---Entry 14/Trial 10/Speaking out of Turnabout---

Dear Gretel,

Sheesh, witches can be real grumps sometimes. You just have some young, eager witches out there doing a little experimentation, looking to better themselves and further the art, and the old guard gets their titties in a twist in a hurry about it. A spanking and a warning hardly seems fair for taking over one of the old guard and making her a simpering sex slave for a few days. Can I blame them for their reaction? Not really. Do I think they made the right call? Biasly, hell no. If another witch is better at bewitching, she's just better, and to the victor go the spoils. I beat Esther. But then again, Connie did beat me.

Which leads me to what happened once that interloping scent took me down at the spice shop. Even I can admit I really underestimated how potent that stuff must be in concentrated doses. What I learned later is that Connie tricked me a bit, making me believe that she'd spread it all over the shop, which explains why me and Esther got got; I assumed Connie had immunized herself somehow, but really she just took strong concentrations of the stuff telekinetically kept it wafting around both our heads; I have to give her credit for that tactic. 

Once I came back to myself, seated before Connie in the back office of the shop, while Esther rested on the couch nearby. Only some of the prohibere remained in my system, accompanied by some other potions leading to stronger compulsions. I couldn't get up or move out of the chair, but I wanted to interact with Connie, my nerves were so interested in engaging with the raven-haired captor that wasn't me for once, so ready to tell her truths to whatever she asked.

"Awake already, I see," she greeted me, staring harshly down at me, arms crossed, body exhibiting quiet anger, and something else.

"Yes," I found myself wanting to say, and saying before any competing thoughts could take place.

"According to Esty, your name is Cherish Kwan. Is that your real name?"

"Yes."

"Huh," she replied in a huff, as if my name struck her as gaudy or overblown. I would've fought against the subduing fog I was kept in to respond, but it was enough of a struggle to stay myself.

"Lifelong?" Connie asked how long I've been a witch. I sensed she would've just easily assumed I wasn't were it not for her friend's disposition.

"Yes." Whatever the concoction was that kept me rooted, everything else was maintaining except for the truth serum feeling - every answer I gave made me want to say more.

"And you want to tell me everything, don't you?" Connie reached to feel my pulse at my wrist and throat, her fingers confirming what my lips spoke.

"I want to tell you everything, Connie."

"Esty told you my name?"

"Yes, she told me your name. And Esmeraude's."

She looked over to Esther before looking back at me, utterly surprised at how much had already been disclosed.

"Esmeraude will be joining us soon, but why don't you start to tell me how you got my friend over there."

"I..." my first bout of hesitation, feeling a little of myself push through.

"Tell me what you want to tell me, Cherish. Answer my question," she said firmly, pushing on the need still in me.

"I took your friend with G-Concilium."

"What is...G-Concilium?" she couldn't help but laugh at the phrase, about what I expected of another witch discovering my secret weapon. I smiled too as I gave my explanation, watching hers fade in utter disbelief. She checked my pulse again to see if conditions had changed; they didn't. Connie slowly resigned herself to the fact that I was speaking a truth that somehow wasn't fiction.

"You were planning to use this on me?"

"Yes Connie."

"How is it supposed to work? How did it work on Esty?"

A small smile of pride slipped over my lips as I explained the details.

"G-Concilium works along the same principle as normal Concilium, extending your own essence into a subject, pressing your will softly, undetectably, against someone that calmly, quietly are barely aware that they're acting on your orders, and believe all is well as you smile at them, having assumed control. A witch using Concilium is hard to resist...but a witch using G-Concilium, simply cannot be resisted." 

Fear and curiosity made Connie a captive audience, ready to learn about what sounded like a revolution in spellcasting to a veteran who thought she'd seen it all.

"I certainly didn't expect to ever learn about this anomaly, a once-in-a-lifetime discovery. I discovered it during sex, and when I found out what it was, the world shifted. Deep, deep breaths, made me realize I wasn't dreaming, no matter how dreamy the sensation left me, and my subjects. Gravity set upon me as I had to sit down, wrap my mind around how the impossible became possible, how the pleasure of passion and the imagination of magic fused, leaving me stuck on one thought, thinking only about this..."

