The city of Tromsø shines like a bastion of technological civilization in the winter twilight. Above, the world appears draped in beautiful, soft curtains of light. As I land in a suitably open area in the little city (is it a city with a population of 75 thousand?) I can’t help but get a little national romantic.

I mean, damn, nature is beautiful sometimes, but this cannot be called anything but awe-inspiring. It is exactly what I had hoped for when I put it as the first of two (travel) goals I wanted to achieve at some point in my life. The other one, a lot grander and -at the time- much less feasible, is to see the earth from space.

As it stands… I might just fulfil that goal within a year.

A sigh escapes me.; I’m not sure how to feel about that. At the time I meant it as a sort of grand life-goal that I’d probably not achieve until I was well into my 40’s or even 50’s, but now I might just need to find a new one. I suppose there’s plenty of new things out there, and I assume that there is some magic that can make you live forever; ‘life goal’ might not be accurate any more.

Oh well. Better shapeshift back to human and check in to that hostel. I hope they have free room…

Magically enhanced or not, flying for that long is tiring, mentally more than physically, but I have business to do, so after checking in and posting an update to the relevant social media, I head out to meet customers, potential as well as those that already have orders.

Due to the way I travelled, I didn’t exactly bring many things, but I get a few sales with what I did bring. I had planned this for a little while, and some people put in orders, including two custom made items, which I hand over after double-checking that the payment has gone through and checking their ID.

I don’t stay long, as it is fairly late. I send a heads-up SMS to another customer and head to their address. They bought three hours of tutoring, but commented ‘I don’t think it is enough, so I might want to buy more time’.

I quickly reach the apartment building at the address, and after a moment to find the customer’s name on the list, call their apartment. While the entire building seems kinda old and honestly a bit shabby, it does give that impression of having modern renovations. For example, the doorbells use a system of apartment numbers and has a screen and camera and all.

A young woman with an unkempt appearance comes on the screen. “Hello?”

“Are you Aleks? I’m Lars Eikeli.”

“Oh. You- too fast…” she mutters.

And then seems to freeze in place.

“Uh, ar-are you okay? Should I… come up or leave?”

She stands still for a bit longer, and without even looking me she quickly says “Uhm, come up.” and hangs up. At least the lock opens. That’s… a bit worrying. She didn’t seem… No, I shouldn’t judge.

Her apartment is two stairs up, and when I knock on the door I get no response. Cautiously I try to open the door, and find that it’s not locked. The inside of the apartment, like the shared stairwell to get here, looks quite modern

Aside from the lingering smell of some kind of spice, there’s also a salty… sweaty smell. Was she working out? Would explain her appearance.

Both of those seem to fade to the background when she exits what I assume to be the bathroom and the smell of a surprisingly ‘soft’ perfume wafts out.

“Are you okay?” I ask upon noticing her red eyes (did she have those on the screen?), wondering for a moment if she wears anything under the oversized t-shirt.

“I’m sorry! I-I wasn’t prepared. You can take a glass of water, but I need a couple minutes.”

And with that she enters a bedroom and quickly shuts the door. Uh, I can see the kitchen, since it’s all open, but where’s glasses? Don’t you usually… Handle that for your guests? I suppose I’m here for business, and I can understand if she wants to get properly dressed.

Either way I’m not thirsty, but I take the opportunity to empty my canteens in the sink, something I forgot to do at the hostel. Given the temperature, randomly pouring it on the ground would be dangerous when the water freezes.

She doesn’t seem to be in the best of mental positions, but at least she seems harmless enough, and I lower my guard. The next few minutes I just stand there, and from the other side of the door I hear some muffled sounds and talking.

When she exits her hair is somewhat more managed, tied in a simple ponytail, and while she seems less distressed, her eyes are still red. Should I bring up the t-shirt? Or just ignore it? I mean, it’s now or… Sigh, whatever.

“Hello,” I say, vaguely waving/reaching my hand towards her, a useful trick to shake the hands those who want that, but not seem overly familiar if they don’t. “You wanted tutoring, right? For shapeshifting and aspect magic?”

She nods. And then nothing else. She doesn’t even look me. I think. I also sometimes look straight through people, but I’ve at least learned to look at someone’s face when I greet them.

“Look, I’ve set aside the rest of the day for this, and you wanted three hours, but if you don’t want to, I’ll leave.”

For the first time, she looks at me, with surprisingly piercing eyes. “No! I want to-” she falters and looks away, “-learn more…”

“Okay. I… I don’t want to pry, so if you think I get too personal, just tell me. You don’t have to, uh, answer, or anything. But for this to work, for me to teach you, you have to cooperate a little, or you’re just wasting your money.”

She just stands there, like a… I’d almost say scared bunny, but she seems… Not that. She just… stands there. I don’t seem to get my point across, so let’s make it easier on her. “Sigh, first off, if you want to put on some more clothes or… calm down or something, I can give you some time. Do you want that?”

She shakes her head slightly. “I’m okay.”

