Hunter had wondered how to proceed with Shana. He had thought about having a martial arts session and using that to boost her confidence. However that would require her to have a stable core to build her confidence on. He believed that the core problem here was Shana’s inability to truly identify with herself. She was struggling to accept who she was, and until she did she’d never find the confidence she seeks.

So Hunter was once again in the meditation room while he waited for her to arrive. What he intended to do was to help her rebuild a core image of who she was in her mind. Once she had that fixed they could proceed from there. He hoped she was still able to build a core self and had not been irrevocably crippled by self doubt.

Shana had made sure that she would be on time and had woke up much earlier then she needed to. She had used the time to sweep up the glass and do her ebst to restore the walls natural color, but some of it had stained rather badly. She once again left the mansion quickly and without word still riding high on the idea she could actually be helped, latching on to the hope almost afraid to let it go.

Arriving Elli informed her where to go and after a few moments to convince herself even if she did something stupid this guy did not seem like th type to just a abandon her, she gripped her long tail of blue hair, squeezed it with her hand and then she went to the room he was in. She tried to keep her hope from fading though it wa shard for her.

"hello again sir" she said still trying to be careful not to offend the man. Their was somthing about him, that just seemed to excude the idea she could trust him. Certain people she found had this feeling to them and she had never quite known why or if it was just her imagination, but she had used it to choose friends for years. Most other people she tended to try and hide from, cimply out of fear of doing something wrong or them acting like the taxi driver when she first came the USA several months ago.

“Please,” Hunter said with a smile as he beckoned Shana into the room, “call me Hunter. Now you are here because you worry about your confidence correct? Now I believe that your confidence issues stem from a lack of core self. Before we begin I’d like to try a little exercise.”

Hunter sat cross-legged and motioned for Shana to do the same. Resting his hands on his knees palm up he began. “I want you to close your eyes,” he instructed, “Now imagine you are in a vast white room. It is big open and empty with nothing in it. What I want you to put in this room is a cube. Tell me where it is, how big it is, what colour is it, is it see through?”

"That would be correct, Hunter" she said nodding, it was true, her own confidence kept her from acting at all at times and at other times delayed her from doing things for hours or if she did do them crippled the effort. The your Israeli had never heard it referred to in such a way, but she was fairly sure he was correct anyway. "All right" she said figuring that whatever this exercise was he most likely knew what he was doing.

Copying his position she sat down cross-legged it took her a few moments to realize and copy the hand position as well, as her nervousness once again tried to rear it's head in the back of her mind. Closing her eyes she focussed ona white room, it came slowly, and blackness kept trying to creep into it but after a few moments she felt confident she had a mostly stable white room, even if the lines from the corners still looked.....No she tried to force that from her mind as well.

Her Hands twitched as she was told to picture the cube, she found it hard to keep the cube still, then thought she might not suppose to be. "The Cube is near the top os the room and keeps moving...spinning slowly it is small big enough to fit a head sized object, but the colors keep changing each side different but pink and purple seem to be the ones facing me" she said trying to answer the question as well as she could, as the hint of doubt found her the darkneess again threatened to invade the white room.

Hunter considered what Shana told him. While this was new, it wasn’t surprising. “Very good,” he praised, “Now I want you to add flowers to the room. Tell me where they are and how many there are.” While he had been able to reasonably accurately guess Shana’s cube he had no idea where she’d put the flowers.

Hopefully this would highlight Shana to herself. Once she could see herself clearly from an outside point of view Hunter believed that they could start working on her confidence.

Shana was glad she seemed to be doing things correctly for once. And now things were going to get harder, now she was to add the white room. Adding flowers to the room and maintaining the previous white room and square was hard for her and took her a few moments. She was able to picture flowers in the room, they stayed near the walls of the room, one on each wall as if painted on.

"Their are four, one on each wall near the floor" she said thinking about it. Unsure what any of this meant she just did her best to maintain it all and to focus on it. It was relaxing in a starnge way though, but she tried not to dwell to much on that as when she did she began to loose hole of the picture she had created in her mind.

