It Takes Time <To Be Properly Taken Apart> - Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Chapter Length: 7,300 wordsMarching To A Silent Song
Author's Note: Patch notes:
- Completely overhauled the code used to display mouseover encyclopedia entries in a way that allows their appearance to now vary from chapter-to-chapter, which was previously impossible. An example of this can now be found in the new Longbough entry in chapter 01. This did require recreating every hover-over tooltip in the story, though, and I'm almost certain I missed a few: so if you see any that just show up as uncoloured text with no background, please let me know!
- Additionally, created code that will allow for the use of non-google fonts! This is integral for getting proper fonts for Saltiltomeyin, affini, and the qouel language. These will start appearing in book 2 and onwards.
- Reworked the thoughtform display at the bottom of chapters for the second time in order to hopefully stop people from missing them
- Changed the way that multi-part thoughtforms are indicated. It should now be much easier to tell if a thoughtform has more than one part in it.
- Changed the way the Rending Talon generates its gravity to just be sci-fantasy artifiical gravity nonsense. This is a retcon and some small changes have been made to previous chapters to accommodate it, but really, the story was already written for as if the Talon had AG anyway; it was never shaped in a way that having either thrust or rotation gravity actually made any physical sense.
- Made the colouration of colons within encyclopedia entries consistent. They are now white on both sides rather than white on the left and gold on the right
- Wide variety of minor corrections to variable entries. Many icons have been changed, some entries have gained inherited context, and others have had typos or misinformation corrected
- Qualia.observer thoughtform has had its tooltips fixed, and some new dialogue has been added to help explain what the entries are actually meant to represent in-universe
- Added the Hypnosis thoughtform, which can be found within the Hypnokink thoughtform, or by clicking here
- Added the Posters thoughtform, which can be found at the end of chapter 07, or by clicking here. This thoughtform also has a follow-up, which can be accessed at the end of the chapter by using the password "kuruk".
- Implemented passwords for the remaining Hundredth Time thoughtforms. All password-locked thoughtforms now come with hints as to where their passwords can be found
- New encyclopedia entries for: Longbough in chapter 01, Longbough in ch02 and onwards, Cotyledon (chapter 16), ankalti and menshjran (Garments thoughtform), kmat which appears in a variety of places, catarun + sekevi (chapter 08 + kintypes thoughtform), Data Loss in a variety of chapters, Everbloom which appears in chapter 11, class-o (chapter 08), Ferals (chapter 12), biorhythms (chapter 09),
Before they did anything else, Punica suggested the two take a break in order to allow Raqi to get some food and water. It had been quite a while since she had eaten or drunk anything by this point, and she agreed this was probably a good idea. They therefore took a brief trip down to the Rending Talon's kitchen (which was just a different part of Raqi's bedroom), where Raqi prepared and then ate some defrosted sanchum berries with a side-dish of khebur seeds. "Y'know," Raqi said, through a mouthful of berry, "I think this is the first time I've ever done anything that could be actually referred to as 'aftercare.' This is honestly pretty neat." Punica gave her a concerned look. "Have none of your prior experiences of this variety involved any kind of aftercare at the conclusion?" The xenosophont shook her head, stuffing another berry into her mouth and continuing chomping. "Nah. I think that has more to do with the fact that stuff over text isn't generally as intense, though. I've just never really felt like I needed it." She wondered in hindsight if that had more to say about her less-than-great relationship with most of her partners than anything about text as a medium for hypnosis. "Well, I can guarantee you that anything which we do together will always involve ample opportunity for you to rest and recover afterwards," Punica said. "I will not allow you to risk overexerting yourself without taking a necessary rest period afterwards, and neither would I ever leave you before ensuring you were back to a stable emotional state." Something about the way Punica said all of this made Raqi realise that her words were not specifically meant to be reassuring, but were rather statements of fact. If she was going to get bullied by Punica, the plant was going to do it properly. "Yes ma'am," Raqi quipped, letting a note of amusement seep into her voice in response to the overly-authoritative tone of Punica's sentences. "Good girl. I am glad that you understand." She nearly spat her berry out. "Th- That was a joke! I-" Before she could say another word, a vine had snaked its way up her body and begun stroking down the tip of her chin to the base of her neck. Raqi's eyes went wide, and she instinctively swallowed the rest of the berry. The instant she did, the vine retracted, and an approving rustling emanated out from Punica's form. "You should also avoid talking with your mouth full," the affini spoke. "Presuming that your internal biology is also similar to that of Terrans, you risk choking upon your food by doing so." Raqi stared at her in complete and utter disbelief, her cheeks now