Divaricated

Subtle alien hydraulics whirred and bubbled with each and every movement of kitty's new form. Impossibly advanced biomechanical substrate danced beneath her skin, imbuing what remained of her frail humanity with incredible strength and unnatural confidence.

On limbs primed to turn thought to action, kitty stalked forth, letting herself sink into the stream of instinct and sensation that had become her world.

Twitching whiskers bounced on her cheeks, sensitive even to the slight currents in the ship's atmosphere. It added to the overwheming sense of awareness that suffused kitty's consciousness, hammered against her every thought with a dozen different inputs all demanding awareness.

Her new ears twitched, left and right and back and forth, focusing in on every sound and conversation. Where once the outside world had become vague and fuzzy a little ways out, now kitty's senses spread wide. Understanding the detail around her was so easy as to be unavoidable. Feline eyes glinted with bright reflections, taking in every detail, piercing shadow and darkness as easily as the height of day.

It was night-time on the Elettarium, and kitty was the monster here to claim its darkness.

Each and every Habitation Unit aboard ship was unique—at least since they'd scuttled Thatch's awful old thing—and to kitty's surprise the artistry almost always extended up above, where few would ever see. It made for another layer of existence, invisible to those trapped below. A world that could have been made entirely for her. Above one home, some kind of science-fiction machinery emitted a villainous aura that stood her hair on end, while another held only a simple metal grate, and another still held a grassy haven surrounding a little pond and a bench for sitting.

Kitty paused atop the last, spotting the unexpected presence of Leviathan happily exploring the pool. She hesitated, glancing down at the ground beneath to orient herself only to find she was atop her own home, and apparently had finally discovered where the river water cycled through. A small ladder sprouted out of one corner, leading out of a little hatch that presumably allowed access for more Terran physiques. How had both she and Thatch missed that?

Well, kitty supposed, she had once been incredibly imperceptive. When she thought back mere weeks ago, her vision felt blurred, her ears muffled, her intuitive sense of air and wind and motion simply gone.

Kitty—Katie, she corrected herself. The implantation had not been without its side effects, and the erasure of her own name was among the least of them. Still, it was a name she'd picked herself and she wanted to keep ahold of it, even if just as a nickname.

Katie looked over towards the next hab, some ten or twenty meters away. She could make that jump. She knew she could. The strength inherent in her new form left her feeling like she could lift mountains. She trotted back a few feet, spent a moment estimating the distance, and then burst into an enthusiastic gallop that ended with her hindclaws digging into the dirt on the edge of their hab roof. She jumped, legs snapping to full extension in bare moments.

She cried out in sudden pain, some piece of the machinery that was her body hitching as she threw herself forward. Katie sailed through the air, forelegs outstretched, reaching for the next unit with hope thumping in her heart. She was heading in slightly the wrong direction, but surely not by enough to make a difference. She was going to make it, she was going to—

Katie hit the next hab hard, slamming into its side with scant inches separating her grasping claws and the rooftop's edge. Acting on newfound instinct, she shifted her weight to close the distance, scraping gouges into the building as she scrambled to mount it. Perhaps she could have made it, but for finding herself just an inch too low.

Familiar spin-gravity reasserted control, pulling her down, down, deeper. Her bell chimed in the winds of wild motion, limbs flailing against the void. Open air swallowed her up in a moment where all else seemed to simply fall away but for the endless chiming of the bell.

Katie fell directly into a bush with a thud.

Kitty poked her head up, bell jingling happily. She squinted up at the traitorous wall and clawed four shallow cuts into the side, then watched, transfixed, as they healed before her eyes. Witchcraft. She tore again, deeper this time, feeling some inexplicable urge to claw and scratch at the wall until some mysterious sense in the back of her head told her she was sated.

Kitty scampered out, bursting from the bush in a twist of motion, trotting with a bounce in her step and nary a thought in her head-held-high. She— Kitty paused, freezing mid-step while her senses caught up with her. She breathed in deep, pulling air through her nose on instinct while her eyes slid closed. Ooh, food! Her ears caught the gentle laughter of pleasant, distracted company enjoying their meal. Kitty stalked, body held so low to the ground that her fur was skirting along blades of grass, sneaking down the wide boulevard with all senses wide open.

She was not quite perfectly alone. Other hunters stalked this night, plants on the prowl carrying their human prey. Kitty thought little of this. It was simply the way of nature. The strong hunted the weak. Those soft, fleshy humans had fought and lost and their submission had been bought through force of arm and will both. Fine by her.

None could pierce her stealth. When any grew too close, or glanced in her direction, kitty danced back into the shadows, becoming one with the night, jingling with only the most secret noises. Thanks to the lateness of the hour, interruptions were few and far between, and so in only minutes she approached her prize. Two plants and a pet crowded around a table, bathed in a light from above that would blind them to the world beyond their illusion of safety.

Kitty moved closer. Ten meters. Five. Two. Now was her time to strike. The rules of nature abhored a vacuum, and kitty was here to take her fill.

A biomechanical paw lanced outwards, claws rendered with impossible edge safely nestled where they could do no harm. With mechanical precision, she tugged on the vines of her person's leg, then butted her head against their thigh a few times until finally she earned a moment of attention.