You don’t look like it… “Okay. I don’t know anything about you, but you seem to be fighting some personal issues. How about we set some rules before anything else? Would you like that?”

“Rules are good.”

“Okay. To begin with…” I want to pat her shoulder and communicate with body language that I’m friendly, but… “Are you okay with touching? Just the shoulder and arm?”

At the first part she jerks a little, but relaxes at the latter, and nods weakly.

“Okay. I have found that the best way to teach is often to demonstrate, and to guide others’ mana. I will ask if I want to do that. Okay?” Another nod. “Similarly, sometimes it might be useful to guide by moving their arms or legs for them. You have said it is okay to touch your arms, but I will still ask. Okay?”

Anything else…? “How about we sit down somewhere comfortable?”

She turns and leaves.

Uh, I guess I should follow her? She walks right past the sofa in the living room, and sits down on her bed in her bedroom. It’s… very organized. I mean, My friends occasionally joke that I have organizational compulsive disorder, but this would almost be impersonal, if it weren’t for the clear signs of hobbies.

By the time I carefully sit down next to her, she has packed herself into a blanket-burrito and is leaning in the wall at the back of the bed, clearly more relaxed. Some sort of communication disorder, or at least social issues. At least she no longer looks like she could have a panic attack at any time.

“I can see that you’re not great with people, or maybe it’s because I’m a man and a stranger. I could turn female if you want?”

“No. Men are better.”

“Oh-kay. Let’s take it from the beginning, then. You wanted tutoring in shapeshifting?”

A nod.

“I need to know what you want to learn then, but first, how about you tell me what you already know and can do?”

She sums it up pretty efficiently, starting with learning it via an online forum, after following a link in on of my videos. She doesn’t travel a lot, but has the aspects of Dog, Cat and a few birds, and can do partial shapeshifting, including were-forms. She gives a few examples on my request..

“Okay. And what do you want to learn? Anything specific?”

“Transforming and puppets.”

“Okay.” I nod. Good, now we’re making progress. But it’s also some of the hardest things to teach. Oh well. I start by forming a mana link and then summoning the wolf-serpent. Seeing an example is a good start.

Her face lights up and she reaches out with her free hand to touch it, so I make it snuggle up to her hand. “I assume you already know this, but just to be sure, the puppet -the wolf-serpent in this case- is the caster, and is being controlled by them. In this case me.”

She retracts a little bit, but stares it down. “Can I hug it?”

Oh, she is definitely an animal-person over person-person. I send it flying into her reach and answer with a “Sure, go ahead.” I think I can see why she wants to learn those two things in particular, now.

“Did you see what I did when I summoned it?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s fine. The next step is for you to to form the puppet. As far as I can tell puppets are made in some sort of subspace or pocket dimension, but that’s not important. What is important is that you first think of what form the puppet will have. You should start with a plain form, using one Aspect, and maybe even mimicking a specific animal you’ve seen.”

I elect to slightly mute the senses from the puppet. One hand hand it’s comfortable to be hugged like that, but on the other hand it’s a bit distracting, and feels disrespectful to Aleks. Or was it with X? No, it was K-S, right?

“Do you have a form in mind?”

“Yes! A golden retriever like that family on the first floor!”

A retriever in an apartment? Well, if she’s noticed it they probably take it out regularly. I sure hope so. And then… “Oh, do you have the ability equipped?”

“No.”

“Oh, you probably should do that. I keep forgetting since I primarily use the abilities I have equipped, and the whole [System] thing is a bit… Unnatural? Anyway, when trying do learn or do something new, having the ability equipped makes it a lot easier, since you get more [System] assist.”

“What should I swap out?”

“Uhh, something unimportant. Keep the basic mana abilities and [Meditation] if you have that, but other than that… In particular other branches of magic are not needed.”

“Okay. I equipped [Meditation] too.”

“You have it? I keep it equipped at all times. With [System] assist it’s great to reduce headaches from magic use and to just relax. I think it would be very useful for you. Anyway, what you want now is to form the image of the puppet. Focus on the image and just try to make the puppet. You should get an increasingly vivid picture of it. And when-”

Suddenly she lets go of my puppet and, after a moment, starts pitifully whining and flailing as her new form gets stuck in the now extra oversized t-shirt. Ah, shit, that doesn’t look comfortable. I should probably- “Woah, woah! Calm down!” I say, leveraging [Beast Empathy] and [Mind Magic].

“Just- stand still, okay? I’ll get you out of there.”

She fights a little bit more, but I hold her still in a blanket-padded hug. When she stops trashing I put her down and unroll her. She lets out a sad bark-howl, and I instinctively hug her again with soft pats. “Hush, hush. Calm down.”

She’s frozen. Oh, shit, I did that without thinking. Err, she seems less panicked though, so I guess it’s fine. “Remember that you’re human. You’re intelligent. You can control this.”

