It Takes Time <To Be Properly Taken Apart> - Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Chapter Length: 7,200~ words

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Contest Of Force

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Vines curled around Raqi's arms and legs, pressing her against the back wall. "Wait, wait, please," she begged, thrashing and squirming with all of her strength, but there wasn't so much as an ounce of give. "Please, just wait."
A needle hung in the air, less than an inch from her neck. The affini to whom it belonged stared down at her, its face completely expressionless.
"T-tell me why," she sputtered out. "W-what criteria h-have I fit, t-to deserve this?"
"Why?" It repeated, echoing the question. "That is what I ought to be asking you." The creature knelt down, reaching out to cup Raqi's head with one hand. "Why are you so afraid of this?"
Her head jolted backwards, trying desperately to move away from the touch- but it was futile. "B-b-because I don't want to die! If y-you drug me, then I'm going to cease to exist!"
"Why is that?" The creature asked, its voice as still as the surface of a lake.
"Bh-" Raqi's breath caught. "Because you'll take away a-all my pain, a-and- and all my suffering- and you won't let me do any of it! You'll- you'll fix everything for me, and- and everything that I've worked for will have been for nothing!" Tears started streaming down her face. Her speech started to dissolve, individual words being broken apart by hiccuping sobs. "I've tried so hard! I've done everything I c-c-could to make it better! I've never once wallowed! Everything... I've ever done... has all been for this..."
The creature leaned in closer, its golden-brown eyes glimmering faintly as it regarded her. "Why would it be a bad thing to have all of that come to an end, petal?"
The words struck Raqi with a jarring effect. "Wh- What?" The word came out in a burble of confusion. The sheer incomprehensibility of the question was enough to momentarily lessen her fear, and her mind was distracted trying to come up with an answer. "B- because-"
"Isn't the point of all of this for your pain to end?" The plant's voice was low and steady; not at all terrifying in the way Raqi had expected it to be. It was like a stream in the way that it seemed to flow through all of the adrenaline and terror that was flooding her system; contrasting against it and parting it down the middle, in a way that gave it a bizarrely fixating effect. "That was why you came here, was it not? To find someone who could help relieve you of your burden; so that you would no longer have to shoulder all of this weight by yourself."
Raqi fell still. Her mind was empty; not from hypnotic influence, but rather from sheer confusion. She didn't understand what was happening. Hadn't the affini been about to inject her? If so, why was she- no, more to the point, what was she supposed to say to this? That was, in fact, exactly why she had come here. She knew that she couldn't keep on shouldering all of these burdens on her own, and so she had come to the Compact to try and find someone to help her with them.
The plant let out a low rumbling sound, drawing her out of her thoughts and back to reality. "Perhaps there is something else frightening you. You have told me again and again that you are afraid of losing your identity. Well, then; allow me to reassure you."
A moment later, a floral hand came to rest on top of her head; leafy interwoven digits beginning to brush through her hair with astonishing tenderness. As terrified as Raqi was, the fear did nothing to lessen the sparks of delight that the touch sent through her; if anything, it did the exact opposite. There was a kind of delicateness to the touch that felt like it was acting as an antidote to her anxiety; each soft stroke sending chemicals into her skin that dispelled all of the fear that she felt. She was completely unused to receiving such comforting, and by the time she had even realised it was happening, she had already partway succumbed to the effect. She had never needed to try to remain afraid, and she found that she could not find a way to make herself do so; not in the face of such an overwhelmingly pacifying stimulus as this, at least.
"In the event that you became my pet," the affini continued, "you would remain exactly as you are right now in every way that matters. The only parts I would take from you are those which cause you undue suffering or anguish." Each stroke of her fingers brushed away another anxious thought, like creases being smoothed out of a garment. "Were you to wish to preserve a part that did harm you, we would work together to find a way to maintain it in a healthier, less damaging manner. I am certain that with our combined efforts, we would be able to do so."
"Wh..." Raqi's heartrate was starting to still. She found herself growing more confused than afraid. "That's... It- it doesn't work that way. There are parts that you... you couldn't do that with." A hint of nervous defensiveness crept into her voice. There were parts of her self that she was dearly attached to, but that she knew were not healthy in the long-run. They were the kinds of things that couldn't be 'fixed' to be healthy without becoming something else entirely, and that wasn't what she wanted. As for why she didn't want that-
"Why cling to such parts?"
It was an honest, genuine question. There was no malice or judgement present within it whatsoever, and Raqi found herself shrinking even further upon hearing it. She vacillated, combing her mind for something that would serve as a satisfactory answer, but nothing came to her. Why did she still want to hold on to all of those parts? Because I'm afraid? ...Because I can't even imagine what life would look like without them? That was it. That was why. Life had simply been like this for so long that an alternative was genuinely unimaginable. She liked existing, and from her perspective, those qualities were her, and so being stripped of them would mean ceasing to exist.
"Mhm, I see."
She turned her attention back to the plant.
"In that case, perhaps what you require is some assistance in visualising it."
In an instant, the affini's eyes shifted. Gone were the dull golden browns and her irises, replaced instead with two swirling crystalline orbs that pulsed with every colour of the rainbow.
"Allow me to provide you with it."
Raqi-