nearly as red as the berry she had just finished eating. She seriously considered opening her mouth for some kind of a retort, but given how well her last attempt at such a thing had just gone, she ultimately decided against it; instead shaking her head and turning back to her bowl. That had been the last berry, it seemed, and she was now done eating. Punica noticed this as well, and took the opportunity to speak: "If you are finished, then I would like to resume from where we left off earlier." "Yeah, sure." Raqi tried to remember what the last thing she had been saying to Punica was. Oh, void. This is going to be one hell of an explanation. She resolved to try and get through this with only a minimum of blushing and stuttering, for the sake of avoiding the relentless teasing that the affini was likely to lather upon her otherwise. In the time she spent hesitating, she also noticed a familiar vine approaching her from just above the ground, which wrapped around her right arm and nestled up against the palm of her hand as she watched. Her internal voice turned to a dry deadpan: Ah, yes; the 'PvP is now enabled, squeeze hard if you would like to leave the battleground' vine. Trying to keep herself from smiling, she turned her attention back to Punica. "Right, so, to begin with, I need you to understand: The reason why I never mentioned this, beyond worrying that you were just going to instantly domesticate me if I brought it up, is because it sounds so batshit crazy when I try to explain it to anyone else." Already failing in her goal, Raqi's eyes flicked to the floor momentarily. "That and because it's very embarrassing. But uh- Okay, let me start at the beginning. So you know how, most societies the Affini domesticate- or, I mean I assume this is the case, I don't actually know for sure- but I assume most societies that you take over do not kink off of 'being domesticated' in nearly the same way that affini kink off of 'doing domestication', right?" Punica nodded, though she seemed hesitant. "I believe that is correct; although I am not entirely certain what you mean by us 'kinking off of it'?" Raqi had been avoiding looking at Punica, but at this, she turned towards her with an incredulous look on her face. "Really? I mean." She nodded skeptically at the plant. "This is like... Like, you know." She raised both arms wide to her sides. "This whole thing. Domestication. It is absolutely a sex thing for you plants, right?" The question took Punica completely out of nowhere, surprising her so much that the remainder of her dominant persona was knocked straight off. Was it, as Raqi put it, a 'sex thing'? She honestly had no idea. She wondered as if there may be some sort of cultural context to the xeno's usage of this term which she was missing, and that was making it hard to come up with an answer to this question. "I am honestly not sure," she eventually replied. "If you mean 'sex thing' in the sense that you are implying we domesticate new species in order to reproduce; then no, it is not." "No, no," Raqi shook her head quickly. "Not to reproduce. But like, for fun; of the kinky, sex kind." She was genuinely astonished that this did not seem to be computing to Punica so far, and wondered how that was even possible given everything the two of them had done so far. Punica's face strained. "I... I suppose so? I do not believe many- well-" She faltered yet again. "I... have vanishingly little experience with this topic, in truth. I am perhaps a very bad person to ask about this. ...But from my general understanding, affini society does not possess the strict delineation that many other cultures appear to between what they classify as 'reproductive behaviours' and everything else." Her arm opened, and several dozen flowers of all shapes and colours began to emerge three or four at a time; spreading out and then hovering a short distance away from her main limb. Seeing this, Raqi's gaze fixated on the flowers and she immediately took a step backwards, and seemed to be contemplating moving even further away- but the vine around her right arm tightened momentarily in order to stop her. "Relax," Punica instructed her. "I will not be using any of these on you; not right now, at least. I merely brought them out in order to illustrate a point." She gestured with her other arm towards the injector swarm. "These flowers, which we affini generally refer to as our 'injectors', are the most prominent reproductory leftover in our present biology. While we are still capable of reproducing, we generally do not do so frequently; for a wide variety of reasons. However, we still retain a number of drives and behaviours from the period of our species' history when such activities were of far greater significance." Now that Punica had said all of that, it occurred to her that domestication may in fact be more than a little bit of a sex thing. The urge which she had been fighting for the last three days to sink one or more of her injectors deep into Raqi's flesh was almost certainly an evolutionary leftover derived from her race's old reproductive behaviours. The way that her core seemed to thrum with a need so strong as to be almost able to override conscious thought was very reminiscent of what she knew of how other races acted when in the grip of their mating instincts. The difference in the affini's case was that the various equivalent drives which they experienced were supposed to be something they could control, but her experiences with them thus far had had not felt at all like