“Prime... what... what is going on with your face right now?” Lena asked, slowly backing away from me.

The illusion of black dragon skin over my head cracked and distorted for several seconds before stabilizing again. I held a finger up for her to wait for a moment and casually stepped back into her room to take a look at the vanity. Curious, she followed after me, poking her head around the doorway to look inside. I noticed the heads of Priss and Toadwart also looking in with confused expressions.

I glanced back at them for a moment then focused on the large mirror. Carefully, I focused on the illusion of a dragonoid face looking back at me. I thought about the signals used to dim my optics when I wanted to replicate a wink or a blink and the illusion slowly blinked its huge reptilian green eyes. I closed one eye, then the other, then both again. I could still see as normal through the illusion even though the eyes appeared closed. That made sense since my optics were covered by an illusion either way.

The next part was trickier since I lacked any sort of hardware analogue. Since I lacked a mouth or any sort of facial features beyond my optics, the manipulation of the illusion came down to deliberate will and intentional animation. Not unlike being a puppeteer for my own face. The distortion from before was from rebooting and calibrating the software while it was active. I probably should have properly shut it down first but it was fun seeing Lena freak out a little bit.

I already preprogrammed a number of reaction animations that I could trigger like emotes in a MMO game that I used to fake base reactions or speaking for short periods so long as no one paid too close attention. Chatting with Princess Charitomeni made me super nervous about being found out.

The lips of the giant mouth my reflection sported, slowly parted, showing off a wide row of slightly rounded triangle shaped teeth. The illusion jaws flexed and the teeth separated, showing off a healthy pink tongue inside of a cavernous maw. Should I animate some saliva inside for when the mouth opens like this? It looked a bit dry at the moment but it would be passible, I hoped.

I tried scrunching the face, twisting the mouth to either side, and cycling through a range of different facial contortions.

“Testing. One two, one two,” I muttered as the illusion mouth synced with my speech.

“Hey, it’s not like a sock puppet any more!” I said, giving a broad shark toothed smile.

“Aaaa. AAAAAAH!” I shouted, much to the alarm of my audience.

As I increased volume, the illusion mouth opened wider automatically. Nice. Visually I felt like a cross between the dragon Toothless and the alien Stitch. Well, whatever. I turned and gave Lena double finger guns while winking and grinning off to one side.

“I’m not sure how I feel about this,” Lena admitted. “I’ve gotten rather used to reading you without any additional expressions.”

I narrowed my eyes and gave her a tight lipped, smug sorta grin.

“No... no I don’t believe that I fancy that at all,” she muttered, crossing her arms and tapping a false set of teeth.

“Come along your Highness, I believe you said there was a shopping date to be had?” I said, casually.

“Date? Yes! A Date! Wendy, Toadwart, take the afternoon off. Priss, you as well,” the Princess ordered.

The Captain and the Lieutenant glanced meaningfully at each other but nodded to Lena just the same. Priss just bowed and took a few steps back.

I followed the Princess out of the residence to see Remi dressed in a dark gray gi and practicing with a scimitar-like sword. There was something meditative about his movements.

“This feels very familiar,” he said without breaking form. “The Knight Watch forced the bow and meh skills upon me. Me life a’fore becomin’ an Auto be a bit murky, like a dream at times.”

“Maybe the more you go through sword forms, the more you’ll remember?” I offered.

“Aye. May haps,” he agreed.

“Is that common? I have full recollection of my life before my conversion,” Lena asked, once we’d left the guest courtyard.

“I don’t have enough data to answer that, but I think that some key factors might be the length of time between the present and conversion, as well as the control curse. Most Automata were converted against their will and their memories were locked away from them. In some cases, what was expected of them as a slave was completely contrary to who they were naturally. Remi is from Maxoria. Maybe being here is solidifying some of his past for him.”

“I am ashamed to admit that I have never given it much thought,” she said, thoughtfully.

“Can’t say that I’m surprised, Highness,” I said, giving her a cheeky glance. “You never seemed, to me, to be the sort that knows where her bread is coming from.”

“I know where bread comes from!” she said indignantly. “It comes from Claude. He delivers the bread every morning on a little cart.”

“I stand corrected, and impressed that you would know the delivery person. Though I’m surprised to hear that bread is delivered to the palace. I would have expected a royal baker to be in house.”

“What are you talking about? Claude is one of our serving staff. He brings the various breads for breakfast along with tea and cakes in the afternoon on his little cart.”

“And there it goes,” I said wistfully, miming something floating away into the sky.

“There what goes?” she asked, her voice full of suspicion, searching the sky for whatever it was that I was tracking.

“The little bit of respect that accumulated,” I said, sadly waving to a cloud.

CLANG!

The strike was expected. The loud bell-like sound of my metal noggin being hit by a metal fist was a bit unexpected for anyone nearby though. Lena’s eyes went wide and she quickly looked away, suddenly interested in some fabrics hanging in a stall.

We’d entered the market area to find crowds of people clustered around open stalls and people on blankets hawking their wares. We passed booths showing off the latest local fashions, which caught the optics of our Princess. I was dragged from vendor to vendor and largely had little interest in any of them.

As Lena changed into her third set of beach attire, I caught a glimpse of a muscular tiger lady trying to look casual at a cafe filled with fish people half her size. Toadwart was probably somewhere nearby as well. The Lieutenant could, at least, stay out of sight when he wanted to.

