It Takes Time <To Be Properly Taken Apart> - Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Chapter Length: 4,800~ wordsToo Far, Too Fast
It had been around fifteen minutes since Raqi had fallen asleep. Punica had been monitoring the xenosophont like a hawk, but every single one of her vital signs was stable. Her breaths came easily and evenly, and her heart beat within five beats-per-minute of the recordings Punica had been mentally taking for the last day-and-a-half of her natural resting rate. By all the evidence, it seemed as if she had simply relaxed so much she passed out. Why, though? That was the part that had her so worried. What had she done that had put Raqi into this state? She had teased her a little towards the end of the examination, yes; but it had been much less than some of the times in the past, and nothing like this had happened then. This also didn't explain what had made the girl start acting so flustered in the first place: Punica had responded to the very obviously submissive reaction that the landamaeri had displayed upon seeing her finger - it had been genuinely impossible not to, she had tried this time and it hadn't worked even a bit - but she hadn't been able to figure out where that reaction had come from. In hindsight, Raqi had seemed to have begun getting somewhat spacy after a certain point in the conversation. Punica tried to remember if there was anything she had done that could have triggered that reaction, but nothing came to mind. If the change hadn't been affected by her, then the only other explanation was that it had an internal cause. She must have ended up making herself feel that way. Why, though? Did I push upon some conditioned association hitherto unknown to me? It would make sense had I been employing hypnotic language, now that I know of her experience with trance states, but I was speaking normally. She paused, wondering whether there had been anything else that could have potentially triggered a conditioned response. A minute or so passed as she thought about it. Then, the face of her humanoid form slowly began to frown. Could she have somehow synchronised with my biorhythms without me noticing? The thought hung in her mind for a moment. No, that couldn't have happened. I was purposefully keeping my rhythms apart to prevent anything like that from happening. I knew given how close she would be to my vines that it would be an issue otherwise. As part of the near-absolute control they possessed over their bodies, affini could choose the extent to which they allowed their various biological rhythms to synchronise with each other. When not exerting any effort to keep them apart, their rhythms would naturally synchronise with each other, and this could be considered the 'default state' of most affini bodies. However, all affini learnt relatively early in their lives how to separate their rhythms. This was necessary both for communicating with others of their species - as intentional fluctuations in their rhythm served as an integral method of non-verbal communication between different affini - as well as to avoid unduly influencing xenosophonts around them. The act of holding one's rhythms entirely apart was, however, somewhat draining. Punica had heard varying accounts of the toll it took from different affini; some seemed to have no difficulty with muting their rhythms almost entirely for protracted periods of time, while others found that it drained them after hours or even mere minutes. It depended in part on individual skill with biorhythm control, as well as natural biorhythmic intensity; the latter of which varied from affini to affini. The strength of Punica's rhythm was decidedly average from what little she knew of the subject, and she had never had too much difficulty keeping her rhythms out of harmony for extended lengths of time; even if it was a little uncomfortable. It occured to her as she was thinking about this that she had never stopped to figure out how to entirely mute her biorhythms, the way that some affini she'd known could. It was a difficult skill to learn, and she had never seen any need to develop it. When she held her rhythms apart in the way she had been doing with Raqi, she had not met a single xenosophont on the Longbough who had seemed able to pick up on them, or shown any sign of being influenced. There was still some degree of harmony present among them even then, it was true; but it was so minute that it would have required an absurd level of sensitivity to pick up on- the kind of thing you either had naturally, or needed to spend years learning to be able to do. The last part of what she had just thought made her pause. She said that she has been dissociating on a daily basis since childhood, and has apparently spent much of her adult life practising being hypnotised. Both of these habits incline one towards developing an increased awareness of internal stimuli, and the latter is explicitly about learning how to open yourself up to and accept external influence... Her vines suddenly fell entirely still, and several of the leaves on her form curled in on themselves. Oh, rotting leaves. With that in mind, of course she can still feel my rhythm! She has spent the majority of her life inside of her own head by the sounds of it; that must have made her incredibly sensitive