that. Meanwhile, Raqi's face had just gone through several different expressions, during all of which she continued gawking at Punica's partially-unravelled arm. "Wait, so- You're telling me the drugs aren't just a thing you came up with later after becoming sapient or whatever- you evolved those? A-and you like, drugged each other to reproduce? H-how does that even work?" The plant chuckled. "Not quite. We originally reproduced with the aid of a species called the beeple, who were the very first race which we domesticated. At that point in our history, the only way in which we were capable of reproducing was via exchanging pollen between two individuals of our race. In order to do so more efficiently, we took to recruiting the beeple's assistance. We would entice them to come closer to us using xenodrugs and other chemicals or pheromones, then coat them in pollen and release them, at which time they would return to their hives and bump into other members of their species; inadvertently spreading the pollen they were covered in to the individual that they touched." "Once this exchange of pollen had occurred, the next time one of the beeple was caught by a different affini, that individual would be pollinated and become able to reproduce. It was therefore to our benefit to ensure that the beple were made as thoroughly addicted to, and conditioned to enjoy our presence as possible; in order to encourage them to return more often. Hence all of the drugs, and - later, I presume - the hypnosis as well." The look on Raqi's face when Punica had finished speaking might as well have been a drug to the affini. Her vines bristled with delight, and the corners of her human lips curled upwards to show rows of fanged teeth. "My, my. What an utterly adorable expression that is." Seeing this, Raqi brought her hands up to her face and covered it. "Y-You're going to make me go nonverbal again." "Ah." This statement was enough to calm Punica down, and she quickly sent a vine out to apologetically ruffle the xeno's hair. "Apologies, dear. I am enjoying this... quite a lot, as you may have noticed. It is making it a little bit hard for me to control myself. I would remind you to please make use of the vine on your right arm if I end up going too far, or if you would like me to slow down or stop; I promise that I will respect your boundaries in that regard." Raqi pulled down her hands and nodded enthusiastically. "I-I will. ...Or, well, I'll try- but I haven't been doing a very good job of remembering it so far, and, uh... part of the problem is my brain seems to freeze up so badly that it doesn't even occur to me to use it." It still felt so odd to her to be casually discussing things like this with Punica. Yet after their interaction earlier, in which Punica very easily could have non-forcefully domesticated Raqi but chose not to, she found herself much less worried than she had been. It helped an awful lot that Punica had now made it very clear that, whatever happened, she wasn't interested in destroying Raqi's personality. Perhaps she should have found that harder to believe, but right now she didn't feel any urge to be skeptical about it. It was probably in large part because, she realised, of how badly she had wanted to attain this level of safety with the affini. She had really wanted to be able to do what they were doing now without the horrible levels of anxiety she'd been suffering every time they flirted with each other for the last few days, and now that she finally could, she wasn't inclined to question it. "Hm." Back in the world outside of her head, Punica responded to Raqi's statement by pursing her lips. "That does pose something of a problem, yes. We shall have to try and think on a better solution some time." The thought of lacking a functional mechanism for Raqi to express discomfort or a desire to slow down through made Punica decidedly uncomfortable, but she wasn't sure what she could do to fix the problem right now. She could maybe have quickly hypnotised Raqi and given her a suggestion encouraging her to make use of the vine, but there were enough glaring issues with that idea that she quickly discarded it. "Eh." Raqi shook her head. "It's okay. I-I'm okay; for now, at least. Just, uhm... ugh, Inos." She let out a small laugh. "I'm not used to, like, getting teased this much. I've been teased before- hard, even- but this is- this is something else." The plant nodded agreeably. "I have never done this before, either. It is... very new to me as well." Raqi picked up on a hint of worry in her last sentence, and she noticed a disturbance in the way the vines Punica wasn't using were moving. That was enough to remind her of something that had taken place earlier in the conversation, and so she pulled herself together enough to ask: "Actually, yeah, uhm... So, I realise that, in all the time we've known each other, I've actually barely asked you anything at all about yourself yet." She suddenly sounded very awkward. "Before anything else, I, uh- I want to apologise for that. When we first met, I was busy trying to figure out if you were going to try and forcibly domesticate me, and then I, uh... well actually, to be honest, it's pretty much been that non-stop, interspersed with bits of exposition about me or where I'm from that I hoped would help convince you to not forcibly domesticate me." Punica brought a hand up, and shook her head in refusal. "Please, do not apologize. I could not possibly blame you for prioritising your own safety; that is exactly how I would want you to