It Takes Time <To Be Properly Taken Apart> - Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Chapter Length: 4,100 wordsThe Flame Of Independence
What made a person a person? It was something which Raqi had spent a lot of time wondering about. When she was younger, she had been very attached to the idea of free will. The thought that she existed as a kind of distinct identity had been incredibly important to her, and things that threatened that view had frightened her immensely. One particular topic that had sent great anxiety through her had been the issue of freedom of choice. Over time, she had become aware that landamaeris did not seem to possess a great deal of actual agency in their decisionmaking process. They could in a technical sense choose between options presented to them, but what they would choose was dictated by factors that they had no control over. In particular, it seemed as if their actions were in large part directed by chemical incentive-aversive processes; systems in which their brains would release reward chemicals when they did something it wanted them to repeat, or inflict pain upon them if they did something it did not like. Right now, the existence formerly known as Raqi Marr was being drowned in reward chemicals. Whether what she was experiencing was the result of actual chemistry, or some other form of mental manipulation, she had no idea. She had no idea about anything; there was no longer enough of 'her' left to actually analyse or provide commentary on any of the things she was currently experiencing. The 'observing self', as it was referred to in certain branches of landamaeri psychology, had been rendered completely nonverbal by the absolute deluge of sensation currently being funnelled into her body. She felt warm. She felt safe. She felt happy. She felt unbelievably happy. She felt so happy that part of her thought she was going to die, but that part was immediately silenced within a moment of piping up. Her self, she thought, was melting. She was being melted by the presence currently pressing in against her mind, and she had no desire to resist it. The idea that she ever could have resisted it in the first place had been a joke. She had known it was at least partially foolish at the time, but the extent of her self-delusion had been entirely opaque to her; and in hindsight, it was almost comical. What hope could she ever have had of resisting this? She had spent her entire life constructing a door in her mind specifically to let an influence like this in. It had been one of her life's greatest projects, and the door stood as perhaps her most beloved treasure; a way for her to render herself completely, utterly vulnerable if she wished to do so. In the past, there had never been reason to do so, but she had yearned for it more deeply than anything else she could think of. And so how could she ever have possibly believed that when Punica knocked on the door, promising to open it up and fill her with every emotion and sensation she had ever dreamed of, she would even contemplate saying no? Her consciousness brushed lovingly up against the white light that had infiltrated her mind, and she received a pulse of thought-obliterating pleasure in response. The sensation was, she knew without any hesitation, breaking her. It felt too good, in such a way that she was absolutely certain her mind was not capable of defying it. Every second that it remained pressed against her awareness, it was passively rewiring her neural circuitry; making every other type of pleasure she had felt in the past feel irrelevant and empty in comparison to this. It hadn't quite gotten all the way there yet, but she knew that if she spent a little while like this, she would never be able to want anything else in life again.
Punica shivered, her mouth having dropped fully open. Her vines flailed without conscious input in an utter mess, writhing around on the floor like snakes. Her body was wholly inundated with bliss the likes of which she had ever known. Her mind felt like it was submerged in warm, hot honey that was gradually melting away all reason and rationality; beckoning her to step further in and lose the rest of herself into its enrapturing depths. The source of the honey was Raqi Marr. Several of her tendrils had wrapped around the girl, and the sensations that were being transmitted through the sophont's body into hers were what was doing this to her. The girl had become, in essence, some sort of tactile-sensory object which directly radiated pleasure out towards Punica. Every time she touched another vine against the creature, the sensation intensified, and the urge to press more and more of her body against hers grew even stronger. What... is this? It took every ounce of her concentration to retain enough presence of mind to think in the face of such overpowering ecstasy. What am I feeling right now? This is not... My injectors could never give me a feeling like this. One vine rubbed unconsciously against her core, sending little shivers through her. Pleasant as they would have been normally, they paled in comparison to the bliss-imparting white noise currently filling her brain to the brim. I- I cannot be feeling this. I- I do not have the biological faculties to feel this. This is too much for affini reward circuitry. It might have made sense for her to be feeling this way if she had plied Raqi with two or three dozen injections, but even then, this was the wrong type of feeling. It wasn't physical in the way that using her injectors was; it was much more clearly emotional. It was centered in her core, and seemed