---

Raqi Granatum, First Floret, skipped happily along after her Owner as they walked down one of the many garden paths upon the Longbough. Her chest felt light and feathery, and her gaze flicked around from point to point with a guileless curiosity. "It's so pretty here," she spoke, her voice filled with emotion, rather than in her usual monotone. "I like it a lot."
"Mhm?" The voice of her favourite person in the universe echoed down from beside her; even that short utterance enough to send tingles of delight through her mind. "I am glad that you are enjoying yourself, petal."
She shivered bodily at the word 'petal.' Raqi was such a soft, needy thing; so easily coaxed into submission. Before she even realised what had happened, her steps had grown uneven, and she was struggling to focus on walking; all of her attention focused instead upon her Owner. Once upon a time, she would have been terrified by these feelings- afraid of having them be perceived as inappropriate- but all such fears had been purged from her mind long ago. Now, she knew that there was no fear of her being spurned for feeling this way, and so she could allow her mind to sink without any hesitation whatsoever.
It did not take more than a second for her Owner to notice that she had stopped following. Her Affini halted and turned around, and then an outstretched vine wound its way under Raqi's chin. Immediately, ingrained behaviour so well reinforced as to have become instinct lead her to relax her neck, allowing her head to go limp and have its weight supported by the tendril. At the same time, a familiar sensation of peace began to bloom within her chest, and she found herself letting out a dreamy sigh as her gaze automatically made its way towards her Owner's eyes.
"Ah, is my little one tired?" her Owner asked, smiling down at her.
Raqi was only peripherally aware of the movements of her plant's mouth; too distracted with the dizzying array of colours in her eyes to care about anything else. She didn't bother to come up with a proper reply; instead only letting out a faint 'mhm', as she continued to relax deeper.
Her Owner knelt down in front of her, bringing her eyes closer to her own level, while still forcing her to look slightly up at her. "That is fine, then. We can stop for a short break. You would like that, wouldn't you; my little Raqiflower?"
Her heart fluttered, and a wave of emotions began to swamp her consciousness; affection, desire, submission, arousal, weakness, and delight just some among many others in a heady mixture that left her knees trembling and her heart racing. She wanted to- needed to- give in. She was already giving in. She was giving in by staring into her Owner's eyes, but it wasn't enough. She needed her Owner to take her; to make it clear that it wasn't her choice, that her will in this didn't matter, and that her submission was an ensured outcome that she could never somehow mess up.
And within an instant of feeling that need, it was already being met. Dozens of vines had wrapped around her arms and legs, and pollen-heavy flowers in arrays of dazzling colours were brought up to block off her vision to the rest of the world. Soon the park around them disappeared, and the only thing she could see was her Owner's eyes and her beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers; heavy with xenodrugs that had now begun chemically enforcing the feelings that she was already feeling. It had been her choice to start feeling them, but it was no longer her choice to continue doing so; and that was what she wanted.
"Good pet." The words reverberated throughout her consciousness like the sound of a bell made of pleasure. "Give in. Surrender. You are safe here, and there is no further need to fight."
Upon hearing those words, she broke immediately. What little resistance she had been holding onto subconsciously evaporated, and she slumped in both body and mind into her Owner's control. Pleasure the likes of which she had only felt in dreams filled her mind, setting it alight with an ecstasy that felt better than any physical touch ever had. She wanted to writhe against it, to squirm and mewl and cry out in delight, but she was too ensorcelled by it for any kind of movement at all. She could only lay there and sink deeper, let it permeate further, as her consciousness sunk more and more into her Owner's control.
Ah... This is what I want... She heard her own voice speaking, its cadre one of almost delirious happiness. There was no focus anywhere to be heard within it; her own mind-gaze distant and focused on nothing, all the while she continued being driven slowly blind by reward signals. This is... what I always wanted... what I... dreamed of...
"Mhm." She heard her Owner's voice again, cutting through the fog like a beam of sunlight from up high. "And now you have it."
She-
...except she didn't, really.
A familiar cold settled in upon her heart, and the overwhelming pleasure began to abate. At the same time, her consciousness shifted its attention away from Punica, her eyelids drooping.
She did not actually have it, because this was not real. This was just another dream; no different to the hundreds or thousands of such dreams which she had experienced since childhood. On most nights, she found herself transported to another realm after falling asleep, where she was tortured by similar visions of things which she knew she could never actually have. Why her brain bothered to do this to her, she didn't know; she resented it immensely, and she wished it would just stop, but no attempt to convince it to stop dreaming had ever worked.
The truth was that, in reality, no one was ever going to do this for her. Of the small handful of people who were even capable of such a thing, she was never going to meet any of them. If she did, they would either already have a partner or partners and have no space for her, or simply not be interested in the first place. That was how it had been every single time, and that was how it would be every time in the future.
The affini were not real. They were just a form of wish fulfillment; one dreamed up by similarly lonely and deprived trans girls like herself. It was in landamaeri nature to wish for things that one could not have, but Raqi resented the practise. In her view, it only ever made it harder to accept the reality of the situation when one inevitably returned for it. It was why she despised wish fulfillment upon a conceptual level: it struck her as useless and a waste of time to yearn for something which you would never have. Thinking about the comfort that she so strongly desired but knew she would never receive served no purpose, save to tear up her insides and leave her heaving and bawling in her room. It was a worthless endeavour, and one she had trained herself out of years ago.
There is no way which we can escape this reality, she thought to herself. The truth is that the real world is not such a kind place as the inside of a book. You will never be saved by a figure come to you from a dream, to lift all of your burdens and take away all of your pain. It will not occur. Her eyes narrowed even further. With that in mind, it is necessary to acquire the strength to face this reality. One cannot spend their entire life searching futilely for something they will never have and crying over that fact. Instead, the only way forward is to fulfill those needs yourself.

No one is going to come and help us,
so we'll find the strength to do it ourselves.

If they were weak, then they would become stronger.
If their heart hurt because they were alone, then they would find a way to make it stop hurting.

We shan't allow ourselves to languish forever,
tormented by the thought of a future we can never have.
There are so many others out there,
who require our aid.

It was true. What worth would it even have been if they could find the one they wanted,
and the entire rest of the world was left in the same predicament?
None whatsoever, the answer was.
There are people relying upon us. And, if I can not have such a person myself...

Then I will become that person for them, instead.

So that no one else has to suffer this pain as I have.