behave, in any given situation." She smiled, but the discomfort was still there. "At every point in our relationship so far, I have said or done whatever made the most sense to me at the time; every time thinking that, once the situation calmed down, I would sit down and discuss matters in more detail with you. Yet that time never seems to actually come- or if it does, something new arises mid-way and drags me away from whatever it was I wanted to say." "Yeeeaaaahhh." Raqi nodded multiple times. "This has very much been one of those relationships so far." Each one of them had a consideration that took precedence over everything else. For Raqi, it was avoiding forced domestication. For Punica, it was determining whether forced domestication was necessary for Raqi. It was from this conflict, the plant was starting to realise, that every single one of their problems had so far arisen. And yet even knowing that, she couldn't see an obvious solution to it. She couldn't just not domesticate Raqi if the situation called for it; and the issue was complicated quite a lot by the fact that she had now realised she wanted rather a lot to do it whether or not it was necessary. "Wait, hold on- I can see it happening now." Raqi's voice interrupted her thought process. "Uh. Before you say whatever thing you're thinking of that's probably going to make me freak out, or send us down another hour-plus rabbit hole: can I ask you something?" Punica put her thoughts on hold. "Of course you can, petal." "Thanks. So, you mentioned this being new to you just a minute ago." The little xeno started frowning. "I... I know you've told me that you're 'only' a hundred and twenty years old. But like, from how you talk, and how you act and everything, you- you seem so confident. I... I think I'm just struggling to understand how this can possibly be new to you?" This statement took Punica completely aback. "I- Is that how you perceive me?" Her tone was one of genuine shock. "Well, yeah? You keep hitting me with the whole 'I am the will of the Compact, prepare to be domesticated' thing. And also, you are, um-" Her blush returned once more. "-insanely hot and better at flirting than anyone I have ever met in my entire life- also wait please don't tease me for saying that or I will never get to finish talking." The vine that had been half way towards Raqi stopped in its tracks, and shrank reluctantly back to Punica's dress. "But what I really mean by that is- how can this possibly be new to you? Like, you- you must have done this before, right? With loads of other peop- well, xenosophonts, I guess." Punica shook her head. "If by 'this' then you mean the teasing and flirting, then no, I have not. You are the first xenosophont I have ever interacted with this way." Raqi stared at her. "That's bull. I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. No one gets as good at flirting as you are with no practise at all." The affini turned her hands upwards. "I do not know what to tell you; it is the truth. Everything that I know of how to interact with xenosophonts I have either learned from classes, or comes from biological instinct. The only practical experience I have in the matter comes from our time spent together, prior to which I have rarely interacted with xenosophonts outside of my medical work." Raqi slowly began to frown, tilting her head to the side in confusion. "Wait, but... Why, then? Why have you never done this before?" The expectation in her voice hurt. It was the same tone Punica had heard reflected in the voices of dozens, perhaps hundreds of affini whom she'd spoken to over the years. All had wondered the same thing: why had she not yet gotten around to taking a floret? It wasn't specifically unusual for an affini her age to have not had a floret yet, but it was unusual for one to show as little interest as she had, and it was something her peers never stopped commenting on. She had sometimes wondered if she was the only affini on the Longbough who'd never had some form of pet. Fuck. Raqi realised too late that she'd stuck her foot in it. Shit, that was not a good thing to say. W-what do I say, though? I don't have any idea why she's reacting this way! Her mind raced. Was there some cultural thing to do with this in the Compact that she'd just unknowingly walked into? The reason she had asked had been, she'd simply assumed all affini took florets. That was their whole thing, wasn't i- oh fuck. "Shit, I'm sorry," Raqi said at once. "I didn't mean to- I didn't mean to do the fucking, the uh- the 'why aren't you doing the thing everyone expects you to do' thing. I didn't mean it that way at all, I- I just assu-" She clamped her mouth shut. Shut the fuck up Raqi, that is *exactly* what everyone else says; you fucking moron. "I'm sorry." She took a steadying breath. Trusting her body more than her words, she quickly made her way over to Punica and wrapped her arms around the plant. "...Ah." Punica stared down at the small blue-and-yellow thing nestled tightly against her. She could feel the warmth of her body; the way that her feathers tickled softly against some of her vines, and the little movements that she made even as she remained mostly stationary. Seconds passed and she could feel Raqi relaxing from the proximity, and as much as she didn't want to, she did the same. "I... I do not want to take a floret," she spoke at last. "I have never taken one, and I did not- do not intend on doing so now. Ever since I came of age to be considered an adult within affini society, I have styled