Hunter patiently waited while Shana added the flowers to the picture in her mind. There were still a few more things to add to this picture and she seemed to be struggling with the focus. While her eyes were closed Hunter began to use a few simply psychological tricks to help her relax and focus. With her eyes close and mind focused on the picture she was unlikely to even notice what he was doing but should find the picture easier to maintain.

“Good, very good,” he said reassuringly, “Now I want you to add a ladder. Tell me where the ladder is, what type of ladder it is and how big it is. Don’t worry about the room. It will just stay there without you thinking about it. You can put your focus on the objects in the room.” The little psychological nudge at the end of the instruction should also help.

Shana stopped thinking of the room and simply focussed on the ladder, which seemed to form right away, the ladders position made little sense to Shana when it appeared but it was there. "I see the ladder above the cube going from wall to wall, it looks old and wooden and long" she said as she tried to work out the details of the ladder, now more focussed on the exercise then her own insucurties, in the back of her mind she noted she was more relaxed then she had been in years.

Shana for once was not thinking of what could go wrong or how she could screw up, instead she was focussed on the man's words. Whoever this man was Shana could not begin to see how he could be violent in any way as he had mentioned to meld the previous day. Restraining her stray thoughts she made sure they returned to the room and the objects in it. He was right they stayed there somehow, she had to wonder if this wa shis doing, but again forced the stray thought from her mind.

Shana was visibly relaxing now. Hunter’s techniques were working and making the process easier for her. Any doubt he had had about her being unable to this was gone. He knew she could do this and so much more. The trick was convincing her she could.

“Very good,” he praised, “Now you need to add a horse to the room. I want you to tell me where in the room it is. Also what it is like, is it playful or standoffish?” The exercise was almost complete. After the horse there was only one more thing to add and then Hunter could explain what this was all for.

A horse, it seemed strange but Shana had chosen not to question these things and tried her best to add a horse to the room. The horse appeared quickly, easier then the previous things for some reason. "The horse is under the cube and seems quite afraid of the room" she said as she watched the horse in her mind look around scared unable to run out of the room. The black horse instead just stood thare nervously looking around.

Shana felt relaxed enough whare a boat could have went by without her notice. To her continued amazement the room stayed as did the various objkects which seemed not to fit together at all. Still their had to be some reason she was being asked to picture all of this and so she kept it up. The horse seemed to hold her attention the most however, the other strange things slowly seeming normal in the picture.

“Good,” Hunter praised, “Very good.” She’d managed to add the horse quicker than everything else. He had a feeling that now she was properly relaxed that the process would be faster. Just one more thing to add and then the exercise was over.

“Finally I want you to add storm clouds,” he said, “Where in the room are they and how much of the room do they cover?” Once Shana had done that Hunter would explain why they had done this. From there he could set about helping Shana more directly. This exercise wasn’t actually intended to boost her confidence but the fact that she was doing something successfully would come as a boost none the less.

Shana barely realized finnaly meant the excersize would soon come to the end, she was to focussed on the exercise. Storm clouds this time, she could do that, she often saw those in her mind after all. The strom clouds came quickly emerging from the cube, and rising to cover the entire room, turning dark almost as soon as they enveloped the top of the room.


"The clouds, they cover the entire top of the room, their rain pounding it with bright flashes of lightning." she said decrivbeing the feirce storm her mind had no trouble bringing up. "The ladder has started on fire" she said as she watched a thunder bolt hit it" Unsure if she was suppose to mention this or not, though the ladder did not seem to weaken but the flames on it spread anyway. SHe started breathing a bit harder as the clouds formed and began their storm s well.

“Good, very good. And now just relax and let it all slip away,” Hunter instructed, “Just let the image fade and slowly come back to the room.” He gently guided her from the focused state that had been in back to normal.

“Now let me explain what that was all about. That was actually a personality test. I had you do it so I could get a proper glimpse into who you are to try and help you. The cube represents your ego, what you think of yourself. Your cube was fairly small, near the ceiling and moving. Not only that but the colours kept changing as well. This shows a great deal of uncertainty about yourself. However pink and purple, two very feminine colours, were always facing you. Even among all the uncertainty you were sure of your femininity.” Hunter paused to let this sink in before continuing.