to manifest more as what she interpreted as an impossibly strong feeling of love and attachment. Her attention had already turned away from her photoreceptors and gone almost entirely inwards, and her perception was starting to be replaced with a mixture of vague colours, emotions, and abstract concepts. Some were hers, but the vast majority seemed to be flowing out from the xenosophont whom she was currently enthralling. Are these... Raqi's feelings? Is this what she is feeling right now? ...But how is it possible that I would know that? I should not be able to feel what she is feeling. Affini can extend their own biorhythms, but we cannot pick up on those of other species; not ones as weak as Raqi's is, at least. Yet even as she thought it, that seemed to be exactly what was happening. Somehow, she had begun synchronizing with Raqi's rhythm, and it was creating a sort of feedback loop that was gradually turning her consciousness blind with delight. She could feel herself getting weaker, the urge growing to let all control fall away and to immerse herself completely in the instinctual behaviours that she could feel this situation awakening in her. She could feel just how good her xenosophont was feeling right now. In this circumstance, it was impossible to argue that she was doing anything other than the right thing. This was, on a foundational level, what she was meant to do as a lifeform. She was an affini: her purpose in the universe was to make xenosophonts feel this good. If she was doing this right now, then that meant that everything in her little corner of the universe was right. For the first time, everything was completely, perfectly in place. Nothing was wrong, and nothing needed to change. She could simply let this play out, safe and secure in the knowledge that right now, she was a good affini. That thought broke the last of her self control, and she slipped the rest of the way down into instinct. She reached out with her rhythms and sent a pulse of emotion towards Raqi, encoding within it a mere fraction of the love and warmth that she felt for her in that moment. The reaction she felt through her vines was enough to send all of her points of vision flickering into starburst patterns for a few seconds, a sound like creaking wood emanating from her core as the lights within it grew momentarily brighter. She needed more of the feeling, and to get it, she needed to make Raqi feel better. More vines wrapped around the xenosophont, lifting her from the ground and pulling her closer to Punica. There wasn't so much as an ounce of resistance in the girl's form, her body having gone completely limp; her eyes rolled back and unfocused. Yet, the affini could tell that she was still completely aware, as the moment she began pulling her closer, she felt another wave of affirmation flowing out from Raqi into her, confirming that this was what the creature wanted. Vines brushed through the girl's feathers and against all of her exposed skin, still restrained enough not to touch anywhere under her clothes. Punica's senses honed in on Raqi's, looking for any dissatisfaction, but she found only adoration. Good. Verbal communication between the two of them was impossible like this, but it seemed as if they could speak to each other through their emotions. As the moments passed, Punica felt as if she were growing more used to what was happening, and it became easier to read nuance in the responses that she was receiving from her little bird. Warmth. Comfort. Eagerness. Desire. Vulnerability. Those were the primary emotions which Raqi was projecting out towards Punica right now, but there were also weaker ones, convalescences of more nuanced feelings in the background. A sense of yielding and permissiveness, a feeling that with every passing moment the girl was opening more and more of herself up to allow the space to be filled with Punica's rhythms, as well as a heady docility. The latter registered to Punica as a warm yellow, tinted with a light green that lead into a bright pink which felt akin to something slowly folding under a great strength. She sensed that it was representative of Raqi's will; despite everything, the girl was somehow still largely intact, and had merely been rendered docile and obedient by the force of Punica's rhythms. Yet that was only the first stage, as with every moment that passed, her song continued to seep deeper into the xenosophont, changing her colours to be more in line with those of Punica's. If it went on for long enough, Raqi's palette would become an extension of Punica's. The xenosophont, she could sense, somehow knew this; and the thought made her giddy. When Punica thought of it, she felt Raqi's presence pressing up against her; like a small animal nuzzling closer to a warm fireplace. She felt it crawling closer with each passing moment, taking slow but forceful movements towards her in an attempt to bury itself inside of her. It pushed aside vines with no effort at all, the muscles within them turning to jelly at the slightest touch by it, and nothing could stand in its way as it tried to find its way deeper and deeper inside. Punica responded by pulsing back a wave of affirmation, safety, and, after a moment of hesitation, control. Raqi thrilled at the last one. The girl's presence seemed to stretch out, twisting and arching in ecstasy, before pushing in closer with renewed vigor. Every little bit of distance that it travelled brought it further into Punica's control, and she could sense that it wanted to be as deep in as it could get. Burning need radiated out from every part of it; a desperate