A great, boiling monstrosity rose up from the fiery depths; its body dripping molten rock. It was part-humanoid and part-avian, its body resembling a skeletal, waterlogged bird, covered by a tattered white cloak. Its limbs were made partly of rock, and had been fused back on dozens and dozens of times.

high ambient emotional phenomena
tiredness; patience

It shook the molten rock off of itself and drew up to its full height, chest rising and falling slowly. For all that had been inflicted upon it, it was not broken; nor would it ever break. There did not exist enough suffering in the universe to shatter this immortal creature. No matter how much pain it was made to endure, it would never die.

high ambient emotional phenomena
weight

And so knowing that, it let out one final exhalation of breath, and pulled its will together. It had been summoned to act, and it would do whatever was necessary to ensure the survival and wellbeing of itself and the ones it cared for; just as it always had.

---

Rot.
Punica swore internally as she found herself back inside of the garden. The mindspace had been abruptly snatched from her control as Raqi had reacted unexpectedly to the vision she had shown her, and before she knew what was happening, she had gotten caught up in the flow of consciousness as had happened earlier. Now, their shared headspace had reverted to its previous appearance reflecting the inside of the Rending Talon, and Raqi- What in the stars had happened to Raqi? For some reason, the girl wasn't in her immediate field of vision. She could feel where she was, but she had to take a moment to turn her camera towards her-