to any kind of disturbance in how she is feeling. In another sophont, the feeling of an affini's held-apart rhythm would likely register as nothing more than the faintest twinge at the edge of their awareness. They were unlikely to notice such a thing; and even if they did, there was every chance that they would simply label it as some mundane-yet-inexplicable phenomena, and discard it on the spot. What would happen, however, if instead of ignoring the sensation, one were to pour all of their focus into analysing it? She tried to imagine what practising being hypnotised must have been like. Though falling into trance was not a skill anyone would ever need practise to learn with an affini as a mentor, she imagined that with only the techniques available to her own race, it could have been much more difficult for Raqi to learn. She would have had to start by learning to identify even minute differences in her own cognition. Trance can be quite subtle when only light, after all. When she thought about it that way, there was an obvious similarity between a sophont being influenced by an affini's rhythm, and the beginnings of a trance state. If one was to keep their rhythms fairly well apart, the effects would only manifest as perhaps a light compulsion, or a gentle touch on one's awareness nudging them to feel or behave a certain way. Worded that way, sophonts under light biorhythmic influence could well be described as being in a light trance state. The two were qualitatively near-identical, and she suspected that the actual sensations that came with each might also be very similar. If the two really do feel the same for her, then it would explain both why she could pick out my rhythm, and why it triggered her conditioned associations with hypnosis. She felt a familiar stimulus that her brain mistook for that of being hypnotised, and so it ended up drawing her into a trance... Punica had seen many sophonts be hypnotised before. By default, most trances were simply states of heightened focus, and lacked much in the way of innate sensation. Hypnotic ones were frequently somewhat pleasant, but mostly just tended towards relaxing and comfortable. The way Raqi had looked, though- that was no ordinary response to being hypnotised. The girl had looked, if Punica was honest with herself, almost like she had been on xenodrugs. The way she started moaning when I moved my finger around in front of her was like she was somehow feeling it as a physical sensation. And those expressions she made; she looked like she was in utter ecstasy. She recalled the way that the girl's expression of focus had gradually shifted into a distant, barely-aware smile; how her eyes had started going unfocused towards the end, even though she was clearly trying so hard to keep watching... There was a faint 'plop' sound. Punica looked down upon hearing it to notice a drop of purple liquid had fallen onto the ground. She turned her attention to her arm to notice that almost every single one of her injectors was out, and more than half of them were presently leaking fluid onto the ship floor. She let out a sound akin to that of someone tripping and falling into a hedge. In a swift motion, she knitted her arm back together, stuffing her injectors back firmly inside of her composite limb and ensuring that not one of them had its payload in place. Once she was done, her eyes flicked to the sleeping xenosophont's form. The sight made her core twitch with need, and she feared that if she did not look away, she was going to lose control over herself. I cannot, she told herself. I must not. I have been over this. I know what is best for this girl, and it may be domestication; but it is not domestication by me. It was so difficult not to think about it, though. Affini attraction operated on entirely different principles to that experienced by any other sophont species, having been altered through millennia of bioengineering to remove the vast majority of its ties back to its origins as a series of reproductive drive. In the present day, most affini were driven by an innate desire to dominate; to control and to subjugate, and above all to protect. These drives were most often awoken by behaviours which made clear the difference in position between affini and xenosophonts; such as xenos exhibiting behaviours that the affini found cute or submissive, or on the other end of the spectrum, those who acted with undue confidence and-or haughtiness; which the affini often perceived as being challenges towards them, and the sophonts who issued them being in need of breaking. Raqi had broken out of the spectrum and was sitting somewhere several light-years beyond the former end of it. A sophont who would actively hypnotise themselves simply by being exposed to a weak biorhythm wasn't just cute; they were asking to be domesticated. It felt wrong to leave this creature - which was so clearly made to be controlled, if it behaved in ways such as this - without an owner. She was so quick to lose focus and start to drift, and so utterly adorable when she did. How much happier would she be with another to take charge of her and guide that soft, malleable mind of hers, Punica wondered? Stop! She hissed internally at herself. It does not matter how pleasurable it would- how much I might desire this: I would not be