“Next were the flowers. They represent your friends. You placed them far away from the cube, you. As far away as they could go. This tells me that you are quite distant from your friends. What’s more you saw painted flowers on the walls instead of real ones, implying that you aren’t sure if your friendships are real.” He paused again. What he was telling Shana were some harsh truths, but it was invaluable that he knew this.

“The ladder was your ambitions. Yours was above your cube, as if out of reach. Not only that but the ladder was old, as if showing that you’d not worked at your ambitions in a long time. The horse was your love interests. Yours was below the cube but scared. I think that was your fears projected onto the horse. But you did place the horse as close to the cube as you could showing that you want that sort of companionship.”

“Finally there were the storm clouds. They were your problems. Your clouds filled the room then rained on everything, showing that you feel your problems affect everything about your life. Finally a lightning bolt set the ladder on fire. You think your problems make your ambition impossible.” What Hunter had just revealed was probably quite a shock to Shana’s system so he gave her a minute to come t terms with it.

“What I want you to know is that that is all in your head,” he assured her, “That is how you view the world, not how the world is. I’m going to help you see yourself in a new and positive light. Knowing how you see yourself now is going to help me do that.”

Shana came back to reality a bit slowly, almost not wanting to return to her normal state. A place like that even if it was just a room in her head could be comfortable for a long period of time, she wondered if the same calming affects could be achieved with other objects. The room faded and she blinked a few times, shaking her head as the light hurt her eyes a bit after having them, closed for so long, or at least when felt like a long time, she wondered how much time had passed.

So this had all been some kind of test? SHe really should have guessed that, she ahd been through a lot of psychological testing before, it had become so frequent she felt like she lived in their offices before she had quit it all. However she could not ignore hunters words, he seemed much better informed then anyone else she had ever delt with before, it was fascinating to her.

So her ego was feminine and she kept her friends at a distance and that she was afraid her relationships were fake. She could agree with this, she kept people distent becuse she was afraid they would betray or or that she might do something wrong and they would hate her for it. Most times she even socially interacted she was dragged into it and of course, their was her secret from most people, she needed to correct that. SHe snapped back to Hunters words as he went on.

If hunter had been playing darts Shana knew he would have landed bulleyes with every dart. She ahd not worked on her goal in some time, having instead chosen to hide from it and almost everyone else. In a mansion full fo people she felt alone, because she had made herself such. The lvoe intrest being represented by horse was a strange concept for her but it was true she did want to be with someone but felt it had to wait untill she was fixed.

Shana listened as he went on explaining that she was letting her prolblums get in the way of her doing things like her goals. Again the arrow struck her right in the heart. She was letting her issues keep her from acheiving anything, from the important stuff to minor things. The shock came from the fact hunter had told her in, how long had she been here? in a lot less time then she had taken to figure it out and to have it all laid out for her so easily, left her speechless.

"I have been to dozens of phycholagists over the years and not one of them has been able to do what you just did in months of sessions." she said the words just kind of fell out, and right away she wished she could take them back. It was all in her head, so she was over reacting to the world she took it to mean. She laughed a bit nervously. "Wow.....you really know what your doing..." she said still amazed and in some shock about what had happened.

Hunter simply smiled reassuringly at Shana. While what he had done might seem amazing it was actually a fairly simple trick. He could teach Shana to do it, but that would have to wait. “Now from what I can tell your biggest problem is that of gender,” Hunter said softly, “You were born in the wrong body.”

“Now there are several ways of dealing with this,” he explained, “And they primarily fall into two categories. Either you try and ignore the part of your mind that is telling you that you’re something different from your biology or you embrace it. Seeing as you are dressing and acting as a woman you’ve already chosen the first option.”

“From this point you have several choices. You can continue to do as you are and dress and act as a woman while being genetically male. Alternatively you could undergo gender reassignment therapy. Either way what you must do is stop worrying that people will reject you because of this. This is not the nineteenth century. I know, I was there,” he tried to cheer Shana up a little with a small joke. “Nowadays people are much more open minded about this sort of thing. I think you’ll find that there are people who want to be your friend regardless. People like me for instance.”