A beautiful, perfect finger descended from heaven to scratch beside kitty's ear. Her world cracked in two, hubris cleaved into equal parts desperation and need. Kitty melted into the sensation, purring loudly and rubbing her cheek into her person's leg with eager abandon. The plant chuckled, shaking her head with a radiant warmth. Soft, pleasant feelings drifted through kitty's mind, where they could take root and begin to grow, finding nothing in their way.

The affini spoke a sentence in a language kitty may have known but failed to understand. She looked down with an expectant tilt of an eyebrow more implied than explicit. An answer was expected.

Kitty sat up, cleared her throat, and emitted her clearest “Miao!”

After a few moments and much laughter from the table—for some reason—an intensely curly fry was placed within her mouth, paired with a sharp word that kitty did understand. It meant a lot of things, but she thought of it as Wait.

She waited, squirming on her haunches, body squealing on quiet hydraulics with the intensity of her stillness. Alien spices burned on inhuman tastebuds, scents curling into her nostrils, pure force of sensation watering her eyes while she waited, staring upwards at the perfect face of her tormentor.

She could not beg with words, but her body was the only language kitty needed. She lifted her forepaws to her chest, holding herself vulnerable and open, pleading for permission to feast. Her wordless noises were worth a novel.

Finally, another utterance from her plant above. This one meant many things too, but kitty thought of it as Go.

The fry was eviscerated within instants. The spice flowed, setting her mouth alight with flavour. The fry's outer shell sported a delightful crunch, while the thick body within was warm, soft, and delicious. It was perfect, and even one left her feeling sleepy enough she didn't even think to resist when somebody reached down to still the unending chime of her bell.

Silence reigned in starlit seclusion. The possibility of thought began to churn beneath the smooth surface of kitty's mind. A finger below her chin gradually lifted her head, and as it did kitty felt her sense of self rising through layers of buried consciousness.

The world around them drew into focus. katie found herself staring upwards at her Thatch with a mouth half open. She thought that perhaps there was something she wanted to say and yet there was nothing on her mind. She blinked, tongue darting out to moisten dry lips, as if it could remind her what to think.

“Stay with me, kitten,” instructed the plant, drawing katie's attention up to her, and from there out to the world around her. “Get yourself recentered, nice and grounded in the here and the now.”

Thatch released the bell, permitting her katie to return to her regularly scheduled wiggling. If she got the cadence just right, it would keep her her. It felt so fragile. Katie glanced around herself, seeking landmarks and touchstones to place herself back within a context, pay special attention to the textures and shapes that surrounded her. Even with the lighting as dark as the Elettarium's public spaces ever got, there was so much to pay attention to that trying was stressful even in silence.

After a few long seconds of focus, katie let out a deep breath. The thoughts were flowing again, and she felt like herself. katie turned to paw at her person's leg, headbutted her thigh, and opened her mouth wide ready for another fry.

It was a proven strategy and the snacks were spectacular.

“Tch,” Thatch tutted. “I believe you are, what is the phrase, pilking this, kitten? Alas, you are exceptionally cute. Come, up you get, then you shall recieve your starch spiral.” She patted her lap. A vast machinery of floral paracognition broke from its slumber, calculating in moments distances, angles, estimated thrust-to-weight ratios, and endlessly complicated more, all to feed a precise knowledge of power and form into katie's waking mind.

Knowledge alone did not skill make. Katie attempted to execute the elegant leap she could see so clearly in her mind's eye, but everything she did was just a little bit off. Misjudged strength pushed her leap a few feet too high, while an incorrect interpretation of her own mass left her not moving far enough forward. She dropped hard onto her person's knee and slipped, tearing ribbons from Thatch's leg as she scrambled to find a stable spot. At very least, she could grab the curly fry out of the affini's waiting hand. Kitty chewed proudly, breathing hard. She'd made it. The fry was no less divine for the presence of her waking mind.

“Still getting used to it, then?” One of the other creatures at the table, Felicia Hautere, had been paying attention with a curious eye and a quiet smirk. “It took me a few days to get used to my augmentations too. I'd been used to running around in battle armour, though, so maybe it was a smaller change for me.”

The good ship Elettarium's captain reached down to pet her pet on the head. Though the feared space pirate had once been a scourge to the entire Terran Accord, now Felicia's eyes lost focus as she sank into her owner's entrancing presence just like everybody else. “It was months, not days, sweetheart, and you were stumbling helplessly all over. It was adorable. Go again.”

Rosa lifted her hand, leaving Felicia to spend long moments blinking. She recentered, then focused back in on katie as if nothing had happened. “Still getting used to it, then? It took me months.” She laughed, eyes flicking up and to the side as she remembered. “I was all over the place, couldn't keep my limbs all moving in the same direction. Mistress thought it was adorable, of course. I think watching me crawling around begging for scraps probably broke most of the old Leaena Dei crew there and then. You seem to be having an easier time of it, at least?”

Katie managed to stifle a giggle through sheer force of will. When Thatch had told her that she was to have a conversation with Felicia of all pets, the thought had been an intimidating one. The woman was more like a force of nature than a person, she'd thought.