my life in ways that would allow me to avoid coming into contact with members of pet races; out of a concern that I might accidentally entice or enthrall one otherwise." "Inos," Raqi swore. "You... you were that worried about it?" "Yes." She turned her head to look down at the xenosophont. "Raqi, do you know how easy it is for us to break someone? I do not know what you imagine when I say those words, but from how you have acted in the last few days, I imagine you probably think it is probably some highly involved process." She shook her head. "It is nothing so complicated. There are a number of ways in which one can define 'breaking', with the most common being the moment when the fire of independence in a xenosophont goes out. But I personally consider that it comes much earlier than that. Breaking, in my mind, occurs at the moment when a sophont can no longer feasibly stop wanting to be around an affini." "To reach that threshold does not take any effort. For many, it comes the very first time they are given a class-A or class-C. They get a taste of xenodrugs, and their mind latches onto the pleasure that it gives them, and they can never go back again." She smiled sadly. "If that was all it was, I could simply not inject people, and then I needn't concern myself. But it does not stop there." She turned to look at Raqi. "Do you know why my eyes are so dull, Raqi?" The girl blinked repeatedly. "D-dull? Is- Is this a trick question?" Punica looked confused. "No? Why would it be?" Raqi's mouth fell open slightly. "...Because your eyes are probably the most mesmerising thing I've ever looked at in my life?" The plant laughed bodily. "These things which you call eyes are not, in fact, eyes at all. They are organs known as hypnotic centers; mesmeric focalpoints intended to be used for inducing xenosophonts into trance. When I created mine, I opted to make them as colourless and ineffective as possible. What you consider to be 'the most mesmerising thing you've looked at in your life' is my best attempt to make something non-captivating to look at." The landamaeri's jaw fell the rest of the way open. "W- W-wait. Then, if your eyes are toned down, does that mean..." Punica smirked. "Yes, Raqi. If you think these are enthralling; consider that you are actually capable of looking away from them. Were I to have not toned down their effectiveness substantially, every time you looked me in the eye, you would be unable to look away until I gave you permission to do so." Raqi shifted uneasily. She found herself struggling to imagine what the affini was describing; Punica's eyes were already captivating in a way she wouldn't have believed anything could ever be while in a sober state of mind, and there had been times she had struggled to tear her gaze away from them. Most of those had admittedly been while she was either under the influence of one of the plant's compounds, or when she had been feeling particularly submissive. But if this was the effect that a watered-down hypnotic center could have on her brain, then the thought of what a proper one would do was nothing short of terrifying. "Couldn't you have chosen not to have those eye- hypnotic centers on your body, then?" Raqi inquired. "I could have, yes. However, while I do want to avoid enticing xenosophonts, I also do not want to unnecessarily unnerve them, and I have found that Terrans - the most common xeno species on the Longbough, where I was stationed up until we met - feel much more comfortable around affini whose visual appearances closely resemble theirs. To that end, it was necessary that I have something on my face that their pattern recognition faculties would interpret as eyes." Raqi nodded. "Could you not have made them, y'know, non-hypnotic, though?" Punica regarded her with a patient gaze. "You are missing the point, Raqi." She shut her eyes, a sound akin to a sigh running throughout the empty space around her core. "It is not just my eyes and my injectors. It is no one part, or two, or three, or ten- It is everything. The capacity to entice is present in every single aspect of my physical form: it exists within my sounds, my scent, my movements, my appearance. It can be felt in the processes which pump fluids throughout my vines, in the thrumming of my core, even in the movements of the fluids in my injector sacs." The plant opened her eyes again, and looked down at Raqi. The look which she wore on her face seemed to freeze the xenosophont in place, her entire body going stiff and rigid all of a sudden for reasons she did not understand. Prior to then, she had conceived of Punica as strange and at times incomprehensible, but ultimately still the same kind of lifeform as her. Now, though, that mask seemed to slip off. All of a sudden, Raqi felt as if she was looking up at something completely other; a thing that she did not understand not for a lack of knowledge, but that by its nature she simply could not understand. "There is no single aspect of my physical presence which is not enticing." The affini's words seemed to flow over and around Raqi like the wind itself, carving a path through all other sound in the room so that only it could be heard. "The mere act of being in the same location as me, even without interaction, would be enough to begin enthralling a xenosophont." Punica raised one hand, and Raqi instinctually moved to watch it as she did. "What point would there be in me removing one possible method of captivation from my body, when a hundred more would still remain?" Raqi was silent for several