Lilac was drifting lazily in the clouds. She felt like she was wrapped in a warm blanket, unaware of where exactly her body was but knowing it was snuggled up cozily. She heard Ashley's voice dimly, but making out the words was too much effort for her at the moment. Instead she simply basked in them, letting them soak into her like warm water.
Small threads of thought kept biting at the edges of her bliss. Part of her was always trying to analyze what was going on, or remember what time it was, or try to make out exactly what Ashley was saying, and although she pushed it down whenever she realized it was poking up, she couldn't remove the distraction entirely. Every moment spent thinking was a moment not spent enjoying serene bliss.
Ashley's voice sounded clearer for just a moment, but Lilac still didn't make an effort to figure out what it was saying. After a pause, she heard another voice (her own?) speak a soft response, but she didn't dwell on it. Whatever this conversation was, it wasn't her concern; she just wanted to float in this warm haze.
Yet despite her best efforts, she felt something pulling her out of it. She lurched towards wakefulness as if yanked by a rope, each heave gentle but irresistible. Slowly she became aware of her body once again, feeling it sluggishly respond to roll call. She was laying on her side, but she couldn't muster the strength to open her eyes yet. Or do anything more than gently curl a few of her fingers, really.
She could hear Ashley's voice more clearly now. She still wasn't sure what was being said, but there were starts and stops, and every start was accompanied by one of those lurches towards wakefulness. She felt like she should know what was going on, but the thought spiraled away from her as she tried to grasp it, and she was suddenly no longer sure if that was true. Still, she felt safe in Ashley's hands, so it didn't frighten her.
"Two, nearing complete awareness." Ashley was counting down! Lilac's brain staggered around trying connect the dots and figure out what that meant for what was going on, but it was interrupted by her eyes fluttering open and feeding her snippets of vision that demanded immediate processing. She was lying down in their living room, and Ashley was sitting in a chair in front of her, looking so beautiful with a halo of light from the kitchen illuminating her from behind. Her face was gentle and loving, and Lilac felt her confusion melting away.
"One, awake and out of trance. How're you doing, Ly?" Ashley asked, looking her over. The pieces fell into place for Lilac; she was being brought up from trance. The pleasant afterglow hadn't yet faded, and although she was certainly awake and out of trance as ordered, she wasn't entirely
there
yet. So she answered honestly.
"Warm. Sleepy. How long was I..." she began, her eyes scanning around slowly as her head started to roll over to look for a clock. The curtains were closed, so it was hard to tell what time of day it was. Her pulse quickened as she realized that she actually couldn't remember the start of this session.
Ashley cut her off with a delighted clap of her hands. "Good! Dream deep, Lilac." Lilac's eyes fell shut and her awareness of her body retreated once again as her thoughts scattered into the wind. A soft, warm fog descended on her mind and wrapped around it like a lover, and she felt her interest in her surroundings vanish. She let Ashley take over and drifted away.
The dim rumbling of Ashley's voice, and Lilac's own occasional responses, faded into her background, becoming feelings more than facts. Her girlfriend's presence caressed her as she floated through nothingness, her own thoughts barely registering. Even the part of her that tried to analyze what was happening was mostly quiet; every time she pushed it away, it took longer to come back.
Then, for a moment, her mind was completely blank, and she forgot she existed.
It may have been more than a moment, because next she knew, Ashley was counting her out of trance again. She dredged her mind from its slumber once more, responding to her girlfriend's voice as it pulled her from the depths. Awareness was much more of a slow process this time; it felt like she'd been sleeping for hours, and she had no idea how long it had been. It sent a delicious tingle down her spine.
With monumental effort, she cracked her eyes open after Ashley had finished counting her out. "Ash, how--"
"Dream deep, Lilac."
She was immediately plunged back into that warm cloud, and then further down, to where her thoughts were stripped from her. She felt Ashley speaking to her again, but as soon as she stopped so did Lilac's awareness and memory of it. She couldn't muster a single thought, nor did she want to.
After an eternity, Ashley counted her out again. Her mind was even slower to respond, and she only barely managed to grasp awareness of her own body. After a brief struggle, she managed to flutter her eyes open and looked at her girlfriend expectantly, knowing what was coming next and awaiting it eagerly, but Ashley seemed to be waiting for something. Lilac opened her mouth to ask what.
"Dream deep, Lilac," Ashley said quickly, before Lilac could get any words out. And before she could even process what she'd heard, she was lost in foggy unconsciousness again. All sense of time passing was gone and she floated serenely in a blissful haze, thinking about nothing.
Dimly, she felt a connection to something happening outside of her warm blanket, but it was unimportant, so she left it to Ashley to be concerned with while she basked in the fog. Part of her told her that she was upright now, but the information didn't matter, so she discarded it. She could smell Ashley strongly now and it made her feel warm and safe, even as something pulled at her mind, demanding attention. She pushed it away and settled back into her barely-conscious haze; Ashley could do the thinking for her right now.
The noisy part of her soon quieted down and began paying attention to something beyond her current state of awareness. A deep peace bloomed within her as it did so, and she immersed herself in it. She could feel Ashley's voice, but was beyond even being able to make out rhythm or tone; she simply heard Ashley's voice, and it comforted her.
Her empty mind became increasingly hard to maintain as distant thoughts tried to intrude. She could tell something was happening outside her fogged head, but she also knew it wasn't her concern right now. Small sensations slipped in despite her best efforts; soft skin brushing against her own, a taste she half-remembered but couldn't identify, words spoken tenderly but not understood. They began to threaten to overwhelm her peace, coming in greater and greater number, until finally they stopped altogether, and she could return to her bliss.
After an unknown amount of time (minutes? hours?), she heard Ashley in the distance, beckoning her back to awareness, each pull dragging her back up from the depths of unconsciousness. Slowly she felt her body again and began to process what was going on.
"Three. Becoming more and more alert." Her eyes were already open this time, but she couldn't process what she was seeing quite yet; none of the connections were there. She focused on her body instead, and found she was kneeling. That sent a shiver of delight through her, although she didn't understand why.
"Two. Nearing complete awareness." Her hands were on her knees in front of her, helping prop her up. Warm skin was to the sides of her head. Her mouth was open and she was breathing heavily. There was a taste on her tongue, and a smell in her nostrils. Both were familiar. Both were...Ashley?
"One. Awake and out of trance. How're you doing, Ly?" Ashley's voice came from above Lilac, and she lifted her head automatically, eyes finally working properly. She felt groggy, like she'd been asleep for hours. She looked up at Ashley, then glanced back down in front of her, the wheels in her head moving sluggishly.
"Warm," she muttered, staring in confusion ahead of her. She reached out her tongue and licked at Ashley's lower lips, eliciting a yelp. Same taste. She leaned back, her brain starting to catch up. "I was...um...how long was I..."
"Most of the morning," Ashley confessed, stroking her hair. "I was reading about this thing called fractionating for deepening trance and I wanted to try it out on you, but..." She shrugged, grinning a little. "Lilac, you're
really