The woman standing a short distance away from Punica was not Raqi.
She was about the same height as Raqi and bore similar facial features, but her markings were an orange-red instead of the purple-blue that Raqi's were. As well, her face and what little of her neck could be seen was covered in a line of scars that ran from above her left eye diagonally down to her nose, past the edge of her lip, and then down her neck. Her eyes were a deep sunset orange, and the same shade was reflected on the outside of her ears. By far the most striking difference, though, was her hair: Her hair was distinctly and unmistakeably Terran, consisting of thousands upon thousands of thin threads of fibrous matter rather than a scant few hundred feathers. It parted at the neck and fell down her front in two messy bundles, the colour of which started out a light brown atop her head, then gradually grew into shades of orange, red, and yellow as they descended; somewhat resembling an inverted flame.
Covering her arms and leaving only her hands visible was a poncho. Different from the blue one that Punica had seen Raqi worn, this one was instead a mixture of white and beige with red trim at the edges, and was covered with shapes that seemed reminiscent of an eye. A row of bright orange feathers hung from the front hem over a brown undershirt, the tips of which brushed over a pair of dark red harem trousers. Protruding from the base of the poncho, she held in her left hand a long spear that seemed to be made from a mixture of brass and clay. The tip of the weapon's blade flickered softly with a familiar light; casting red and purple shadows across the ground, just as she had once seen it do elsewhere.
"Raqi... Is this how you see yourself?"
"Yes. It is." It was as if someone had taken Raqi's voice and stripped it of every imperfection, rendering it calm and clear. It was just like she had sounded during her broadcast to the Longbough- not that Punica knew that. "The version of me which you have seen up until now is a mask that I have worn, out of fear of revealing my true self." The figure tilted her head slightly. "I presume that, somehow, you knew this?"
"...I had begun to think as much, yes. Once when we were in the hallway on our way to the garden, and a second time today, I heard a version of you speak which was not you." Her vines were moving slowly, swaying in measured circles around her legs. "Part of me suspected that there was a part of you that you were hiding from me; for what I assumed was a fear that I would domesticate you, were I to see it. The way that you are at times able to behave so fearlessly and confrontationally, but at others seem to quiver and recoil lead me to believe that there may have been some sort of split in place in your personality."
"...What astonishing perceptiveness you possess. I suppose it is only natural; given what you are." The figure closed its eyes. "Regardless, it seems as if you have found a way to bring it out of me." She drew herself up once more, opening her eyes and meeting Punica's gaze. "This is my true self. The form which I have spent years learning to wear..." Her movements were slow and measured, almost trance-like, in spite of the fact that she was clearly sober. She placed one hand over her heart. "This is the realisation of my heart's desire; that which I wished for the most deeply. I am not Raqi Marr, and my title is not the Simurgh. That is a name which I adopted when I lost the strength to call myself by my real one." She returned her hand back to her side. "My true name is Rukhmar, and I am the Firebird."
The mindspace seemed to reverberate with the weight of her final words as she spoke. Punica could feel the summation of an entire lifetime of experiences behind them; emotion dense enough that it could convey an entire story by feeling alone. She did not have the vocabulary to describe it; it was somewhere between a kind of age-old tiredness, and a deep bitterness and frustration- but at the same time, the latter was kept in check by a sense of restraint; a feeling of actively holding oneself back, remaining calm and focusing. There was anger and resentment present within it as well, but it was being carefully reined in before it could exert any influence. Last but perhaps most profound, the sense of hesitation and anxiety that always seemed to lurk around Raqi's presence was now completely absent. In its place, Rukhmar regarded Punica with a much more stable presence; one that was currently being held steady, but that felt as if it could burst into motion should it need to.
It took her a few moments to find her reply. "I see. Then it is good to finally be introduced to you, Rukhmar the Firebird."
On some level, Punica did not fully understand what was happening. She did not know why being offered a safe place had provoked a strong enough reaction to summon what seemed to be an alter to the forefront of Raqi's mind. On some level, however, it did not really matter: Punica had brought the xenosophont to this place in order to test her conviction, and if there was indeed a stronger, more resolute version of her that she had been hiding up until now, then this was exactly the version of her whose resolve she needed to take the measure of.
