Just because you come out of trance, doesn't mean the obedience fades.  Boka Falls again and again only to become more deeply brainwashed by his Master.

30. Awaken

“One…two…three… and, wake up,” said Arhan with a snap of his fingers. The kobold leaned back with a smug grin as he watched his starry dragon sat across from him begin to stir with a blink and a groan. Halcyon was quickly floating up out of trance and back towards lucidity, his master’s words still ringing in his mind like a polished bell.
“How’re you feeling?” asked Arhan, reaching over to slowly pet his dragon’s head.
“Good, still kind of heavy,” Halcyon replied. He gazed up into the powerful, yellow eyes of the dark scaled kobold, swaying a little off balance as he felt himself being drawn back under their spell.
Snap snap!
“Stay with me,” chuckled the kobold. He found it amusing how easily Halcyon would drift back under his control without much effort on his part; the dragon was well and truly bound to his every word, yet it only made him want to deepen that control further.

Majestic twilight wings unfurled as Halcyon stretched off the last of his post-trance weariness, his usual routine before thanking his master for another wonderful session. But something seemed different this time; Arhan hadn’t moved an inch since the trance had ended and was still gazing at the dragon with powerful intent.
“Everything okay?” Halcyon asked somewhat sheepishly. He didn’t mind if Arhan wasn’t done with him yet, but the silence made him feel wonderfully weak to the kobold.
“Just considering…” Arhan mused.
“Considering what?”
“How utterly broken you’d be if I put you back under right now.” With that Arhan raised his fingers, and before Halcyon could get his next words out, the kobold began to count down.

“Three…two…one.” Arhan’s voice was low and slow, each number spoken softer than the last. Halcyon’s eyes fluttered just once before they fell peacefully shut and his head slumped heavily down, chin resting against his chest. Every thought in his head scattered like a flock of startled birds, leaving him empty and receptive to the kobold’s words, even as he said nothing at all for the moment. It had barely been a minute since the dragon was resting in trance, and that made it so easy for him to fall back down the same path he’d taken to lucidity not long ago. It was effortless how his mind became smothered by the quiet darkness of trance, knowing that he didn’t need to be in control right now.

Even as Arhan began to speak, his words flew past Halcyon’s consciousness in a haze of lethargic euphoria; though even while his mind was too slow to actively process those thoughts, his subconscious was still a blank page for the kobold to imprint his will upon. And while Halcyon’s body wanted to fall forward like a puppet with its strings cut loose, there was still the faintest semblance of energy coursing through his muscles so that he could remain attentive to his master’s every word.
“One…two…three… and wake,” Arhan said again with another snap of his fingers. All of a sudden the world existed to Halcyon once more as his senses and awareness returned, a little more slowly than before. He sat up with a groggy moan, blinking the fatigue from his eyes unevenly before facing his master.

“How you doing?” asked the Arhan.
“Good, sir,” the dragon responded automatically. The word ‘sir’ slipped out so easily, but it felt right to acknowledge his place under Arhan in everything that he said and did. Halcyon reached up with a claw to feel the purple collar fitted snugly around his neck, and gave a content sigh as he tugged at the leather slightly. It was a symbol of his submission and weakness to Arhan, one that he always knew was there and adored being made known to everyone else. Even now the strings of trance tugged at his mind; he may not have been hypnotized at this moment, but he was still very much under the kobold’s influence.

“Again…please,” mumbled Halcyon. He wasn’t in control of his own words; his conditioning and desire were coursing through him too feverishly to deny himself what he so desperately wanted to say. And those words didn’t go unnoticed to Arhan.
“Very well, pet.” The kobold raised his hand once more. “Three...two…one.” Snap!
Halcyon’s eyes were drifting shut before the resounding snap of Arhan’s fingers this time; the memory of trance beckoned him like a siren’s song that he eagerly surrendered to. The puppet strings were cut once more and the dragon’s entire body fell limp as he hung on the precipice of tumbling to the ground just as before. Once again he sank past the point of trance he had become so familiar with last time, taking that same path down into thoughtlessness and then plunging further than he could have imagined.

It was like searching for the bottom of the ocean in its pitch black depths; Halcyon couldn’t tell how far he might sink before he reached the bottom, his submission seemed infinite. Time blurred into a concept he couldn’t quite grasp; he knew that Arhan was still talking at him even though his conscious mind wasn’t listening. In that same way, he couldn’t discern how long his mind had been comfortably smothered by the feeling of total control; though at the same time he didn’t care in the slightest. The concern wasn’t even a blip on his subconscious radar, the only thoughts he had were Arhan’s; the only ones he needed.
“One…two…three, wake!” Snap! This time it took a while for Halcyon to blink the trance from his head; the sensation never quite dissipated though as he felt completely spellbound even in lucidity.

“Thank you…Master,” the dragon said, bowing his head submissively. Arhan smirked down at him and gave his pet an affectionate tickle around the ears.
“Don’t thank me yet, I’m not nearly finished with you.” Halcyon perked up at those words, trying to look towards his Master with eagerness, but his expression was still dazed and heavy. The kobold’s claw paused right next to Halcyon’s ear before he spoke next.
“Three…two…one…” SNAP!