seconds, during which time no thought passed through her mind. Something must eventually have shifted in her brain, because before too long could pass, she snapped abruptly back to reality; realising she had been frozen. "Wh-" She stammered out, then stopped, shaking her head to try and get her bearings. "Wait, wait. I get what you're saying here, but- what? That-" She did it again. "You can't just enthrall someone by simple proximity to them- that doesn't make any sense. Do you mean that, like, you give off the scent of drugs or something; and you sound like, I don't know, a metronome?" Punica hesitated. She realised, suddenly, that she had given away more than she intended to in her answer. She had allowed her emotions to get the better of her and become carried away in her explanation, and had accidentally mentioned something that she had not intended to. "...It is a figure of speech," she lied. "None of the scents produced by any of my component flora are inherently intoxicating, though I know affini for whom this is the case. As for sound, yes, that is one of the mediums which I was referring to. It would be theoretically possible for a xenosophont who stayed too close to me for a prolonged period of time to fall into trance from the sound of my leaves moving, for example." Raqi frowned. She suddenly felt that same odd, uncomfortable feeling in the back of her head that she had felt last time Punica tried to hide something from her. "That's... not what you said just a second ago. You said that they could get enthralled without you even interacting with them; being close enough to you to hear your leaves rattling is a pretty loose definition of not interacting. Also, you explicitly mentioned your scent in that explanation you gave. If all your smells are non-intoxicating, what did you mean by that, then?" Dirt. Punica's vines fell still. She had underestimated Raqi's perceptiveness. Whether it was natural keen senses or the girl's inexplicable synchronisation with her biorhythm, she couldn't tell; but the end result was the same. Now that she had been caught, though, she didn't know what to do except double down and hope that she would stop pushing. "It- Raqi, I was simply being hyperbolic. Surely you are familiar with the behaviour?" She's lying, Raqi realised. The realisation that she could tell shocked her almost as much as that Punica was doing it in the first place. She wasn't usually good at picking up on things like this in conversation, and normally, she was sure she would have just dismissed Punica's comments as imprecise use of language like she was trying to explain them away as. But for some reason, right now she was absolutely sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the plant was trying to hide something from her. Why would she be hiding anything from me, though? I don't understand this. She already came within an inch of domesticating me an hour ago, then didn't. What could she possibly have to still be anxious about right now? The implications this thought had bothered her more than the lie itself, and a mixture of frustration and threatened aggression began to seep into her voice. "No you weren't. For starters, I've never seen you exaggerate something to the point of including inaccurate information before; you don't use flowery language like that. And also, this clearly means way too much to you; you wouldn't just randomly go off track like that and make something up while talking about a personal issue like this. The example of injectors and eyes that you gave earlier was way too specific for you to just make one up later on; that makes no sense." Punica realised far too late that she had made a horrible mistake. It was most definitely the former that she had fallen victim of; the xenosophont glaring a hole through her human head was clearly just naturally sharp in such a way that she could pick up on even small conversational inconsistencies. Had she known this, Punica would have chosen her words much more carefully; but she had acted without that knowledge, and now, she could see that there was no way out of this situation. Raqi felt incredibly angry, and more than anything, threatened. Why the fuck would you pick now of all times to do this?! We'd just gotten things to calm down, for the first time in like four days or whatever, and now you start being weird about shit? She was furious. She had put up with so much stress in the last few days, and had been so relieved to finally be through the worst of it, that the thought that Punica might have another horrifying realisation to share with her was rapidly pushing her into an unstable emotional state. "Why are you trying to hide this from me?" She demanded, still doing her best to keep her voice level. Blighted roots, I have made such a freezing mess of this. Punica could see in Raqi's eyes that the xenosophont would not be willing to accept any kind of non-answer. Rot and dirt, why- why did I have to make this mistake now?! Everything was going so well, and I pick this point to let slip about biorhythms? She cursed herself once again for her carelessness. I need to think. How can I explain this to her in a way that will not undo all of the progress we have made over these last days? As a rule of thumb, the affini did not generally reveal the existence of biorhythms to independent xenosophonts. The reason for this was not because of any innate desire to keep it a secret; rather, it had been discovered that most non-floret xenosophonts tended to react very poorly to the knowledge