The xenosophont's eyes narrowed appraisingly, and she tilted her head slightly to the side. "Why have you sought me out like this?"
Punica demurred a moment before responding. She was not sure to what extent the illusion had been broken already. She presumed that Raqi- that Rukhmar must already be suspecting something was off about this situation, but there was little she could do now to salvage that. She would need to be direct from this point onwards. "I have brought you here because I intend to assess your worthiness for independence. Ever since we first met, you have been terrified of being forcibly domesticated. I, in my weakness, have allowed you to continue to suffer under that suspense; a fact for which I apologise from the bottom of my core." Her voice grew steely. "I intend to bring an end to your suspense imminently; and to do so, it is necessary that I determine once and for all whether you are fit to be independent."
She watched the girl carefully to see how she responded. Going off of Raqi's behavioural profile, Punica expected some sort of exaggerated defensive reaction to the perceived threat. As she expected, Rukhmar's eyes narrowed at once, but then as the seconds passed, she did not react any further.
"A climactic battle, then?" Rukhmar spoke, her voice filled with curiosity. "I'm surprised an affini would opt for something like that... but I can't say it doesn't suit me." The sophont shifted her weight from one foot to another, her expression relaxing as she kept her gaze on Punica. "Very well, then. If you intend to test me, I won't fall short." She turned her empty hand upwards. "What are the criteria upon which you're assessing me?"
"In this case, whether you would be happier or not as a floret."
At last, discomfort appeared in Rukhmar's expression. Her brow furrowed, and her tone grew skeptical. "Is there anyone alive who wouldn't be?"
"No," Punica replied, "but the extent to which different individuals would benefit from it varies massively. In your case, it is not specifically whether you are better off as a floret or not that concerns me; but why you are so averse to the thought of becoming one. Wanting to remain independent is one thing, and being terrified of domestication is another entirely." She gazed directly at the sophont as she finished speaking, making it clear exactly what she was implying by this.
A second passed. Then, Rukhmar spoke. "Yes, I am indeed afraid of domestication. Becoming domesticated would be an unmitigated catastrophe for me; the worst possible end to my story. The changes that would be wrought upon me as a part of it would destroy everything that I hold dear, and that is why I am so keen on avoiding it."
"You have been consistently unclear about the ways in which domestication would 'destroy you'," Punica retorted, unwilling to accept this explanation. "Ever since we met, you have repeated largely the same claim, but you have yet to provide any kind of compelling argument for it; or to display any reasoning at all except for fear." She paused for emphasis, her vines crawling across the surface of the ground beneath her. "From what I saw earlier, it seems to me as if your primary reason for attempting to avoid domestication is simply because you fear change. You spoke of being frightened of what would happen if you lost the negative parts of your identity, but the reason you gave was that you simply could not imagine a life without them." She shook her head. "That is not a logical reason to cling to unhealthy behaviours. To act in such a way is to allow oneself to be guided simply by base animal fear."
In response, Rukhmar shook her own head. "You are mistaken. That is not why I continue to hold onto them."
The sophont's voice remained surprisingly calm as she spoke. Punica had expected her to be drawn to anger by the comment; it was a common response to seeing that someone had touched upon a weakness, and would have made sense in the situation. But her response had been both curt and dismissive, as if she hadn't felt threatened by it at all.
"I apologise, but I am not able to take your word for that at present." As she spoke, Punica allowed her right arm to begin unraveling; dozens of injector flowers becoming visible as she did so. "I am not convinced that you would honestly be able to ascertain whether or not there is a genuine cause to your fear. Most likely, you would engage in justifying behaviour, and would convince yourself that whatever reason you came up with was true; simply to explain your aversion." One injector in particular began to fill with xenodrugs. "To that end, I intend to give you a class-D to prevent this from being an issue. It will temporarily deactivate the parts of your brain responsible for fabrication, leaving you only able to respond to my questions with the truth-"

