FSE

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"And now, hun, let me show you what a deepener is..."

It wasn't like Tapa couldn't hear those words. His round monkey ears remained perfectly operative - whether he could listen or not, that was an entirely different question, and highly depended on your definition on what listening was.

Azure knew, of course, that a part of his friend's brain would be extremely attentive to his words. It was unlikely that the monkey was fully understanding any of them, or at least, that he was processing them with his conscious mind. But his subconscious remained operational and that was all that Azure needed to continue with the process.

"Enjoying your trance?" he asked, gently patting the monkey's head and wasting an award-winning smirk on him. "Feeling fuzzy and warm is completely different from sinking into that blank headspace, right? You watched and relaxed, and now we can focus on making your mind listen and obey. But for now, it's just drifting, listening to my words. What we need to do... is make sure it doesn't drift up, but down."

Those words prompted Tapa to breathe out and his chest sank. His body, which was already loose and limp, somehow got even laxer. Azure knew that was bound to happen.

And perhaps letting Tapa know would be a good thing, too.

"You see, there is no limit to how deep we can make you go," he explained. "You can keep sinking to the bottom whenever you want, even if you think you're already there." The skunk's paw moved from Tapa's head to his chin. "I know it's hard to imagine, but let me show you, hun. We're going to do a nice exercise of visualization, you and I."

Well, he's getting the complete lesson, Azure thought. I wonder if we'll get to triggers after this, but seeing how easily he's dropping, we might be there sooner than I expected.

"Just imagine you're at the top of a staircase," Azure began. Sometimes classics made the best examples. "You're light in thoughts, so there's a lot of empty space in your mind that we can fill with that picture now, right hun? A nice staircase, the kind of staircase that feels familiar and comfortable. It can be any way you like, but I want you to picture ten steps in it. Just nod when you're seeing it."

It took Tapa a few seconds to move his heavy head, perhaps because he actually thought it was pretty light when it wasn't. Azure grinned.

"Good job. In a moment, I'm going to start counting down from ten to zero. And when I do, you're going to watch yourself walking down that staircase, step by step. Each step is going to make you feel twice as deep, twice as blank as you are now. Nice and receptive to my words."

There was no response that proved Tapa had listened to what Azure had said, but the skunk counted on his experience to know his words were reaching somewhere. The monkey's slow breathing was the only movement his body was making. His eyelids remained perfectly shut. Azure thought he looked adorable like this.

Then again, he usually thought that of any folks who slipped into that state in front of him.

"Ten," he began counting. "We start slow and easy. Stepping down, walking to the foot of the staircase. And as your foot comes down, you immediately feel yourself sink. Deeper. Heavier. More receptive."

"Nine. Letting go of whatever silly thoughts or tensions that might remain in your body. They're fading now, vanishing in the air around you as you breathe out. And even more so as you step down again and..."

"... Eight. Feeling the drop now, harder and harder with each number. Watching the bottom as it gets closer to you. You're doing an amazing job, hun."

Tapa let out a sound that was midway between a sigh and a moan. Azure could only imagine what the monkey was feeling, but he'd have bet it was far, far from unpleasant.

"Seven. Standing on the staircase. Following my words. Nice and easy."

"Six. You can feel your body moving on its own now. Feet slowly lifting and moving to the next step as you shift down. Yeah, just like that."

"Five. And we're halfway there, hun. You're as close to the bottom as you are to the surface. Which means you can still get twice as deep as you are now, except..."

"... Four. Except you're getting twice as deep with each step you're taking, which means the depths you're falling to right now have nothing to do with how deep you're going to be when you finally reach the foot of the staircase. Trust me, hun."

Tapa's head, which had been resting on his right shoulder, gently rolled to the center of his body and rested on his chest, where it swayed a few times before coming to a stop.

"Three. It's the last couple of steps now for us, hun. You're doing so well. Your body no longer rests between drop and drop. You can feel yourself falling, falling."

"Two. So close to the bottom now. So ready to just let go completely. So ready to just watch and relax, listen and obey."

"One. You no longer remember a moment in which you haven't been falling down. It feels as if you've been doing this forever. It feels as if you'll do this forever, even if the next step is the last, even if just one more number separates you from..."

"... zero."

There were times in which Azure could feel the light behind the closed eyes of his subjects fading completely. It wasn't like he could be one percent sure, but he had a feeling that any processes that might have been going inside his friend's head had long been forgotten. The monkey's mouth was hanging slightly open, a trickle of drool escaping his chin.

But Azure wasn't done with him. Oh, no. He had promised to teach him about deepeners and he was damn right going to fulfill his promise.

"And as you stand there, deeper than you've ever been," he whispered, "you walk across the landing with heavy, heavy feet and find out that even if you are at the foot of the staircase, you still aren't at the bottom of the building. Which floor were you at? Third? Fifth? Tenth? You don't know, do you? The only thing you know... is that there are another ten steps in front of you and that the staircase goes down, and that it'll still be going down afterwards, when you've reached the foot of the next staircase."

Tapa let out another soft moan and Azure felt a deep wave of excitement filling his chest. He stroke one of his friend's cheeks gently and chuckled softly, his tail drawing a wide, content arc at his back.

"So you be a good boy and keep going down for me, yeah?"