that an affini could mentally influence them through their mere presence alone. Most independents believed that an affini could only affect change upon them through direct means, and tended to think about such things through the lens of methods like xenodrugs and hypnosis. But the truth was far subtler than that. In reality, so long as a xenosophont was directly perceiving an affini in any way, no matter what sense it through or with, they would begin to fall under the influence of that affini's rhythm. Every part of an affini's body was in constant, unending motion, and each part answered to the same unheard song; the melody which they called their biorhythm. This melody was inherently cognitohazardous, and could be imparted onto a sophont simply by being exposed to it via any sensory medium. If a xenosophont could see an affini, then small patterns in their appearance and the way that they moved would begin conveying information to them without conscious awareness. If they could smell them, then the scent which they gave off would gradually cause those who inhaled it to begin producing whatever their race's equivalent of a bonding hormone was. If they could hear them, the tempo and cadence of the sounds would begin entraining them to have their own internal bodily processes synchronize with those of the affini. If they could touch them and feel the ebb and flow of liquids in and out of their limbs, then they would commonly find that the touch and texture of the affini's body became more and more pleasing over time, and they found themselves increasingly wishing to be touched by and in prolonged physical contact with them. In Terrans and other species with a strong sense of rhythm, the effect was particularly devastating. Terran brains produced small amounts of dopamine whenever they observed the completion of a predictable rhythm. This was one of the primary explanations for why Terrans found music so enchanting, and the same phenomenon also applied to affini. Every time the leaves on affini's body swayed in the exact same pattern and a Terran observed it, their brain would release a tiny amount of dopamine, and they would find themselves registering the movement as pleasant without consciously realising why. Over time, this would begin conditioning them to associate their affini's rhythm with the release of pleasant chemicals, and so they would come to desire them more and more. In the same vein, the release of euphoriants would become more consistent the more familiar that they grew with their affini's rhythm, as their brain became able to predict the patterns further in advance. The process could take anywhere from weeks to months, but in many cases, it would complete without the affected sophont ever realising it was happening; not until they were too deeply submerged to care any longer. For several days now, this was what Punica had feared having happen to Raqi. The girl had seemed to become entrained to her rhythm faster than she had ever imagined was possible, and Punica was utterly terrified by the thought that she might accidentally break the girl's will even while actively trying not to. The fact that Raqi could seemingly still synchronise with her rhythms even when she held them as far apart as she could had only made this fear worse, and she wondered how the girl would react to her telling her about it. She is more afraid of having her identity erased than anything. I tried earlier to show her that I have no intention of doing such a thing, but... How was she supposed to tell Raqi that it might not be her choice? The last thing I would ever want is to take away the unique qualities that make her 'her'! But I cannot keep her safe from the fact that simply being near me affects her in certain ways! It was quite possibly the most terrifying part of being affini, Punica found. To be affini was already to be burdened with the all-important duty of caring for xenosophonts; the single most important task that there was in the universe. It was something that, by all rights, should only ever be approached by one who was fully ready and equipped for it. And yet, her very biology made it so that waiting indefinitely was not possible. She had done everything she could to keep herself away from what few independents there were on the Longbough, and here she was, at risk of enthralling one nevertheless. Curse the roots of this body! Why must I be unable to stop myself from affecting outcomes which I in no way desire?! Did she really not desire it, though? She thought again of the myriad panic attacks that she had seen Raqi go through. If the sophont were to become attuned to her rhythm, it would be effortless to ensure that she never again suffered such an occurrence. At the merest sign of anxiety, Punica would be able to simply wrap her will around her like a blanket, and suffuse her with enough comfort and relaxation to draw her back from the brink of any emotional storm. It would make caring for her so very easy, if she could just dictate what Raqi felt at any given time. What did it matter if the price was a few parts of her self? All they were doing was causing her unnecessary pain- "Punica!" Punica's attention returned to reality with a sudden, core-wrenching jolt. She had never heard Raqi shout before, and it came as such a stark departure from her normal speaking voice that it threw the affini off. The sound had been starkly different to the xenosophont's usual androgynous tone; decidedly masculine, and both loud and stern enough to verge on frightening.