a good owner for her, and that is final! My wants come second to her needs, and I should not even be considering having it any other way! She tried to call to mind all of the reasons why she would be a terrible owner for Raqi, bringing up memories of the various failures that she'd enacted in her brief stint on the ship. She ran through the usual list of reasons why it would be a horrible idea for her to take Raqi as a floret: For starters, she was an inexperienced youngbloom and this girl was clearly not a so-called 'beginner pet.' Secondly, even by youngbloom standards, she was incompetent; she kept getting things wrong that she knew no other affini - even other firstblooms like her - would struggle with. She was also irresponsible; she kept panicking when she shouldn't; she hesitated time and time again and couldn't commit to courses of action even when she knew them to be right; she was too frightened to override the girl's autonomy when it was what was best for her. Maybe worst of all, she was awful at controlling her instincts and could barely keep her injectors in check. Every time she looked at the girl she couldn't stop thinking of wanting to drown her in every chemical she had in her grafts. She was so weak willed that she couldn't ignore the fact that the girl clearly wanted it - and not only wanted it, but was downright desperate for it - and had just openly said to her that she had come all this way looking exactly for someone to do this to her. She should have been able to ignore that because she wasn't what was best for Raqi, but despite everything she couldn't, she couldn't ignore it because she wanted this girl, she wanted to draw her finger around and around in circles in front of her eyes until she couldn't keep track of it any more, she wanted to watch her expression go from alert and aware to dazed and distant and hear the noises she made when she finally gave in, and when she did give in she wanted to take her and use every ounce of that suggestibility she had cultivated in herself to mould and condition her until she was hers, hers and nobody else's, her adorable perfect little creature to own and protect, to watch over and control and take care of, and drug until she couldn't remember her name any more, and then to keep on drugging until she was pumped so full of so many chemicals that would make her feel so good that she would break, break and forget what it even meant to exist without being owned, without being a pet, without being hers- Punica reached inside of her own body with one hand, took hold of her core, and squeezed. Immediately, the closest sensation to pain that she had felt in years shot through her body, clearing her consciousness of the desire that otherwise was going to consume it. She knew that what she was doing right now technically counted as self-harm, and that any affini who had to resort to exploiting their biology's in-built warning mechanisms like this in order to get themselves under control would be on the fast track for a wellness check; but this was not the time to worry about that. Once the fire burning all throughout her vines had subsided, she released her grip. She hadn't squeezed hard enough to do damage; just to hurt. Even so, the fact she'd needed to do that in the first place filled her with dreadful shame. But it was better than the alternative. I won't do it, she told herself. I'm not right for her. It can't be me. I cannot be trusted with her. And yet, even as she spoke the words to herself, she knew that in the end, desire always won out over fear.
"Raqi? Can you hear me, Raqi?" There was a voice on the edge of her awareness. She wanted to ignore it, wanted to stay in the deep comfort of sleep; but it was such a pretty voice. Her favourite voice, even. Even sleep's temptations were nothing compared to the draw she felt to that voice, to the wonderful sound it made that echoed around the inside of her head, pulling stray threads of thought together, and providing her with a clarity of thought and purpose which she had scarcely ever felt. "Mm... Mmuhh..." A small, sleepy noise escaped from her mouth. "Mwaaah." "There you are. Welcome back, dear." Raqi blearily opened her eyes to find herself laying on her back upon a bed of Punica's vines. She immediately noticed just how soft and comfortable they were; it was no wonder she hadn't wanted to wake up. The vines' owner was standing- or rather, kneeling a short distance beside her, a soft smile upon her face. "Oh, hi." It took a gargantuan amount of effort to get her body functional enough to produce a feminine voice, but she was not about to be caught lacking on that front in the presence of the woman with the prettiest voice she had ever heard. On a similar note, Raqi found herself expecting to hear a particular noise now that she was awake again, but when she focused and reached out for it, it was nowhere to be found. Even after focusing upon Punica's vines, she found the only thing she could sense from them was a faint, discordant sound that provided neither warmth nor comfort. It left her feeling empty inside for reasons she didn't fully understand, on account of how she- "Wow, I can not remember how I got here," she spoke. She sat up, taking a moment to adjust her poncho and trousers, and then directed a confused expression at Punica. "Uh. Did