"No."

high ambient emotional phenomena
refusal

Punica's words died mid-sentence. The sheer force in Rukhmar's voice had been enough to halt her immediately. What? What did she just-?
"I do not require a class-D in order to be honest with myself about my feelings." The xenosophont's voice had grown cold for a moment, but it lightened rapidly as she continued speaking; sounding almost exasperated as she spoke to Punica. "I am well aware that, on some level, I am indeed afraid to change. However, that is not at all the main reason why I have remained like this." It was as if with every word she spoke, she was having to work to keep herself in the same state of emotional stillness. "I understand what you are concerned about; but I am not any ordinary xenosophont. I do sometimes lie to myself, but not about this. On this matter, I know my heart exceptionally well."
Punica was taken aback. She could not detect even a single iota of doubt in Rukhmar's voice; she clearly believed absolutely in what she was saying. That was definitely not all that was happening, though. Something about her voice was affecting her far, far more than it normally did; and much more than it should have. The way she spoke to me a moment ago felt almost like a biorhythmic command. She wanted to doubt that such a thing was possible, but: After everything else I have seen today, this barely even feels surprising any more.
Biorhythmic commands were not mere communication. Where communication was intended to convey information, a biorhythmic command was an utterance intended to impart an alteration onto the one who heard it. When an affini gave such a command, the process involved tuning their voice to embody the emotions that would induce the highest level of compliance in their listener - usually an authoritative, commanding tone - followed by synchronising their bodily processes with it to broadcast the same emotions.
In Rukhmar's case, what she seemed to have done was the same thing, but performed through the medium of shared emotional states. The girl had spoken an ordinary word, but had imbued it with so much intent that it had become more akin to a command; an order to Punica to stop what she was doing and cease. It should not have been at all possible under normal circumstances, but because they were both inside of Rukhmar's mind at the present, the former was able to subject Punica to raw emotion; the intensity of which was apparently incredibly difficult to resist. She could have rendered such commands ineffective simply by pulling back from their shared connection, but doing so would mean having to stop their current exercise; which she refused to do.
Were another sophont granted the same capacity to influence an affini with their emotions, I doubt almost any would know how to do so. Yet that utterance a moment ago seemed almost instinctual; as if she had done so a thousand times before. She found herself wondering for what felt like the dozenth time that day why in the stars Rukhmar knew how to do this. If I presume that this, like all of her other skills has originated from her experience being plural... Then, did she or one of her other headmates once use suggestion to influence one-another? Given what she knew about Raqi, the idea that her headmates might have similar inclinations towards mind-alteration did not sound at all unlikely to her.
Before she could contemplate the subject further, she was pulled from her reverie by the sound of Rukhmar's voice. "There are detailed reasons why I do not wish for my identity to be changed; even the ill parts of it. I had, indeed, wanted to avoid sharing them with you up until now. They are..." For the first time since she had switched in, Punica detected a hint of hesitation.