Lena popped her head out of the changing booth and pointed at a fourth set. Given the situation, it felt funny when I considered that I knew all of her exact measurements and specs. I retrieved the outfit in her size and made a show of pointedly looking away from her as I handed the garments over. A slender, mechanical hand slipped out through the folds in the fabric curtain and quickly vanished with the goods.

I glanced back, confirming that Lena was busy, and slunk across the street to the cafe. Wendy suddenly became very interested in a newspaper that she’d been pretending to read. I ignored her and found a menu, quickly skimming it over.

“Excuse me miss?” I called out to a passing waitress.

“Sir? Feel free to sit anywhere,” she answered.

“Oh, not for me, thanks. You see that tigress over there? Her name is Wendy, she’s a friend of mine and today is her birthday. She’s really self conscious about eating around others but I’d still like to treat her. Can I order her the deluxe party platter for four?”

“How sweet! Of course, it’ll be our pleasure, sir,” the waitress said, leaning in conspiratorially as I handed over the funds.

I gave her a wink, which was met with a giggle as she disappeared into the kitchen. I jogged back over to the clothing shop, risking a quick look to see Wendy sigh, confident that she hadn’t been discovered.

As soon as Lena paid for whatever she was getting, I pulled her along, hurrying down the street as the sounds of cafe employees singing in celebration filled the air. I wasn’t necessarily trying to ditch Wendy but the idea of “losing a tail” was too fun to pass up.

“Alright. I’ve selected several outfits, though I don’t know if they will suit your tastes,” Lena said, thoughtfully.

“I think that suiting your tastes would take priority. You’ll be the one wearing them, after all,” I replied.

“You really don’t get it, do you? The clothes that a woman chooses are very rarely for her own enjoyment. They are, almost always, intended to send a message,” she explained.

“And what, pray tell, message are you intending to send with the outfits that you’ve chosen?”

“That, my dear swain, you’ll have to figure out on your own. Otherwise, what would be the point?”

“This is why no one, anywhere, understands the heart of a woman,” I complained.

“We work hard to cultivate that mystery, I’ll have you know,” she teased, smugly.

I rolled my eyes and took her offered hand.

“I’m sad to say that many of my date fantasies involved food in some way,” she lamented. “Now that I’ve purchased what I wanted, I’m not sure of what to do next.”

“Much of existence is tied to the four S’s isn’t it? And now, none of them hold any relevance for us. Well, I guess shelter still does. We’ll have to focus more on experiences that we can share via activities,” I offered.

“Four S’s? Shelter... Sleep... Sustenance... and... OH! Right! Yes, well, I’m certain that we’ll get by in our own way, dear husband. Though I admit that it does break my heart a bit,” she said sadly.

“I’ll... think of something...” I said, halfheartedly, and slightly embarrassed. “Oh look, there’s some nice jewelry at this stand,” I added, eager to change the subject.

We got closer to a booth that had a variety of trinkets and items on display. The owner praised Lena for her beauty and charm, while naturally suggesting that the items would enhance those particular stats.

“I couldn’t possibly decide, they are all so lovely. Prime, dear, choose one for me?” she said, challenging me.

I looked over the various items. There were hair pins, broches, rings, all sorts of accessories and adornments. A necklace caught my eye. The focal point was a pearl-like gem of an iridescent blue and black. It reminded me of an oil slick in the way it refracted the light on its surface. The setting for the stone resembled the claws of a dragon or a bird of prey, clutching the stone from both sides.

“I’ll take this one, sir,” I said, tapping the gem.

Lena looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I had to admit that the design might have been a bit middle-school but it was a starting point. I handed over some coins and the vendor handed me the necklace, telling me what a smart purchase it was.

I motioned Lena to sit down on a bench nearby and took a seat next to her. I set the necklace on my lap and initiated my modeling program. The gem stone gently floated up into the air, wrapped in a pale blue light. I poked and nudged at the model floating in front of my HUD, manipulating the shape.

Little sparks and pops glinted off of the steel setting holding the gem as it was deformed and reshaped. Once I was happy with the results, I closed out the modeling tools and opened up my inspector. I had a couple of features that I thought might be handy to add to the charm; namely a basic two-way tracking feature and access to my internal chat group.

I finalized the changes and the light around the necklace dimmed. The redesigned item settled into my palm and I held it up to present to my Princess. Instead of the dragon claws, the gem was now held by a pair of Automata hands. My hands. The gem had also been slightly altered physically. It now glowed, slightly, from within, a clear, cyan hue; similar to my own optics.

“I hope you like it, I mean, it's fine if you don't. I was just playing around with it,” I said, feeling a touch bashful.

“Oh Prime... I do. Put it on me?” she asked.

I hopped off the bench just in time for a child to plow into me. I barely stumbled but I hoped that the kid was okay. A young boy, dressed in rags, shook his head, sitting on the cobblestone street.

“Are you well? That was certainly an energetic thump,” Lena said, offering a hand to help the boy up.

Rather than take her hand, the boy looked dazed for a moment until his eyes cleared. As soon as they did, though, he snickered and scrambled to his feet and took off running.

“Rude,” I grumbled.

“Now now. Children will be children after all,” Lena suggested.

“Yeah well, that child just ran off with your necklace,” I countered.

“He what!?” she yelled, jumping to her feet.