I fall asleep mid-way through the examination?" "You did, yes. I allowed you to slumber for a little over half an hour, but I thought it best not to let you rest overlong; lest your already disturbed sleep schedule become even more so." Punica spoke in a deep, comforting voice. Raqi was getting kind of used to how the affini spoke now: there were an awful lot of layers to the plant's voice, and if she was close to her, the sound seemed to sort of vibrate through her; or in this case, to echo around in her head for a moment after she spoke. More than that, she was becoming familiar with the more subtle emotional nuances that could be found within. Normally, that was the kind of thing she would have struggled with on account of being kuruki, but somehow Punica's voice seemed to click better than landamaeri voices to her? She wasn't sure if it was because of the extra layers, but somehow it just felt intrinsically easier to understand and interpret. That familiarity was what tipped her off to the fact that something was wrong presently. Despite the soft reassurance in her voice, there was a subtle undercurrent reflected in the ways that the layers harmonized with each other- or rather, weren't harmonizing right now, that Raqi knew meant something wasn't right. The knowledge didn't come from any conscious analaysis or learned knowledge, but rather, she felt instinctually like something was amiss. It was this feeling which prompted Raqi to quickly hop out of the vine bed and back onto the ground, where she took a few paces away to make space, and then turned back towards Punica. "Yo," she said, tilting her head in what she intended as an open gesture. "Something the matter? You seem kind of bothered." Punica hesitated. She had decided that it was best not to leave Raqi asleep for too long- partially in order to avoid subjecting herself to further temptation- but now that the sophont was awake again, she wasn't actually sure where to go from here. How will she react if I bring up the topic of hypnosis again? She seemed completely enthusiastic then, but... She was starting to get to know Raqi; the girl could seem completely enamoured with something in one moment, only for her emotions to completely invert and transform into what seemed like primal fear a moment later. Punica still did not understand what caused these reactions from her, and so she didn't know how to avoid triggering them. Raqi was staring at her, the girl's eyes having grown lidded and suspicious. Roots. She needed more time to think. She took advantage of her lack of connection between her emotions and her physical form to school her face and voice into as reassuring of a form as she could, and then spoke thusly: "Do not worry, dear; it is nothing. I am merely thinking, that is all." This reply bugged Raqi in a way that she couldn't explain. It was almost like it made her skin itch; it felt wrong somehow. She got the strong feeling that Punica intended for her to believe what she had just said, but that at the same time, it was only partially true? The cognitive dissonance produced an awful sensory clash that felt almost identical to having her PDA go off, and so rather than having the intended effect of mollifying her, the half-truth saw her brow furrow even further. "Thinking about what?" She asked a moment later. Seconds passed, and Punica failed to respond. The plant wasn't even looking at her, and this only served to frustrate Raqi further. She took a step forward, closing part of the distance that she had just created, and then peered up at the plant. "You do not look like someone who is 'just thinking' to me. I know what it looks like when someone is pretending not to be bothered, and this is it." Still nothing. Raqi jabbed Punica with a finger. "Hey! Don't ignore me, you weed! I hate it when people do that!" Finally, Punica turned towards her. "I am very sorry, dear." A hand reached out and began ruffling the feathers on Raqi's head. In an instant, the frustration she had been feeling vanished like water through a sieve, and a heady feeling of bliss cascaded down her body from head to toe. The xenosophont let out a series of happy trills, nudging her head affectionately into the hand in the hopes it would keep going. How can she tell? Punica was doing everything she could to stop the worry she felt from transmitting through her body into Raqi's. Is she already so deeply attuned to my rhythms that she can tell what I am feeling even when I am actively trying to hide it? She didn't understand how that could even be possible in the amount of time they'd known each other, but at this point she was certain this was what was happening. It was clear in the way that frustration had turned to joy the moment Punica had started touching her; the xeno had somehow managed to get herself entrained to Punica's rhythms, and was now responding to every one of the affini's emotional cues as if they were her own. I... What do I do about this? This caused so many problems. Did Raqi count as bonded to her, now? If landamaeris were anything like Terrans- and everything she had seen so far suggested that they were- then when one of them formed a bond with another sapient being, it could not be broken without severe emotional harm to the xenosophont. That would mean that Punica would not simply be