The name Leaena Dei rang a bell, however. Katie's mind drifted back to one of her old crews, the Atlantis' Fortune. The last civilian ship she'd been Jump engineer on had never been a cushy role, but it'd gotten notably worse after a pirate raid had wiped out their third quarter profits and 'forced' the captain to work them all twice as hard.

Now here Felicia was namedropping the same ship that had boarded them, talking about battle armour like that the pirate had worn.

”...Does the name Atlantis' Fortune mean anything to you?” katie asked, tilting her head to one side.

The other pet paused, then glanced up at her owner, who nodded down. “A lot of what I did back then is hazy,” Felicia explained. “I remember the broad strokes, but the details...”

“Are mine to provide, petling.” Rosa replaced her hand atop Felicia's head, and the woman began to fade out immediately. “You raided that ship, many years before we met, and you are very sorry.”

“Uh, right, yeah,” Felicia mumbled, as the hand was removed and the dangerous pirate returned to what passed for concious thought around here. “I'm sorry, katie. I was a much worse person back then. Was that your ship? I don't recognise you.”

“I've been on a few journeys since,” katie admitted. She wasn't sure what to say about the rest. Was this even the same person who'd aimed a point defence cannon in her direction and told her fighting wasn't worth it? What did an apology from somebody who didn't even seem to understand their own past mean?

They were both different people now. Did the creature katie had become even have the right to request an apology from the creature Felicia had become? Or were they now so divorced from their prior selves that their biographies should simply begin with their domestication?

“Anyway,” katie segued, glancing to one side. She didn't have the confidence to confront anybody right now. “I'm maybe getting used to it? It's still new to me.” She lifted her paw; slowly curled and extended her fingers. She couldn't see through the coat of deep green fur, but she knew her tendons had been wrapped in protective plantlife and all the pressure her body had once borne had been taken on by the machine she had become.

“It's nice, though,” she admitted, staring transfixed at her own body moving so effortlessly. After a moment, she shuffled in place, straining her neck to look up at Thatch far above. “I don't think either of us knew going in that this was what was right for me, but it is.”

Katie glanced to the side. “It is,” she repeated, as much to herself as them. Her body felt right. She wished that she could she live up to its potential.

Thatch rumbled, a low and grinding sound that vibrated out into the air from her entire body. Katie let her eyelids slide shut, enjoying the sensation of air brushing over fur with a distant smile like she was a freshly smitten floret meeting her new owner for the very first time.

There was no feeling in the fur itself, of course, but the sensitive skin beneath felt every twitch and quiver, every brush and every stroke. Stars, but she had such a generous Thatch. Katie squirmed, feeling her thoughts starting to drop deeper into her presence, twisting around on her lap to nuzzle in against her neck and breathe deep of her sweet, heavy-earth scent.

Katie's whiskers were so sensitive to the gentle nighttime winds of the Elettarium that she could almost feel the people around her in the way those air currents were disrupted. Actually pressing her face right up into Thatch's neck was an intensity of sensation she simply lacked precedent for. Animal instinct buried deep somehow turned the twitches of tiny hairs into full understanding of texture and presence, like a radar image carved from pleasurable strikes of intensity that were so new as to overwhelm her entirely and leave her able to focus on nothing else.

The swinging of katie's bell slowed. Her obligate wiggles found no leverage in this position and her consciousness could not survive the silence. Thoughts began sinking deep beneath the soft haze of stillness. The first time, katie had interpreted the loss of her animal instincts as losing herself, but that wasn't fair to the machine beneath.

She fell through the fog, down where there was no sound or motion and the gears of her mind would sieze. She calcified, became rigid, fixed.

If the kitty she became when overexposed was her deep animal self, then it was the machine that revealed itself should she fall to the other side of her balancing act. The clockwork beneath the cat; ticking without cessation; the rationalised counterweight to her emotional core. The programming beneath it all, holding the space for her higher functions to execute within.

The light in her eyes cooled. Unreadable Affini symbols flashed over her vision, translations overlaid on her consciousness by the programmable pieces of her own mind. Katie's own diagnostic subsystems revealed themselves to her, a stream of data unfolding in her mind like the fractal petals of an unending flower. Glochi had implied that every floret had similar, endless quantification of their entire selves. Everything from their metabolic rate to blood composition to the feelings in their heads could be available to their owners and caretakers to tailor existence to them.

Probably another would be afraid of being so open, but katie found herself unable to respond with anything but flat acceptance. Emotions came from the animal self. Down here, the machine watched and awaited instruction.

Thatch reached down and flicked the bell. As if a vine had wrapped around her soul and started to pull, katie felt herself rising through layers of regimented thought, higher and higher until she found her balance once again. With a deep breath she tore her attention away from her own ticking soul and returned to the conversation.

With a nervous laugh, katie flashed their friends an apologetic smile. “Uh, yeah, I guess I'm still getting used to some of this,” she admitted, taking a few moments finding the right rhythm with which to speak and bounce so that she could keep herself thinking. Thatch's song had been inscribed on her soul for what felt like a lifetime, but now she had to keep to the beat with perfection if she wanted to retain herself. “Just struggling with the little things. Moving, thinking, remembering my own name, that kind of thing. No big deal.”

