The onslaught to his mind was unlike anything he could have ever conceived of preparing for. 

He had trained, of course, to resist the imposition of another's will over his own, the insistence that relief from the pressure would come with surrender. He knew, too, how to ignore and deny the waves of soft amiability that could, were he not careful, bury his thoughts like soft snow over the mountains, smoothing all roughness into blank white fuzz. And he had learned, too, to feel the wormlike crawling of another's consciousness, slinking through his own, and to extract it, as you did a worm; slowly, one section at a time, so as not to let it panic, break, leave parts of itself in you. 

He knew the arts of mind magic as was his right by nature; as intuitively as any of his senses, the magic woven into what he was.

None of it helped.

She came at his mind like tentacles. But not those of fiction, fast and insistent and painful, but those of the real creatures who possessed such appendages; dozens of soft, light touches, a slow and animal curiosity that revealed as much as it learned. He felt her from all sides. Her mind, not sharply probing and fiercely guarded, but open, fluid, brushed against his own, withdrawing immediately, never pressing. 

She swept against his memories with her own, neither prying nor taking, but showing, a thousand tiny moments, significant in their obscurity, and unconsciously he opened himself, her memories reminders of his own experiences, reminiscent and fleeting, just as hers were.

Her emotions followed suit, reacting to what she saw, they saw, not all of them positive or even kind, but all her, an intimacy he was utterly unprepared for, as his mind moved unknowingly to mirror her. The tentacles expanded further into him, never pushing, never painful; she showed him her whole self, in flashes and moments that sent his mind spinning with trying to comprehend, a gift of unwanted intimacy that confused and overwhelmed him. 

For a split second he knew how lost he was, how vulnerable to her he had become so quickly, and had he a second more, he would have hardened himself against her in his fear. But then the tentacles changed. They grew purposeful in their still so gentle movement, and the fleeting glimpses they conveyed began to coalesce. Memories of times right before sleep, of soft warm hands rubbing soothing patterns on skin, of soft grass on summer nights, of her own memories of her mind melting, falling away, and how good it felt… in an instant they had flooded his mind with relaxation, both alien and personal, and he was powerless to resist it. It was omnipotent, omnipresent, a level of comfort beyond comprehension, constantly adapting as his mind helplessly unfolded under it, revealing more and more ways to send him further, and oh gods, he'd never wanted anything more, it was ecstasy, belonging, bliss, and it took all of him. He had offered all of himself to it. 

She pulled her hand from his forehead and admired her work. His once smug face was slack, open, staring, a look of near transcendence emanating from his glazed eyes. His sad attempt at influence had faded completely from her mind, and his thoughts were nearly packaged, folding themselves ever smaller as he fell further into oblivion. 

She smirked down at him, and leaned in to where his head lolled back against the chair. She hissed a short command against his neck, and he felt the last of himself collapse inward, before the comfort consumed him and he was gone.