able to give Raqi away to someone else as she had been considering doing; she would have to take her as her floret. No, she told herself. No, no- this can't be right. It has only been a few days! I know some species bond quickly, but- but this is too much! She felt herself starting to panic again. Her core was tensing up with fright; she still had so much she needed to do. She didn't know how to look after Raqi yet, she had no understanding of why she was so in tune with her rhythms- there were so many ways she could hurt this girl and it seemed so likely that she- "Punica... Stop." The voice snapped Punica back to reality. She looked down to see Raqi staring up at her. She was still patting the girl's head, but it no longer seemed to be having any effect on her. "Like, seriously.Enough." Punica's eyes widened. Her attention seemed to shift strangely, the usual peripheral awareness of her manifold visual receptors fading into the background as even more than usual was directed to the xenosophont. As she watched, Raqi took hold of her hand and removed it from her head. She placed both of her own hands upon Punica's, guiding the appendage down until it was held in front of her at a comfortable level. She then placed her thumbs on top of the plant's hand and began moving them around in gentle circles, rubbing against the outer layer of foliage that comprised the mimicry. "Can you calm down, please?" The xenosophont's tone was quiet, but also held within it both a force and insistence. "I can tell that you're stressed, and it's stressing me out too. I don't know what's bothering you, and it's scaring me. You're not usually like this. So, whatever it is that's gotten you this way, can you please talk to me about it?" The discordance in Punica's core began to still. The movement of her vinetips fell back under control again, and the look of alarm that had been upon her humanoid form's face faded back to a neutral expression. "I... Yes, of course I can." She felt, suddenly, almost entirely normal again. "I'm sorry for that. I thought that I could hide how I was feeling from you, but I have underestimated how perceptive you are, it seems." The rubbing on her hand stopped, and she saw that Raqi's cheeks had become tinted slightly red. The girl had taken on a self-satisfied smile, and Punica could feel the pride radiating off of her. Clearly, she very much liked it when that quality of hers was acknowledged. Warmth began to spill into Punica's core, and shortly thereafter, she was infected with the xenosophont's smile. She took her other hand and returned to patting Raqi's head, this time with all of the correct emotions that should have been included in such an action. When the landamaeri went back to trilling in delight, it filled Punica with a certainty that she had sorely needed. Whatever 'this' was, it was alright. She could not say the same about the future, but for now at the very least, both of them were safe. She was not going to hurt Raqi, and she could trust herself to navigate the upcoming conversation with her. Raqi trusted her to do that, and so she needed to trust herself in turn. "Thank you," she said, genuinely. "I needed that." "Mhm!" The girl let out a pleased noise of acknowledgement. "You're welcome. You've been the one looking after me through all my meltdowns so far; it's only fair that I return the favour." These words sent a twinge of discomfort through Punica's core, but she remained smiling. She did not like the thought of needing to accept help from a xenosophont- it was the role of the affini to help pet races, after all; not to be helped by them- but now was not the time to talk about that. "I certainly appreciate it. Now... Regarding what I was worrying about a few moments ago." The petting slowed, and she let her hand lower down from Raqi's head, as she met the girl's gaze. "What is the last thing you remember before falling asleep?" Punica inquired. "Oh!" Raqi's expression immediately went completely blank. "Uh, good question actually. I have got no idea why I can't remember; spontaneous amnesia is not a thing I can recall having happened to me before. Uhm..." Her lips pursed into an exaggerated thinking expression. "We were gonna do... You were gonna examine me, right? And then we were gonna talk about the Mobile Fleet and some other stuff, I think." She presumed this had not actually happened on account of the fact that she was still fully clothed. "Mhm, I see." Punica nodded. "And that is everything which you recall?" Raqi's eyes narrowed slightly. "Yeah? ...Uh, am I missing something?" The affini affixed her with a measuring gaze, and suddenly, Raqi felt as if something was very wrong. "In the time before you fell asleep, I was performing an eye exam on you." The plant spoke in a level tone, her eyes staring unflinchingly into Raqi's own. "Mid-way through the examination, the subject of the conversation drifted to the topic of hypnosis." Raqi's heart stopped.
TerraTranslate :: Raqi Marr :: Punica Granatum :: The Affini Compact :: Landamar Mobile Fleet :: Hormone Replacement Therapy :: The Chimera Module :: Affini :: Intersidera :: Posters :: Magnesium :: Wonderland :: The Hundredth Time: Part I :: Communication :: aftermath :: Physical Confrontation :: Garments :: Interspecies Comparisons :: Touch :: Equality :: Hypnokink ::