Felicia pursed her lips, looking on with an appraising glint. “I think that that part I can't relate to. My mistress has left my mind entirely untouched. If anything, I think more clearly than I used to.”

Even with her titanic force of will, katie stifled her laugh only with the help of her owner's hand firmly atop her head, right between the ears. Fingers dug in, nails pressing ever so slightly against the wrinkle of not-quite-flesh that bonded her ears and her scalp in a tiny, barely perceptible, yet demanding scritch. Katie felt herself stifled, thoughts slammed to a halt as she sank into the powerful relaxation of Thatch's presence, ears flicking as her broken voicebox ground into purrs.

That had nothing to do with her new implant, that was just normal.

Without the cosmic force of control that was Thatch Aquae, katie could not have stifiled the laugh, and she deeply suspected Thatch was focusing on her to achieve the same.

Felicia continued, seeming not to notice the chaos her words had caused, and glanced up at Rosacea. “Do you know if Miss Tellima still lives aboard station, Mistress?”

Rosa nodded. “With the domestication of a new species on the horizon, I suspect she's already bordering on reblooming from overwork, but she'd surely wilt anywhere quieter than a worldship.”

“Understood. May we please get November to come visit?” While Felicia spoke, Thatch entertained herself by slowly rubbing the inside of a thumb across the back of one of katie's ears. The sensations were heavenly, almost overwhelming, and only the addition of another hand covering her mouth kept her from distracting the conversation.

Rosacea seemed to consider her pet's question. “We may struggle. That particular family don't seem to know how to take a break, but we can ask. I'm sure we could get a video call, at least?”

Despite all katie's efforts, the pair were effectively distracted as an overly relaxed cat toppled to the ground. She reached out with her forepaws to catch herself, but unfortunately her limbs did precisely as she wished them to do, and katie was used to much slower, weaker limbs. She likely would have landed face first in the dirt with her arms pointing up towards the sky had Thatch not reached out to save her.

Frustration. Katie had asked for this. Katie had begged for this. This was meant to be everything that she'd ever wanted, and yet what? She struggled just to move around; she kept losing track of her own thoughts; and now she couldn't even relax in Thatch's lap without topping over? Anger was an emotion that hadn't survived her domestication, but katie found herself shrugging off her perfect plant's vine, feeling the tight-wound pulse of hot emotion driving her to do things she didn't want to. She jumped down to the ground, ignoring the sensation of surprise beating down upon her sixth sense.

She couldn't even walk, not any more. Her legs didn't bend like they used to. Her spine had been twisted, and while keeping her head high was now more comfortable, the cost was that not doing so ached.

Fuck! She couldn't even go outside during the day. There were too many people, too much motion, too much noise, the input was overwhelming. The light was blinding and the heat burned.

Back at her vet's, all the leaflets had said that the final sleep before implantation would be the last time a floret ever felt a negative emotion. The last time they'd feel pain, suffering, or stress. Katie suspected her implant could have given her that, still. It had inserted a bunch of new instincts into her head, it clearly wasn't incapable in that regard.

And yet.

“Kitten?” queried her plant from far above, tilting her head. Katie winced at the words, feeling frustration pulsing in her chest that peaked and fell to the familiar rhythm. She glanced back, hoping to find some comfort in her beautiful owner, but all her eyes fixed upon were the deep grooves that she'd gouged into Thatch's eye in a moment of animal panic.

Katie was dangerous now. How could she even think of confronting Felicia for her crimes when it was clear that Katie had done far worse, with gifts that had been supposed to render her domestic.

Maybe she should be drugged into a pliable haze. Didn't it say something horrifying if she was capable of frustration and anger even now, when she was supposed to be safe?

She'd hurt her Thatch! A vulnerable, often fragile, innocent and yet perfect creature who katie wanted nothing for but to see her shine.

Who else could she hurt, even without intent? Thatch reached out a hand and katie found herself shying away though she knew not why. The gift of a civilisation that had been bioengineering for a thousand millenia pushed at the back of her mind, helping her watch everything around, and though it quickly became overwhelming, she had an awareness that eclipsed her prior self. She somehow knew just how fast Thatch's hand was moving, just how much force there was behind it, just how effectively her angle of approach would deny katie leverage if she chose to fight it.

She was terrified to find a dull certainty that if she wanted to struggle then she would be able to. Some part of her wanted to laugh: something she had once wanted—the strength to fight the Affini—was now hers, and she was afraid of it. She was freezing up. What was she supposed to do? Her every movement could do harm because she wasn't in control and she wielded power.

“I believe she may be getting overwhelmed again,” Thatch sighed, speaking over at their guests with an apologetic look on her face. Great. Now katie was being treated like a brand new floret. Misbehaviour apologised for, undercurrent of disappointment rising to the surface, causing stress and difficulty, and she didn't want that. Katie was a good pet. She was the best pet. She wanted to let herself relax, apologise, and talk it out like a reasonable creature but she had so much feeling and power throbbing through her veins that she didn't know what to do.

The captain and her pirate queen leaned over the table both, inspecting, expectant. Judging. Their looks were piercing. They saw what she was. They saw a bad pet, a dangerous animal. Rosa wouldn't allow such a thing on board. She'd be taken. Thatch would be heartbroken, all because katie couldn't calm down.