After a moment she tears free, though with no resistance from me. She makes a few barks, and while I’m getting pretty good at understanding the wolves and whatnot, it’s not like their barks, yips, and howls can be understood as language.

And then she turns back to her human form. “Congratulations, you did it.” I say with a halfway artificial smile and a few claps.

“I liked that.”

“Huh?”

She shrinks a bit. “It’s-”

“I mean, which part of that did you like?

“I liked it when you held me and I was wrapped up and you calmed me down.”

“Oh-kay?” I can work with that… “How about… how about you transform again, and then as a reward I will wrap and hold you?” Aw, geez, I feel like I’m really patronizing her here.

“Mhm.”

And thus it was. She succeeds the second time, of course, without panicking this time, and her wagging tail forces me to smile as I give her reward as promised. This is like something you’d see in an anime. Wait, there is an anime which this reminds me of. What was the name again… ‘Pet Girl Sakura-something’?

I mean, wow, that’s really similar in some ways. The eponymous pet girl is autistic, isn’t she? As is common in media she’s an autistic savant, but I don’t think that applies to Aleks. I’m… not sure how I should feel about the comparison. For that matter, how does Aleks even live on her own? She doesn’t exactly seem to be high-functioning…

Either way I continue by teaching her how to summon it as a puppet, and after the initial confusion of having two bodies and thus sets of sensory input (this time she hugs her own puppet), I begin teaching her a few tips to get used to it and whatnot.

She finishes both her goals with time to spare, and as a reward she wants to hug me. At first I am confused, but it turns out she wants me to transform and then hug me. I’d have to undress, so I manage to negotiate it down to simply summoning the mist wolf puppet.

She happily wraps herself around the puppet and… aggressively snuggles it, to the point where I have to ask her to be careful so she doesn’t hurt me.

“That aside, you’ve finished the goal you set. If you’re satisfied, we can end it here and you will only pay for the time spent.”

She makes a… sound which doesn’t really tell me anything, so let’s give her some options.

“If you want to continue I have two suggestions that you might like. Wait, maybe three. But- I’ll get to that. First off, I think I could get you the wolf Aspect, at least to unlock it, and the same for the fox Aspect. What do you think about that?”

“Mmm…” That sound again. “I… think… that would be nice.”

“Okay. My second suggestion is to make a flight form. People really seem to enjoy flying, and I have to say I agree. What do you think about that?”

“But then…” She trails off and looks at the window. Wow, do I actually have a hiki-NEET on my hands? Wait, does she even have the money to pay me?

“There is one more thing, but… It’s not something I should teach willy-nilly. I think you would find it immensely useful, but I’d need to ask you some questions to decide if I can teach it, and… It might get a bit personal, since I want a good image of your personality, among other things. I said it before, but I’ll say it again: If you don’t want to answer or think it’s too personal, just say so.”

“What is… that thing?”

“The thing I could teach you?” A nod. “It’s… a form of magic, which could… be used for really bad things, but it’s also really useful. As with anything else, it’s a tool, it’s how you use it that can give rise to ethical questions. Like a kitchen knife. Wonderful for cooking, but a favorite of horror villains everywhere.”

“You can’t say what it’s called?”

“I mean, I could, but I don’t think I should. Should I just start asking you the questions?”

She nods.

Let’s start with the question that has been bugging me this whole time, then. “Let me just be clear that I mean no offense, I just want to get a better idea of who you are. And as mentioned, you don’t have to answer any of my questions.”

I think she got it, and continue. “It’s pretty clear to me that you’re not great socially, to the point where… Well, it seems to me that you have at least one psychological disorder. Is this correct?”

She nods. “I have social anxiety and I have autism spectrum disorder.”

“I see, that’s more or less what I expected. I also have ASD, though I suppose I’m a bit more high-functioning than you.” Annnd smile to disarm and show empathy. “So, broadly speaking, you find it difficult to understand and communicate with other people on their terms, correct?

“Yes.” She says, her eyes never looking at me. Unless you count the puppet. That lack of eye contact is what tipped me off.

“Next up, what do you do for a living?”

“I stream and make videos.”

“Oh, that’s cool, videos about what?”

“About what?”

“Yeah, what are the videos about? Games, art, news, uhh, cosmetics, I dunno?”

“I masturbate.”

…

Huh. “Sooo… porn? Wait, is that why you wanted to be better at shapeshifting?”

“Yes, people pay for private streams, and I change my form for them.”

“Okay, that’s… actually pretty smart. I suppose you can earn quite a bit by finding the right… audience. I have thought a bit about the possibility, but it was more a plan B since I sell stuff. That’s brave of you, how does that work with the social anxiety and whatnot?”

“It’s not a problem. I can’t see them, and they’re nice to me. I just try to feel good and sometimes ask them what they want.”

“Well, it’s good that you found something that works for you. Uhm, actually saying that I have thought about it ‘a little bit’ is a bit of an understatement. Iii… Anyway, I know of several aspects and form, oh, and spells, that you could use to… improve your… service and options.”