desire to be utterly surrounded, ensconced, held tight and rendered unable to move. In her mind's eye, Punica saw an image of Raqi's silhouette - replaced with a featureless, barely humanoid variant, formed of golden light - nestled amidst a bed of vines, curled up in a ball and breathing softly. She was trying with all of her force to make her way to that place, so that she could lay down and entrust every ounce of herself forever more to her affini. How, after seeing that, could she possibly say no? Punica allowed her form to open, and pulled Raqi even closer; dragging the xenosophont's body over to her until it was pressed right against her core. The sensations that she felt then were beyond words: Raqi's arms and legs moved to instinctively wrap around the glowing, beating organ at the heart of her body, and the sense of rightness that it brought her was so strong that her humanoid form began to decohere instantly; falling apart as she was unable to muster the energy needed to maintain it. Every vine, every flower, began acting on instinct; wrapping themselves around and cocooning the precious little thing that was right now pressed up against the very centre of Punica's being. It was perfection. Simple, pure, and untainted; a coalescence of every positive emotion and sensation that could be found in the universe. In that one moment, Punica did not think it was possible for her to feel better than she did right then. She almost worried that she might break and lose her sanity under the weight of how good it felt, but she kept herself together, because she needed to stay in one piece for Raqi's sake. She would do whatever it took from now on to look after this sophont, even if it meant denying herself the greatest extent of this pleasure. A moment came, shortly thereafter, where she felt the creature finally arrive in the nest it had been seeking. There was a shift in Raqi's rhythms, as the last little bits of tension seemed to evaporate, and a listlessness dawned in their place. The girl's presence seemed to lose its cohesion, her awareness starting to spread outwards and grow vague, as cracks formed in it and were filled with even more of Punica's rhythm. The creature let out the rhythmic equivalent of a sigh of delight as it yielded completely and utterly, and Punica's song filled the last parts of its vessel. The process was complete. Raqi was now bound in body, mind, and soul to her. Or, she was at this moment; but as the thought brushed against the surface of Punica's mind, she realised there was something missing. More than a minute had passed, and Raqi had indeed become fully entrained to her rhythm, but she could somehow tell that the attunement was only surface-deep. It hadn't yet fully sunk in in such a way as to be inescapable, and if removed from her presence now, Raqi would likely return to her past self after only a matter of hours. That absolutely would not do. She could not ever allow the poor thing to return to the cold, loveless existence that she had known prior to this moment. To let her ever return to that state of loneliness would be the height of cruelty, and Punica would not abett such a thing. She wondered, therefore, how she could best go about permanently binding the girl to her will. She reached out with a probing tendril of intent towards Raqi, brushing apart strands of her consciousness in order to look for what existed at a deeper level. It took her a few moments to figure out what she was doing; she was still feeling rather than thinking, and it was difficult to conceptualize what it was that she was even looking for. But eventually, she remembered something; a metaphor she had heard spoken by yet another colleague some years ago. It was said that feral independent sophonts possessed something akin to a flame of independence which burned deep within their minds, and that the moment they truly became florets was when this flame was snuffed out. Raqi most definitely must possess such a thing, Punica reasoned, and it was this which served to prevent her from letting the love she was currently immersed in fully saturate her being. Communicating this idea as best she could to Raqi through her rhythms, she felt something in response. It was a combination of emotions; a mixture of thoughts and feelings that somehow coalesced to give rise to a visual image. Punica was quite certain that she couldn't actually be seeing this, and that it was an interpretation created by her mind, but whatever it was must have been at least partly similar to however Raqi herself perceived it. The visualisation in mind was that of a mountain; or, perhaps an iceberg would have been more accurate. It floated atop a vast, endless sea, the structure formed wholly of ice, and in its heart was a cave. In that cave, Punica sensed, was what she was looking for. She pushed her presence forward, intent on entering into the cave. Yet as she did, she felt Raqi's rhythms lurch. The comfort that had surrounded her and engulfed her was suddenly broken, and a wave of panic pushed in towards Punica; urging her not to proceed. The affini was momentarily confused. She supposed that Raqi must have become frightened when she realised what she intended to do: it made sense that she would have anxiety about allowing her to make this situation permanent. But there was no need for it. Punica sent another, much stronger pulse of warmth and security, the emotions flooding outwards and drowning the fear that had bubbled up in the xenosophont's mind. The resistance faded away, and the girl's head fell back onto the nest; allowing Punica to proceed