No.

She backed away, baring teeth. Claws began to extend not of kitty's own desire, but on autonomous instinct. She felt threatened; her body responded. They weren't taking her anywhere. She had wanted to be a useful tool in her owner's hand, but if Thatch was threatened then kitty would be a weapon held ready to strike.

The once-marauder pulled a face. “Perhaps,” she pondered. “I think I recognise the look in her eyes, however. Panic, tension, more energy than she knows what to do with. She's ready to fight. Miss Aquae, may I?”

Kitty's plant glanced to the other, who emitted some indescipherable hum. A moment later she nodded, granting her assent. She who had once been a queen slipped from her caretaker's lap and stood but a few meters distant, looking down at kitty with firm certainty. “It's okay. You can't hurt me,” she declared.

She gestured her head in the direction of the plants. “They're soft, but you couldn't really hurt them either. As for me—” She paused, and glanced backwards. “Mistress, engage my pain inhibitors.”

The captain rolled her eyes and muttered something in a rough affini tongue, but did reach over and tap something on a tablet. Her pet's eyes softened, then focused in on katie.

“There. Now, even if you could touch me, you couldn't hurt me. You don't need to worry about it now. Does that help?” she asked. Kitty tried to process the words, but the meanings slipped out of her mind like sand through fingers. She whimpered, batting at her own collar, but her swings were clumsy enough that the bell only chimed louder and whatever words the woman was speaking no longer registered even as language.

Out of the corner of her eye, kitty spotted her plant reaching out towards her with a vine moving almost too fast to track. On instinct she kicked to the side and felt the breeze as the vine passed her by, leaving only inches between her and it. A claw raked out, leaving a shallow cut that was barely more than a scratch. Just a warning shot. The tangle of anxiety and panic was only growing tighter and kitty just needed leaving alone why would they not leave her alone.

One plant communed with the other. Hers didn't look alarmed, but whatever emotion was going on in her head just seemed alien now. A complicated drum-beat of feeling that did not parse. The dumb animal core understood not nuance.

After a moment, somebody offered a hand.

Kitty ran.

She didn't know why.

Some alarm signal buried deep within her subconscious roared.

Time to go.

Her first few steps were awkward, kicking up a spray of dirt and grass behind her. Frustration built. Too much effort went into tearing up the hardy grass. Even with superhuman strength and reflexes kitty was barely travelling faster than she could have run before and she had never before been fit. She glanced behind herself with dread and found the captain's floret mere feet behind her, easily keeping pace at what looked no more strenuous than a light jog.

How was she doing that? Enhanced eyes flicked across the woman's form, watching where she applied her weight and when she chose to use the strength available to her. The bounce in her step wasn't just cute, it was necessary. She pushed hard against the ground only when her momentum would hold her in place, unlike kitty, just scrambling for purchase on a surface that couldn't handle her newfound strength.

With anxiety spiking thanks to the close chase, kitty adjusted and found her stride. With an aggressive gallop that amounted to little more than repeatedly flinging herself through the air, she ran. Dirt still flew up behind her hindlegs, but at least now most of her energy actually went into propelling herself.

In seconds she was gone, darting out of the wide boulevard into one of the smaller walkways that cut between rows of homes. Claws dug deep within dark wood as she clambered up a building's side, letting that alarm in the back of her head guide her. She had to go she had to run she had to find somewhere safe.

Even with sharpened claws, it was hard work. Each and every inch was one forced out of gravity's jealous grasp and by the time katie reached the top she could feel strain in the sinews, pulleys, and hydraulics that made up her body. As she reached the top and began to force herself over, somebody offered a hand to help, which she took without thinking about it.

Her. The pirate queen. Danger.

How had she— kitty glanced behind her only to find the two affini barely a couple dozen feet behind. With a yowl she broke the woman's grip and tried to sprint away, only to find her action anticipated and countered. Faster than she could track, she was pinned against the hab roof, unable to apply her tremendous strength in any useful directions and so reduced to squirming in place.

No! She had to go! She had to run! She had to- to- to do something!

She hissed, swiping claws outstretched at somebody who barely moved and yet was never where kitty expected her to be. This wasn't fair! Kitty was a predator, not some timid creature! She wouldn't stand for this! No more!

With a roar, she stabbed her claws through the surface of the hab unit and yanked herself to the side, crashing into the other pet's legs hard enough to knock her off balance. The biped toppled, lacking the intrinsic benefits of a true predator's form, and a moment with sharp teeth pressed into her neck made sure she understood to stay down. Kitty was not here to be trifled with.

She wanted to stay and fight. Win. Rip, tear, force the safety she craved out of this universe's jealous hands. If she fought enough she would get what she needed.

But every predator had to know when she was outclassed, and nothing could fight an affini and win. Kitty turned to run.

