Sasha petted her idly and looked up at me and shrugged.

"I'll take care of her." She sounded pretty neutral about the idea, but she was still petting her... just yesterday, that would've been me.

...Was I fucking jealous of Wren now, even after she had been transmutated and tortured into being an obedient slave, because she was closer to Sasha than anyone else besides me had been? This is a girl that we had literally only gotten back because I wanted to, and... I sighed, and walked up to her, petting Wren as well.

She looked up at Sasha, and getting a nod, let me pet her.

I bit my lip. "We should probably leave her in the harem when we go talk to Princess Adeline."

"Please don't leave me behind again, Mistress! I'll be good! I'll become whatever you want me to be, so don't leave me in the illusory world!" She crouched down and started licking Sasha's boots desperately, tail wagging as she tried to prove her loyalty.

"...what on earth did you do to her, Sasha?"

"We shouldn't talk about that." Her attention shifted to Wren. "Up, girl. You're in the real world with me right now."

Wren obediently got up, and I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her... and then her eyes shifted down to Sasha's collar and she looked between us confusedly again.

"You don't have to worry about that. Just worry about obeying me for the moment."

Wren nodded and smiled, her eyes still glued on Sasha. "Yes, Mistress!"

It was hard for me to believe she was really like this, although that she looked like a fox certainly helped. "You... used to be really independent."

She continued to look over at Sasha instead of me as she responded to me. "I used to think I was a lot of things. Mistress brought me to reality and told me she'd keep me there rather than my confused dreams if I just utterly believed in her and obeyed her. I messed up and she threw me away, but she was kind enough to give me a second chance!" She started smiling ecstatically and crying, her body trembling violently.

Mistress -- that is, Sasha -- stepped closer and pulled Wren into a hug, and I let her take her out of my arms. She looked to me, and then nodded her head to the door a little... was she telling me to leave her with the girl she had abused? I frowned down at her.

"Wren, don't listen to or understand what we're saying until I tap you on the shoulder three times." She looked up at me. "I need to explain things to her and get her into a more constructive mindset. I don't think you should be here for that, it feels like you already hate me enough."

"Hate is a strong word, just... why the fuck did you do this to her?"

"I didn't know if it was anyone being an obedient slave for me that would make me happy, or it was just you. Turns out it was just you." She smiled up at me a little, and something in my heart surged and I felt like my tail would be wagging if I had one. Fuck, she had messed with my mind, too, at least in some ways... unless I really was just that submissive.

That seemed fucked up too, though, in it's own way, but seeing the two of them interact was distinctly uncomfortable and I didn't actually know how to help Wren when she was like this.

"Okay, I'll leave you two alone for a bit... be nice to her, okay?"

"I promise I'll be nice, Mistress." She looked down at the floor, squeezing Wren a bit closer. "I'm sorry I tried to make a replacement for you, Mistress. I'll fix her up as best I can."