Raqi's heart was beating in her chest. She felt stressed almost to the point of panic. Don't do this, she pleaded silently with Punica. Do not do this. Whatever stupid fucking thing you're thinking of saying, I beg of you; please do not do this. It had all been going so, so well up until now. She had thought that things were maybe, just maybe, going to finally settle down; and now the plant had stood there spacing out for nearly fifteen entire seconds without saying so much as a word to her. Please don't fucking do this. Her head rang as she awaited the words from Punica; whatever eldritch sentence would emerge from her mouth and, with a force that no mere string of sounds should ever have possessed, twist the circumstances surrounding the two of them irreparably. Raqi had seen it happen so many times: A situation that she was perfectly happy with, that she would do anything just to keep the way it was, would be annihilated in a single sentence by another person. Every single time, she felt herself wishing dearly that they could have just not spoken those words, could have just let her keep on living in a moment of peace and happiness just once, but it never was. "Alright." The plant spoke. Her tone was not what Raqi had expected to hear; she sounded... stressed? And uncomfortable, as well. Raqi had expected some kind of dire pronouncement - perhaps that Punica had decided for whatever reason that she must be domesticated, she didn't know why but, when did anyone ever need a reason to fuck her over - but this was the voice of someone being forced to concede to something; not someone in a position of strength. "I am sorry. Please, calm down, and I will answer you." Something in Punica's voice hit Raqi like she had been stung by an insect. Why- Why does she sound threatened? She was taken aback. That doesn't make any sense. She's an affini, she- why would she ever use that tone around me? She was certain that she must have been imagining it. There was no way that a being this powerful- who could decide Raqi's fate with the flick of a vine- could ever be made to feel discomfort by her. She was sure that it must just be her over-sensitive pattern recognition kicking off. ...was that really all it was, though? If Punica wasn't upset, she was doing a brilliant job of pretending. The plant seemed to have almost shrunk, and she was looking at Raqi with an expression the girl could scarcely have imagined her wearing. It brought to her mind memories of the times when she had seen others look at her with such emotions on her faces, and she felt her chest clenching as if someone had submerged it in icy water. She had to hold back the urge to let out a hiss. Fuck off, brain. This is not the time for getting dysphoric about loud voices. She hated immensely that the one thing she could not do with her voice was be loud while sounding androgynous. Any time she needed to raise her voice, she was forced to revert back to her masculine tone. She remembered what her father had used to sound like when- I said fuck OFF! She rode out the uncomfortable pang of disgust that seemed to worm its way through her torso, forcing her gaze to remain fixated on Punica despite the strong urge to turn it down to the ground. "Fine." Every ounce of force in her tone had vanished. Her voice cracked slightly when she spoke, and she was forced to stop and swallow after saying just the one word. "But don't try and lie to me, because you're terrible at it and I'll know if you do." "I never intended to lie to you." There was unmistakeable hurt in Punica's voice. "I just... I did not know how to brooch this topic with you, without running the risk of it- of making you uncomfortable." What? This answer made no sense to her, and she was about to react angrily, but Punica continued speaking before she could. "The other reason is that I, myself, do not know how to feel about it." All of a sudden, her emotions shifted once again; the bubbling anger vanishing as quickly as it had appeared, replaced instead with burgeoning sympathy. She let her tone relax even further, though it still remained somewhat defensive. "What are you talking about?" Punica, on the other hand, grew even more visibly uncomfortable. "I have been worrying about this ever since it first became apparent to me that I would be forced to spend a prolonged period of time with you. I- I thought at first that I would have more time before it became an issue, but for reasons I do not understand, the process is proceeding faster than I had thought possible-" "'The process?" The wording Punica used her was downright concerning, and Raqi's eyes widened with alarm. "What- Punica, [what the fuck are you talking about? What process?!" The plant gritted her teeth. "Biorhythmic entrainment. The process of a xenosophont's internal rhythms becoming synchronized with those of an affini." In an instant, Raqi's expression went completely blank. The answer Punica had given was completely unlike any of those she had considered, and as a result, she found herself entirely nonplussed. "Uh..." She let out a noise of confusion, brows slowly furrowing. "What is a 'biorhythm'?"
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 :: Speaking :: ahftrojn,lpijmnhfkg ::