Her person was right behind her. The plant's gentle hand pinned her in place more effectively than force ever could have. Merely a few fingers resting under her jaw brought the predator down to—

“—docility and sweetness, just as I like you, hmn?” Thatch reached up atop kitty's head, planting a false fingernail right where one of her ears had fused with the floral substrate lying beneath her scalp and began to, to, to

kitty's eyes slipped closed. A shiver ran down her spine as she bathed in the bliss of attention. Whatever thoughts she'd been holding onto were long gone now, hammered out of her mind by a haze of pleasure she could not hope to escape. A vine gently lain across her back pulled her close and held her against her person's chest where she could hear every rumbling breath from her magnificent body.

Kitty had to... what? Fight? Run? Thatch's hand cradled her entire head, thumb gently rubbing in little circles while something slowly stroked down her back. The kitten's world filled with gentle, soothing hums, soft pleasant scents, and satisfying textures in every direction. She squirmed, ending up with her chin resting against the plant's chest, staring up at her beautiful face with a dumb smile while trying to remember what it was she'd even been running from. Even those thoughts caught on the blissful glitter-gleam of glistening fragmented crystal that was her owner's eye.

Kitty's head fell to one side while she traced her gaze along the scratches she'd left. Three shallow chips with an accompanying maze of gossamer cracks so thin they seemed to dance before her eyes as the light bounced between them. Once upon a time the kitten would have thought that such damage could only make something lesser, but her person had always been damaged through and through and she was all the more beautiful for it.

The cracks revealed a secret often hidden from floretkind: affini eyes weren't perfectly opaque. The cracks spidered deep within the gemstone surface, light reflecting and refracting and bouncing off of internal imperfections in an endless pattern kitty herself had painted with her savage brush.

“M— Miao,” she whispered, the urge to speak crashing headfirst into a total absence of language. With her body pressed so close into her owner's, she felt more than heard her low chuckle. Kitty was being amusing. She surrendered another little animal noise, sinking into the bioengineer's deep appreciation. A hand, or vine, or something pressed down against her head, and the sensation of a firm manipulator's pressure holding her down felt divine. A thousand times better than it ever had before. More. She didn't know. She couldn't. The predator wasn't just docile, she was desperate.

Kitty's person spoke down towards her, but not a word of it was consciously understood. The tone was soft, slow, even doting. Understanding didn't seem to be required. If it were important, it would simply be done to her. Thatch didn't need to ask. Kitty was hers, and she could do with her as she pleased.

With one hand Thatch brought close what looked like a small bundle of pretty flowers. Kitty recognised those! That was where the nice drugs came from! Before she could think more deeply about any possible implications, a gentle light glowing out between the vines of Thatch's false finger plucked her attention and took it in hand. It moved, slowly back and forth, back and forth, in a pattern so familiar katie could have followed it in her sleep yet so complicated she could never have written it down. Some deep part of her understood that she could offer no resistance to being enthralled by such a thing, and like a self-fulfilling prophecy that made it true. The light rose and fell in time to a different, complementary part of the pattern, and katie's eyes latched on with no thought of release.

The finger went left, and so she looked left. The finger went right, so too she. Thatch reached forwards, over her head, and katie found herself shuffling backwards, taking up a kneeling stance with her head held high so that she could keep the beautiful light fixed in the very center of her gaze.

Thatch sat beside her, absent-mindedly swirling her finger to keep her propertly entirely entranced while busying herself securing the bundle of flowers around kitty's mouth. Maybe that should have been more concerning than it was, and perhaps something should be done about it. Maybe she would, once she was done with the light.

Perhaps more likely, once the light was done with her.

At a signal that was neither verbal nor physical, katie breathed. Thatch's familiar damp-earth scent filled her, carrying with it a deep, tingling relaxation that began to flow through her body. With one breath, it filled her mouth. With another, her lungs. By the third, her cardiovascular system had already carried the feeling across her whole body, and finally, with the fourth, it reached her mind and brought everything slowly, calmly, back down to earth. Thatch's finger brought her in for a gentle landing, pulling her focus back towards the waking world.

“Kitten?” Thatch whispered.

“Miss?”

“Back with us?”

“Yes, Miss. I um. Thank you.” Kitt— Katie would have looked away, but her gaze was still helpless on the end of Miss Aquae's string. She smiled, only a little strained. Implantation had been supposed to bring her more under control, and yet here she was running from an offered vine like some kind of feralist. Embarassing.

The smile returned, strained, too. Katie sagged, though tried to hide it. She was being a disappointment. Thatch had put so much work into this and katie was ruining it. It was literally all her fault. If they'd just gone with a normal implant like Thatch had tried to push them towards then katie wouldn't even be capable of thinking such thoughts, but no, katie needed to be special.

Now here they were. Special indeed.

“I— I am sorry, kitten.” Thatch sighed, bioluminescence winking out. Katie shifted her gaze to look up at her owner. No less entrancing, but beautiful enough she had many places to move her eyes between. She focused in on herself for a moment, recognising the effects of one of the drugs that had been in her pre-implantation prescriptions back when her neurochemistry had been more manually controlled, the one that made it easier to feel the inherent cognitohazardousness of the affini form without getting entirely drawn in. “I had not realised your new instincts would be so potent, nor that it would be so much more difficult for you to choose how to act. I— I will fix this, I promise you.”

“Huh?” Katie blinked upwards. “What, no, I'm sorry. I'm the one messing all of this up. I should have told you I was getting overwhelmed; I shouldn't have just waited until it was so bad everybody found out when I cracked.”

