This is one of the reasons I was scared because it would take some doing but not all that much and she's not even really in control of herself because of the oath and the artifact effect has no fucking clue how to handle things she technically only wants me to do because of the oath if they come up.

Okay. And all of this is causing you continuous considerable distress or just when you're reminded of it or - when you offered to go away somewhere -

I can kind of play bits of it off each other and a lot of the time I can get them to balance and think normally on top of that. And not hurting her beats the crap out of wanting to be around her no contest.

Are there things I can do to make it easier to - get them to balance -

...like what?

I don't know, telling you things about her, ensuring you don't end up murdering people for her - what I did earlier was make her calm, we both hate it but sometimes without it she'll just shatter so she's told me to, under certain conditions...

Knowing things about her is probably helpful. Not murdering people for her would be good. I don't think there's anything that you could say that would keep me from trying to defend her if people were attacking her - and if I were not totally useless at stabbing - but depending on what the oath is like and how much I can blame it for things I could probably ignore other inducements.

The oath is awful and without it there is no way she'd want anybody stabbing people for her. Well, orcs, but - I could try to show you what she was like before the oath and the torture but it might just make you sad.

Maybe? I don't know.

Let's do this first. Here she is.

"How long do you want to keep it, if you don't say to take it off sooner?"

"Minute or two? It won't feel like anything if I don't have one, right? But we should figure out the benefit while we're at it."

"Right. Do you have a way to check opacity without singing?"

"Uh, I could neglect keeping my thoughts private and ask someone if they can read them, but Rirosseth's the only person I'd feel really comfortable letting do that. If it's not that one it's the ability to give-and-remove, probably, right?"

"Probably."

"...if we're pretty sure it's the mental opacity I'll ask someone to try reading my mind, if that's the best way to know."

"Okay."

Annie holds out her hand.

She takes it.

Thing: happens.

"Oh, Eru." she whispers, and starts crying. 

"What - what happened - who -"

"No one, apparently, but the oath is gone."

"- opacity," Annie guesses.

"Incredibly powerful - even the Valar can't tamper with oaths - oh, oh, it's over, it's over -"

"...do you want to keep it or see if it stays gone if I take it off?"