I watched her find a seat at the mention of gravity, find regulated breaths at the suggestion of deep ones, I could only imagine the malleable condition of her mind as my lowered intonation and purposeful cadence wrapped around her preoccupation of the notion of G-Concilium. And even as I relayed everything including my own feelings about the discovery, with her truth spell still intact, she was more than inclined to trust me, I was merely inclined to make that trust flourish.

"It's a helpless thought to think, the kind that makes all others vanish. The pleasure of passion and imagination of magic, two energies flowing independently like acquaintances, sharing words and thoughts and energies until they merge, and the energies become dear, dear friends. And when elements shared become one, so do the energies become soulmates, sharing the same heart, thinking the same thoughts, and those energies become like a ball in your hands..."

My hands found the energy to rise, to cradle the sightless between them that Connie focused on. As my nearly-inert hands expanded, the merged energy she saw probably grew from the size of a pebble, to a small rock, to a baseball, to a crystal ball floating powerfully in my hands.

"Feeling the energies of magic and passion, mind and sex, Concilium and cunnilingus, it's so intoxicating in my hands, waves of its energy emit outwards, drawing others closer to it, pulled by magnetic forces of attraction that tease and tempt learning and loins."

That's what I love about the average witch; they're always expecting certain powers to come about in whatever words spoken in obvious verbalized spells, they keep forgetting that words are already inherently powerful, and the mind is already its own talisman. Well, my mind is more wand-like, pointedly casting spells. Theirs is more talisman, thinking of their minds as insulated and shielded from any threat. Maybe true to everything else, but hilariously-ineffective from me - there is no warding off an insistent, hypnotic witch.

To be honest though, the informative induction got me so hot, staining the seat I was stuck in for my own designs, for all I knew, there really was a ball of Concilium energy in-between my extended palms. The energy circulated, and shifted into my left hand; it was either the real energy, or just the nerves in my fingers looking forward to what came next.

"And that ball eventually changed shape to a think beam of energy, a laser pointing itself forward, seeking out a vulnerable head to penetrate," I leaned forward and pressed my index finger to her forehead, watching her eyes roll back  to stare up at it. My finger stayed there, pretending, willing, hoping energies were really flowing there.

"And no mind, no talisman, fortitude or shielding is strong enough to be unpierced, deeply penetrated by the lasered energy carrying my will, my control, all of my commands that shoot down from your brain, like a shiver of pleasure down your spine, and back up to your brain, bringing all of you into deep cooperation. Feeling my power, nothing of you can remember what it was like to not be in my control, like the pleasured body doesn't want to remember what it was like to live without its blissful reason to live."

I slowly stood up, finger still pressed against her, and stared her down, taking the position the triumphant witch once took with me.

Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that part Gretel, I won that little exchange. Connie's ego got the spanking, her body never got the warning to heed the magic of mere words and perhaps tactile Concilium, and her nipples got a twist between my fingertips in a hurry, with what strength I could manage. Her knees bent just as adorably as her mind did with some help.

"Turnabout is fair play,
as this decided victor decrees.
Let the outcomes of truths in all things,
leaving your lips with you on bended knees."

Certainly a much weaker, less specific magic compared to what was leaving my system, but a nice additive to the foundation I already built. And probably necessary given Connie's earlier words.

"Tell me Connie, is Emseraude due here soon?"

"...." I saw her lips quivering, wanting to say something her bashed will still questioned.

"C'mon sweetie, you know you want to answer my question."

"She's...coming very soon."

"Is she coming alone?"

"I don't...think so."

"Who, and what is she bringing?"

A brief explanation detailed that Esmeraude was the most cautious of the three, readily coming prepared for whatever. Connie knew little about what was likely on its way, but enough general information led me to prepare for the next bout.