inside. It was cold within the cave; or, rather, Raqi's ambient emotions grew cooler as Punica entered into it. Despite the pulse she had just sent, she could feel various parts of the sophont's body tensing up with anxiety and other discordant emotions. She continued to soothe them, but could not seem to drive them all the way away as she kept on walking. Part of her wondered why Raqi had suddenly become so resistant, but she presumed it was just yet another misplaced anxiety. There would be time aplenty for her to wipe away all of them in the future. Eventually, she made her way to the bottom of the cave. There, she found a small hollow which the ice had not seemed to reach into. It was born of a deep grey stone, and in its heart was a single brazier; burning bright with a tiny, flickering flame. This, she reasoned, must be Raqi's flame of independence. She took a step towards it, but was forced to stop as she was struck with an even stronger wave of rejection from the sophont. The response went beyond panic, this time; it verged on outright dread. The xenosophont's mind had woken up enough to push back against her biorhythm, and that vague consciousness transmitted a single thought to her, manifesting as an emotion: Misunderstanding. Misunderstanding? Punica didn't know what Raqi meant by that. That was the one problem with communicating by pure emotion; it could be very vague, and the lack of specificity could prove troublesome at times like these. Misunderstanding. Misunderstanding. Misunderstanding. The emotion pulsed again and again at Punica, accompanied by a terrible fear and the image of eyes held wide open. The sheer strength of the emotional response caused the affini to hesitate momentarily, but once again, she used her rhythms to overpower the girl's anxiety. The force required was enough to momentarily shake her from her trance, and the following words took shape in Punica's mind: Hush, little one. Everything will be well. You are safe; and from now on, you will always be safe. Rejection. Misunderstanding. Pleading. The response she received was not the one she had hoped for, and this time, Punica could not force it down. The girl was beginning, somehow, to desynchronize with her; so strong was the reaction to the perceived threat of Punica extinguishing this flame. The affini knew she had to act quickly, or she would lose this chance. I am sorry, little one. I wish that this did not frighten you so. But I promise that after this, you will never have to be scared again. She took another step forwards and extended a vine. Pressing the tip of the vine down against the flame, she extinguished it. The moment the flame went out, the light it had cast across the inside of the cave vanished. The ambient air temperature began to drop, and within moments, the inside of the cave was feeling as cold as- no, even colder than the rest of the iceberg. Almost immediately, Punica realised that something was wrong. She reached out with her rhythm, trying to fill Raqi with the same warmth she had done earlier, but it had no effect. It was as if, all of a sudden, the xenosophont couldn't even hear her. A moment later, a cold wind began blowing in through the entrance of the cave. She turned back towards the tunnel, and as she did, snow started to pelt through it; little flakes at first, then within seconds, enough for it to have grown into a blizzard. The cold spread all throughout her mind, radiating off of Raqi the way that the warmth and bliss had earlier, and spreading out into Punica's form. It was not only mental this time, however- it was somehow also physical. The blizzard was hurting her. She tried to pull back, the pain spreading outwards into every one of her vines, circling in around her core- Punica's eyes shot open. Every inch of her physical form radiated agony the likes of which she had never felt. She tried to pull back, tried to flail and move away from Raqi, but she was unable to do so. The cold which had engulfed her in her mind had spread to her real body, and she realised immediately why: she was encased from root to leaf in a massive, jagged chunk of ice. Cold from the frozen water was seeping into her vines and grafts, killing dozens of her leaves with every second that passed. Many of her outermost growths were already wilting away, her body not having been designed for such low temperatures. Panic spiked through her as her mind raced, trying to figure out what had happened- no, more importantly, how to get out of this. She couldn't move. She couldn't move- There was movement beneath her. Her core, she realised, wasn't frozen. There was a small hollow left around it where the ice had not touched, and something there was moving; crawling its way out from her through a single opening in the glacier. As she watched, Raqi staggered outwards, body arched forward and limping, one hand wrapped around the other arm. Upon clearing the ice, she stood part way up, and Punica caught sight of her face. The girl looked like she was about to be sick. She stared at a fixed point on the floor, her expression wide-eyed and dissociative. She did not move for several seconds, and when she finally did, it was to turn and stare up at Punica with shaking features. Punica could not move. She wanted to respond, to say something, but she couldn't. The only thing she could do was flick her eyes towards Raqi's. The moment she did so, however, the xeno's eyes widened even further. She held still for a moment, gait shifting backwards, and then she turned and began to run.
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 :: Pretheya :: Magic ::