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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:33:46 GMT -6
{What will I be able to do when I take it?} said Rhys.
Not ‘if’, Aster noticed, but ‘when’. Either he was eager for whatever other powers he could get, even without knowing what they would be as of yet, or he thought Aster wasn’t going to give him the choice of it. Neither thought sat particularly comfortably with Aster, but he would be lying if he said this didn’t make things easier for him.
He didn’t comment on it. Instead, he answered the question that had been posed. “The power to put others to sleep with your mind, for one,” Aster said. “And the power to move things with your mind, up to a certain weight limit.”
Not harmful abilities. There were other psychic abilities meant for harm that he could have chosen with this particular type of injection, but that had never been Rhys’s intended purpose.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:34:13 GMT -6
The Felusine had always been intended as a helper, a healer, and as far as he could tell, Rhys didn’t mind that much, at least. What he seemed to be chafing at was Aster’s insistence that he learn how to keep himself safe as much as possible before Aster gave him any more difficult--- or interesting--- jobs.
They’d gone to heal a small creature for the quest board not too long ago though, and Rhys seemed to enjoy that experience. His temperament was suited to that type of work, much better suited than Aster’s own. Aster hadn’t recalled ever teaching him anything like bedside manner, but Rhys had still been able to talk with the family of the pet in question and set them at ease--- or at least at greater ease than they would have been if Aster had been the one doing all the talking.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:34:51 GMT -6
Sleep: Start
Still, Aster had been a little concerned with how Rhys would receive the selection of abilities Aster had chosen.
{Sleep, huh?} said Rhys, looking as though he were deep in thought for a moment. Then he lifted his head, staring resolutely into Aster’s eyes. {Okay, I’ll do it. Give it to me. What do I have to do?}
Aster wondered at his reaction, but decided not to probe into it. “Just hold still,” he said. “And brace yourself. This might feel a bit strange.”
After the injection had been administered, Aster thought Rhys might take a day or two to recuperate, but by the afternoon, the Felusine had sought him out again. {Teach me,} said Rhys. {How do I put someone to sleep?}
Aster blinked.
He had always been the one deciding the curriculum, so to speak--- the one who chose and meted out for Rhys what he was to learn.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:35:12 GMT -6
Rhys didn’t know the extent of what Aster intended to teach him, so maybe that was why this hadn’t happened before now. It was clear enough that the Felusine didn’t have much knowledge of the full extent of his own capabilities. But Aster had given him two today, the ones that had come with the injection. And now Rhys was apparently taking the initiative to request the learning of one.
Well, fair enough. And there was no harm in letting him learn this. “Alright,” Aster said. “Let’s do it. Let me find somewhere comfortable, and then you can give it a shot.”
He expected Rhys to make some sort of comment, maybe even protest, that Aster was volunteering to be the guinea pig again, but Rhys stayed quiet this time. Maybe he had made his peace with it. Again, it was one of those boons that Aster didn’t care to question too closely.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:35:39 GMT -6
There was a saying about this kind of thing--- don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all that.
He found a couch in the living room, and laid himself down on it, hands folded over his chest. “Well,” he said. “When you’re ready. Put me to sleep.”
He didn’t know what to expect, of course. He had never trained a pet to do this. Actually, he’d never been subjected to it period, so there was just a little hint of that strange, slightly nervous feeling when he had no idea what was about to happen to him.
But he trusted Rhys. Didn’t he? And sleep… Sleep was harmless, even if Aster didn’t always get a lot of it. Maybe this was even going to be therapeutic.
“Slap me awake if I drift off,” Aster said.
Rhys gave him a dubious look, but nevertheless settled down to begin trying to… put Aster to sleep.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:35:54 GMT -6
Aster had no idea how exactly he was making the attempt, but after a solid ten minutes, nothing was really happening.
“At this rate, I might just drift off of my own accord,” Aster joked. Which was well and good, but if Rhys had to use it in a more urgent situation, he couldn’t afford to waste ten whole minutes. A lot could happen in that time.
{I know,} said Rhys, seeming a little frustrated but also a little disappointed. {I’m trying, but… I don’t know how.}
Aster was half tempted to tell him to do it the way they did in those old hypnosis movies--- chanting ‘you are getting sleepy, very sleepy’ and all that. But he was pretty sure that wasn’t the answer that was going to work, and anyway, it felt as though it would take a long time to do it that way too.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:36:04 GMT -6
If you had real, actual psychic powers, then you probably didn’t need to do that, right?
“How does it feel when you’re tired? When you’re about to drift off?” Aster said. “But don’t tell me. Try to remember it and then project that outward instead.”
{Oh. I… should have thought of that,} Rhys said, a little sheepishly.
“Well, that’s what you have me for,” Aster said, smiling. “Give it a shot. Maybe it won’t work, but maybe it will.”
Rhys didn’t respond, but a moment later, Aster did feel a heaviness overtake his limbs. It spread slowly, and he could feel his mind going blank--- not at all an unpleasant sensation.
… He didn’t know how much time had passed before he came back to himself.
Rhys was blinking at him, sitting atop his chest. Aster rubbed his eyes. “How long was I out?”
{An hour and a half,} the Felusine replied.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:36:17 GMT -6
Aster stared at him. “Why didn’t you wake me?” he said.
{Oh.} The Felusine was taken aback by his words. {I thought you were joking when you said you wanted me to slap you awake… I thought, you know, you always looked so tired…}
Ah. Suddenly it made sense why Rhys was so eager to learn this, and why he hadn’t protested when Aster nominated himself as the test subject. Aster… knew about his own troubled sleep habits, but he hadn’t thought it was something that Rhys would concern himself with.