“Kitten mine, this is your first social outing since your senses were entirely reimplemented. Your mind is still growing to accomodate wholly new inputs. It is my responsibility to determine how much you can take and ensure you are not pushed beyond your limit.”

“It's my responsibility to let you know what's going on inside my head.” Katie stared her down. This was her fault, why wouldn't her perfect flawless plant just see that!

“Ordinarily, you would be as an open book to me. If only I had not created the only Hausteria in this galaxy that must be asked to provide a status report.” Thatch sighed, sending another waft of that beautiful earthen scent straight into katie's nostrils. The drugs helped her choose not to get drawn in, but that didn't make her owner any less entrancing on her own merits.

“If only I were just like everybody else? Thatch, sweetie, you know there's no such thing as that. The only way to make everybody the same would be to strip away what makes them them, and...” Katie giggled quietly, implant providing a few abstract diagnostic logs describing their last encounter with Pancake. “Sometimes that's for the best, you know how pet species can get. Some of us have healthier outlooks, though, and aren't we all the more beautiful for our differences? Neither you nor I wanted you to give me the standard treatment. I might have some imperfections, but those are beautiful gifts you've given me and I cherish those. I should just be able to handle them better.”

“That is not fair to yourself, kitten. I am not supposed to give you challenges you cannot overcome.”

“Who says?”

“Everybody.”

Katie rolled her eyes, waving the assertion off. “Else. Everybody else. I don't care about everybody else. Challenge me, Thatch. Give me tasks I can't complete, because I don't ever want to turn around and say that there is anything I will not do for you. I want to overcome this. I will overcome this.”

She darted forward, wrapping empowered arms around her affini's sides. Katie squeezed with force enough to force her Thatch out of shape. “I'm sorry. I think I need to be told that it's okay if I struggle. If— if it is. Don't lie to me.”

Thatch's arms wrapped around her. The grip grew tighter and tighter over lingering moments. Subsystems all across katie's body simulated an approximation of her old sense of touch, but each gradually began scaling their sensations back as the pressure grew to levels that would have overwhelmed her humanlike form. Katie focused, reaching out to her implant with a silent plea to stay the path. It was difficult to bear, but she wanted to feel everything Thatch had to give.

Katie let her eyes slip closed, focusing first on her breathing. The pressure hurt. It would have crushed her former body a dozen times over. She gritted her teeth, fighting to keep herself calm while an alien who had once seemed infinitely strong wore herself out.

Thatch's vinework lattice trembled as she reached the outer limits of either her strength or her resolve. After long moments wavering on the edge, she fell slack, form losing its perfect cohesion. She could be sloppy. Katie didn't mind. “Is it?” Thatch asked. “If this hurts you—”

“Then I'll suffer it,” katie interjected. “You know that. For you. I want to feel like I'm yours and I do. I— I'm a work in progress still, I know, but I'm your work in progress and I like that.”

Thatch glanced back towards her. “You do not wish that you were already completed?”

“Why would I?” Katie shrugged. “I'll be 'done' when you never need to tell me which tool to fetch; when you feel like you have another pair of hands for every project—yes I know about the vines, shut up, I'm trying to be romantic—and when you've rewritten every instinct and behaviour in my head to work just like you want them to.”

“By that metric, I am afraid that you will never be done. My preferences will change, our projects will not be static, and tools are forever evolving.”

Katie nodded firmly, letting her lips twist into a complicated smile. “Yes. So, let's be works in progress forever? If that's okay?”

“It is— Yes. It is very much okay.” Thatch sagged. “I had been avoiding that conversation. I am sorry, it was silly of me. Of course my katieflower would be of the most comforting opinion. It is almost as if I placed it there myself.”

Katie laughed. “Yes, or almost as if I've been intentionally shaping myself to your preferences for months,” she deadpanned.

“Yes, yes. Goodness knows where you learned that I like a bit of wit in my tools.”

“Only from observation, Miss.” Katie grinned, and got a grin back in turn. Over a long few moments, they relaxed into one another, nodding quietly to themselves.

“So.” Thatch started, after long moments of reflection. “So long as you are not suffer— Ah, so long as you are not unhappy, I am entirely content for you to still be acclimating to your new form.”

“And so long as you're happy, I don't mind being imperfect one bit.” She smiled up.

Thatch's answering smile held a sharper edge. “I mind, but worry not, little one. Any flaws I find within you will soon be fixed.” She already had a tool in her hand, twirled beneath two fingertips, though katie had no idea from where she'd retrieved it. “Shall we?”

The cat giggled, then nodded her head over to the side, where their company was watching, both smirking. “Might be polite to wait; wasn't coming out here supposed to be so that I could learn about how to handle my new body from Felicia?”

The perfect, beautiful, and slightly out of touch plant blinked. “Oh, is she augmented too? That does recontextualise their offer of companionship somewhat.” Thatch glanced the watching pirate queen up and down, recieving an unimpressed glare in response. She sniffed. “Well, I think my work is a little more distinctive, but perhaps that could be a learning experience!”