"...difficult, to satisfactorily explain. There is... so very much to convey, and so few words within which to do so."

medium ambient emotional phenomena
distance; frustration

It's so frustrating...
Where do we even begin?

Punica stirred. She had gotten relatively used to both the sound and feel of Raqi's mind voice, and this thought felt different, somehow. Not in the way that Rukhmar's thoughts differed from Raqi's, either; it was something separate to that. In the brief moment the voice was present, she couldn't put a vine on what it was about it that felt off, but there was something there that she couldn't help feeling was strange.
I don't know, either, Rukhmar thought in response. How could we ever possibly show her...? Is there any way at all, to make her understand?
She waited for the first voice to reply; but before it did, something else happened.

subjectively ten thousand years of wandering
distant, indistinct thoughts and experiences; lacking words to describe them
information more than could be translated in a lifetime

...There is no way. The best we can do is to pick the important parts, and hope that that is enough.
Some of Punica's leaves rustled. What is that feeling that I keep receiving from her? Her mind- or, no, not hers; Rukhmar's mind called it 'distance', but that was not at all accurate to what it felt like. Every time the emotion flared up in the sophont's awareness, it was like her awareness was momentarily transported elsewhere. Her attention would turn completely away from Punica, to the point where she wasn't sure Rukhmar was still even aware of her existence, and she would broadcast an emotion that felt remarkably similar to the feeling of transfixtion; but without the associated loss of autonomy.
What she had just felt was simply a more complicated version of that. It is like she keeps finding her attention drawn by... something? But the nature of the something is... Try as she might, once again, she couldn't put a vine on it. She was correct about the lack of sufficient terms with which to describe phenomena like this. She thought about the difficulty of trying to translate biorhythmic concepts into Terran. While Affini had no shortage of terms for that purpose, there were woefully few adequate equivalents available in Terran standard, and it seemed as if Raqi's language struggled with the same issue.
Suddenly, Rukhmar took a deep breath. "If you wish to behold that which our pain has given rise to, then we will do our utmost to show you."
With every word, the very same distance seemed to seep into her voice. Punica began to feel as if there was a presence tugging at the edges of her awareness; trying to lull her into... something. Not quite a trance, but not lucidity either. It was like trying to gaze at an object in the far off distance, that never gained any clarity the longer you looked at it. What-
"The vivid dreams which I have played host to, and which I have tried to share with others. All that which I have striven to embody and to obtain, and both the colours and sensations that have blinded me. First, however..."
Punica was pulled from the reverie she had very nearly entered once again by the sight of Rukhmar casting her gaze around the room. As she did so, the intense ambient emotions momentarily abated, as it seemed as if her attention had turned elsewhere. "This situation that we are presently in... It is not real, is it?"
She pushed down a rumble. Dirt. On the off-chance that Rukhmar had not yet completely figured it out, she decided to play dumb. "What do you mean?"
The Firebird was staring past her, towards the door leading out into the hallway. "This circumstance- it cannot be real. I know that for certain, because..." She turned back to Punica. "In a genuine confrontation where both parties focused solely on achieving victory, we would never have fared this well. We cannot call upon this form when we are flustered or otherwise unable to compose ourselves, and we cannot muster the requisite clarity of thought in tense situations." She paused. "In a real version of this scenario, you would never have encouraged us to take this form. It would surely not have even occurred to you to do so; there is no one alive - save for us, perhaps - who would think to pause a conflict to try and evoke the other combatant's better side."
Punica remained silent, but she knew that her body language gave everything away. The look on Rukhmar's face confirmed it.
"Yes; as I thought. In reality, we would have been crushed here, and suffered an overwhelming defeat." She glanced back towards the door. "It is hard to imagine us surviving such a thing. Our system is tailored to avoid defeat; not to cope with it. For that reason, we pick our battles and only choose those which we know that we can win; and the few times we have miscalculated and taken a loss, the results have been devastating."

half-recalled pain; a great, terrible wrenching
bitterness; anger; fury; self-loathing
disbelief; horror; the inability to comprehend what is occurring

