"Okay. What we are going to start first is a breath exercise. Note that I said breath not breathing. Breath is another component of lifeforce, like stamina. Could you please remove your shirt?"

"...Okay."

He removes his shirt near-instantly.

Okay, that was expected. She should be more careful with wording.

"Okay, I will put a hand on your chest and then guide you through a series of mental exercises. At some points you will feel out of breath and at others it will be the opposite..."

She does that and guides him through the exercise, it involves a lot of imagining things and focus on sensations, like imagining himself underwater and needing to go up. At a point he is suppose to hold his breath with his nose and not take air at all... yet he manages to go a couple of minutes without even feeling the need to breath in.

"You're doing well." She tells him.

"That's good. I don't want to disappoint. What else is there, besides breath and stamina?"

"Breath, stamina, wakefulness, health and youth. In ascending order of potence and how long it takes to recover. Which youth not recovering at all."

"So I give my lifeforce to you? What's it like to give each one away?"

"You also can learn to manipulate your own lifeforce and then use magic, but not being a proper sorcerer and having the extra lifeforce means it could be harder or more dangerous. Giving or spending breath is much like being out of breath or being suffocated depending ho much you go. With stamina you feel a tiredness similar to having made a physical effort, but... without being from a muscle. Wakefulness makes you sleepy and mentally lethargic. Health causes generalized weakness and sometimes other symptoms like fever if you go too far. Youth doesn't have immediate side effects but the person age faster and abusing it can cause cancer."

"I can probably give you most of those, even youth."

She awkwardly puts a hand on one of his. "Of course, but no need to get ahead of ourselves. Let's start working on stamina, it shouldn't be over as fast, each one is progressively more difficult."

Shapeshifters have a lot of stamina.

Noticeable and this exercise takes long enough that Katur comes by with Scott's clothes and ask if they need anything or if they want to try a emotion-soothing spell that Felicia came up to fight the packlessness.

"I'll have to shift to test it, and it gets worse every time. Can you explain what it does?"

Felicia is the one better suited to answer this question. "It numbs emotional pain such that you don't feel it. We can adjust the potence to suit you."

"Okay. Let's try it."

They try it, more painting symbols on Scott, chanting and burning smelly herbs ensue.

And now Scott can step into this room to disrobe and floof and check the results...

...the hollowness is indeed numbed, it isn't as pleasant as being a wolf with a pack, but it isn't the agony of deep loneliness.

The holes are still there, and they ache- but he feels better. It's like he knows he should be in pain, but can't feel it. 

He shifts back. 

"Thanks, that makes it easier. We can try more exercises. Wakefulness, right?" 

Felicia and Katur look away, he blushes.

"You're welcome, Scott."

Fernanda doesn't do anything besides briefly glancing down.

"Yes, that one is going to take long enough that we won't be over with it until tomorrow night, might be better to spread the exercises out and be done with the day after tomorrow."

"Okay. Sorry about the clothes, the pack is pretty casual about it."

"As should most people."

"Its no problem Scott, you just caught us by surprise," he glances then looks away and blushes some more.

"So I'm in the green room?"

"Yes, we can resume the lifeforces exercises. Unless you want to have a break."

"No, I can keep going. Lead the way."

Fernanda leads the way and motions him to get onto bed, she doesn't make comments that he should get dressed. But he can certainly do that if he wants to.

"So the wakefulness exercises are a bit harder not only because the specific subset of lifeforce is more complex, but they require more mental coordination and - sometimes - actually falling asleep. Don't worry about not getting it right, just keep doing the exercises as I tell you. Now, close your eyes..."

And she walks him through more mental exercises while keeping a hand in his forehead.