Still, he could hardly admonish Rhys in this situation. It wasn’t as though he had missed any important appointments or anything either. He was sure that if it had really come to that, Rhys would have woken him for that.
He sighed. “It’s not that I’m mad… You were trying to do something nice for me, weren’t you? Thanks.”
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:36:31 GMT -6
He ran a hand through his hair, feeling awkward. “The problem is just that this is training, you know? You need to practice it more to get better at it. Letting me sleep it out isn’t an efficient use of our time.”
{But isn’t it uncomfortable, sleeping and then waking up over and over again like that?} Rhys said.
“You can put me to sleep when it’s time for me to sleep,” Aster said. If he could sleep solidly through the night, that would already be an improvement over what he was doing these days. “In the meantime, we’re here for you, not for me.”
Rhys didn’t look all too happy to hear it, but he didn’t argue this time around either, so Aster resumed his position lying down on the couch. “Put me to sleep,” he said.
It must not have taken very long.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:36:55 GMT -6
But even if it did, Aster didn't remember. The next thing he knew, his cheek was stinging, and Rhys was staring at him again.
Rhys was right. It wasn’t a very comfortable experience, especially not if it happened repeatedly in succession. They tried it ten times that session, since it didn’t seem to tire Rhys out particularly, and Aster wanted him to get faster at it.
But while it was clear that Rhys was getting used to it, Aster couldn’t really see how fast he was at it either, since he was the one falling unconscious every time.
He hated to walk back on his own words like this, since he was the one who had made all this fuss about not asking anyone else to be a guinea pig for Rhys’s training to begin with, but the next evening, he took Rhys out to where some of the Sarane were quartered.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:37:19 GMT -6
“We’ll just… introduce a slightly earlier bedtime today,” Aster said. Mulling over the Sarane present, he walked over to the hatchling stall. At least these could all be kept together, before they got older and vicious about it.
“That one,” Aster said, pointing to Abelia. “Can you sleep her?”
Rhys readjusted his position in Aster’s arms, then stared at the hatchling. Within moments, her head was drooping, and then she closed her eyes, deep in slumber.
“Good job. Alright, what about Alioth? Put him to sleep too.” Aster pointed to a rich yellow hatchling, who was in the process of hissing at them, already practicing at being territorial.
Alioth took longer, possibly because he was more riled up, but soon he was out cold too.
“Let’s try a bigger drake this time,” Aster said. “Albion… No, let’s try Aurelius first.” Aster felt that Albion was likely to be the most difficult of all, given that he was so…
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:37:58 GMT -6
Well, if Alioth kept his anger well into adulthood, then he would certainly be a throwback to his grandsire. Aurelius, by contrast, was of a much milder, if somewhat odd, temper.
They came up to the stall. Aurelius must have known they were there, but he paid them no heed. “Put him to sleep,” Aster whispered.
If Rhys was daunted by the prospect, he didn’t show it. It took longer for the sleep to work on Aurelius--- ah, that was right, Aster remembered. Albion had gotten a psychic injection too. Actually, he had this exact same ability to put others to sleep. He would be more resistant to it.
Still, Rhys had gotten it to work somehow.
“Good,” Aster said.
They tried it on Grunty next, then Azalea, then used it to put the Hara to bed when they weren’t looking. As Aster had suspected, these made for easier targets than the already-resistant Sarane.
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Post by Noa on Nov 3, 2019 17:38:36 GMT -6
Sleep: End
Now that Aster had gotten over his qualms about using the others, there were plenty of targets for Rhys to practice on. But that was why he was limiting it to the evenings--- to minimize any negative effects or disruption to their lives.
They practiced over the course of a few more nights, during which Rhys’s speed improved as he grew used to the process. The learning of it had certainly gone a lot more smoothly than a lot of the other things Aster had had to teach him. Maybe the injection had been a good fit… or maybe Rhys had just really wanted this.
The quality of his own sleep improved too, and Aster knew better than to attribute it to anything but what Rhys had recently learned.
Well, it wasn’t a bad thing, he supposed. A bit… strange, and it would take some getting used to, but not a bad thing.
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Post by Noa on May 14, 2020 22:21:26 GMT -6
Aster and Rhys had spent a little more time together elsewhere, mostly to give Rhys a break before they moved on with more training. Aster imagined it wasn't an easy thing to learn all this, and he didn't want to exhaust the Felusine by pushing him too hard. But now seemed like a good time to resume, so Aster took Rhys out to a clearing to try something new. They would need some space for this next bit of training.
"Today you're getting a crash course in the art of running away," Aster said.
{Running away?} Rhys cocked his head. {But that's easy, isn't it?}
“Maybe, depending on what you’re running from,” Aster said. “But it’d give me some peace of mind to know that you can put on a burst of speed if you really needed to, to get away from something nasty. And the more practice you have with it, the easier it’ll be.”
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Post by Noa on May 14, 2020 22:22:13 GMT -6
Rhys didn’t seem terribly convinced; Aster had the sense that he was beginning to chafe at all this safety training. On the one hand, he supposed he could understand it a little. Rhys hadn’t seen any real dangers as of yet, and it was easy to feel bored and frustrated with someone else’s constant warnings about it if you didn’t think there was any real threat. But on the other hand, Aster really felt that it was a better safe than sorry situation here.
Fortunately, Rhys was not yet sick enough of it to quarrel with him on the matter. {Well, if you really want to…} he said.
“Alright. Let’s get you used to the signal first,” Aster said. He felt that things would go more smoothly as soon as he got Rhys up and moving, even if this wasn't exactly what Rhys had been hoping to do.
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