"I can only assume that we did in fact somehow survive, however." Once again, she turned back to Punica. "I would presumably not be here to speak to you otherwise."
Core-wrenching guilt ran through Punica at the memory of how this event had actually played out. She remembered the way Raqi had come to her the morning after the failed domestication; the shock and confusion she had felt when the xenosophont had asked her directly to domesticate her. Raqi had seemed so absolutely trodden upon and defeated, with seemingly no desire to continue resisting her. The extent of the change had baffled her at the time, but now she could see how being forced into such a vulnerable position could have been devastating for the girl. The realisation stirred an almost physical feeling of regret in her, and every one of her vines fell as still as stones by her side.
Mere moments after they did, an amused noise sounded from ahead of her, bringing Punica's attention back to the present. "You needn't feel bad for whatever happened. Our system is used to enduring damage; you are far from the first to have wounded us. More to the point..." There was a sudden change in the ambient emotion.

"I can tell, somehow, that our system trusts you. I find that there is some sort of block on my memories, which is leaving me unable to access the context for this encounter. Yet, in spite of that, I do not feel compelled to

medium ambient emotional phenomena
softness

break it.
It was strange. Rukhmar felt as if the most likely explanation for the inexplicable fondness she presently felt was that in reality, this affini had domesticated her; but for some reason, she was quite certain that she was not domesticated. "If this is an illusion, and you are truly capable of seeing inside of my mind, then I will be able to show it to you as I have shown no one before."
There was a pause, which held within it a great sense of weight. "Are you sure, then, that you want to see?"
Rukhmar finished talking, but the air around her didn't fall silent. Instead, Punica heard the same other voice from earlier speaking.

There have been others who did.
One, in particular, for whom it was not at all pleasant.

When that voice finished, Punica felt an emotion in the air; something which loosely translated to <the-weight-of-change>. Whatever Rukhmar was offering to show her, she was genuinely apprehensive about, and seemed to perceive it as holding some kind of a risk to her.
Punica realised quickly what the risk in question was. It was the same thing that she herself had thought of some hours earlier; the possibility that whatever she saw might have some kind of a lingering effect on her, as a result of the closeness of her connection with Raqi. Whatever the girl was considering showing her, she considered that it was impactful enough that it could affect other xenosophonts of her race, presumably without this kind of a connection. If she saw what Rukhmar wanted her to see while she was like this, what would it do to her?
She knew immediately that this was the point at which she should back out. The situation had clearly gotten out of control; she had done this with the intent of using it as a way to take stock of Raqi's personality at a baser level, but she hadn't even managed to give her the suggestion of being on class-D's before she had regained her awareness, and was now more in control than Punica herself. The sensible, safe thing to do here would be to break the connection and apologise to Raqi, and stop messing around with what was clearly a very dangerous technique.
But she couldn't. Not now; not after everything she had done to bring this version of the sophont out to the surface. To refuse her now would be to spit in the face of all the work that Raqi had done to cultivate this version of herself; all of the work that Punica had been trying her best to validate. It would undermine the entire point of this exercise, and only serve to prove that she was not trustworthy.
She was tired of running from her responsibilities. If she had to put herself in danger to let Raqi show her what she needed to see, then that was what she would do. That was what a good owner would do.
Punica gave her answer. "Show me."
Gradually, a smile formed on Rukhmar's face. "Very well, then."
The shared thoughtscape which they were in, as much a dream as a visualisation, began to shift.

overwhelming ambient emotional phenomena
intent

"Behold, and bear witness."

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A L E R T : : t h o u g h t f o r m s_d e t e c t e d

I D : : Iterations of the Self ::

Show list of previous thoughtforms

Book 2

withering away :: The Prism System :: Intoxicants :: Plurality :: please believe me :: Landamaeri Domestication Guide :: Hypnotic Centres :: The Domestication Initiative :: Affini Maturity :: bullying :: Memory Maker :: chronic fatigue syndrome :: Uplifting :: lingo :: optimisation :: Digitisation ::

Book 1

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 :: scared :: Materas Marr ::

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