Felicia raised her arms in a wide shrug. “Do you think this air of hypercompetence comes merely from skill, Aquae?” She spent a moment inspecting her fingernails, cleaning off any dirt that she'd accrued on the chase. “I could take one of you things one on one before my Mistress decided I was to be a titan. Mistake not subtlety for restraint, I am every bit as augmented as your kitten there and with years of experience.”

Thatch raised an eyebrow over at Rosacea, who had found a comfortable seat in the little rooftop garden and had taken her place to watch the show. The captain shrugged and returned a slightly sheepish grin. “I like breaking dangerous toys, though she is mistaken. She could not fight me before I had her rebuilt.”

“Most honoured Mistress, I could fight you.” Felicia disagreed, glancing back. “Though admittedly you did beat me into the metaphorical dirt.” Returning her attention to katie, she continued. “Not the point. The point, katie, is that neither of us were meant to think. Stop worrying about whether you're doing it right and just do it. As soon as you stopped thinking you flowed like a stealth missile dancing through a flak screen.”

Katie shrank back into her owner's grip, shaking her head. “I got lost in my own instincts, I don't want to go back there right now. I don't want to be a flighty animal.”

Felicia shook her head. “No, no, no, you got into the flow. Stars above, you legal types wrap yourselves in so much hierarchy. I didn't let anybody onto any of my crews if they hadn't flown a ship in battle. Try to think about what to do when you have a railgun slug bearing down on you at point-zero-one c and I won't have to worry about how to let you down gently after you fail the interview.” She rolled her eyes, as if she thought she'd just made a good point. “You don't need to be an animal to stop thinking about what you're doing.” Her tongue darted out, moistening her lips. She looked hungry. “Let's spar. Modern Mothtaur ruleset: no injuries, affini decide the victor. You took the first round; I won't go so easy on you for the second..”

“What? I don't want to fight you,” katie complained. “I—” She glanced away. She was supposed to feel safe here, but she couldn't help but think back to staring down the barrel of a cannon and being told to surrender all but the fuel they'd need to jump back to the nearest outpost. Despite the layers of safety surrounding them, a shiver ran down katie's spine.

Here stood the pirate queen, one of the most infamous characters to walk the late Terran stage, made more powerful still in her ascention. How was that right? “Haven't we already fought enough?” katie asked. “Thousands of years of human history bathed in blood and we both get a chance to escape it, but you still want to fight?”

The other pet frowned. “We have escaped it. Violence done to harm others is...”

Rosacea chipped in. “Reprehensible, dear.”

“Reprehensible. But, violence in principle?” She shrugged. “A painting can be violent and its artist praised for creating something striking. A mechanic or a vet can be violent, acting with confidence and precision to save the life of their patient and cleaning up afterwards. A dance can be violent, inflaming the passions of its participants and raising them to heights of emotion you would find nowhere else.”

Katie glanced over to Rosacea, who had her eyes closed and head bobbing along to the words. She got the idea that this particular speech was not a Felicia original.

“I don't want to fight you, katie,” Felicia stressed. “I am inviting you to the dance.”

Was that supposed to be convincing? Katie glanced back up at her Thatch, who gave the emotional equivalent of a shrug. “You were beautiful as you ran here,” she admitted. “She may have a point.”

The cat sighed. 'She may have a point'. So her darling owner decreed, so the dedicated pet would execute. “Okay then. How do we do this?”

The pirate moved, darting forward with palm outstretched. A sixth— seventh?—sense in the back of katie's head extrapolated the motion in an instant, predicting where it would land. There was no way katie could avoid it by herself, but she was still nestled in Thatch's vines. She could trust in her owner. A quick tap from her forepaw was enough to draw her plant's attention, who quickly pulled her out of the way.

Felicia's palm slapped against Thatch's chest. The world stopped, sound echoing in the silent night. The affini glanced down with a raised eyebrow. The pet squeaked, stepped back, and gave her a bow. “My apologies, honoured Mistress.”

“I prefer Ma'am from those I have not taken responsibility for.”

“My apologies, honoured Ma'am?”

”...That doesn't really work,” katie interjected. “I suggest 'honoured but inconvenient houseplant'.”

“I would never be so disrespectful,” Felicia insisted.

“I would!”

Katie darted forward, starting her portion of the dance with an awkward rush forward. With every movement her bell rang loud. She felt it tugging on her mind, trying to draw her deeper into her own instincts, but the chemical concoction soaking through her helped hold her consciousness firm. If that stuff was powerful enough to let her resist sinking for Thatch, then what hope would the little bell on her collar have?

All the same, katie let the sound lull her a little deeper. The whole point of this exercise was to bring her instincts to the fore. Stop focusing so much on techniques that she forgot the principles that had spawned them.

Felicia dodged without obvious difficulty, dancing backwards one half-step at a time. Her gaze remained fixed, matched with an appraising smirk. Their arena was hardly an ideal one; she had to glance behind herself to avoid tripping over a rock garden. All of the rocks had their own unique smiley faces scribbled on their varied surfaces; katie assumed a floret would be sad if any of them got hurt.

“No,” Felicia corrected. “By the time you've consciously registered the shot, the shell has already punctured your ship's hull. Do that again, but faster.”

Katie growled. “'Do that again but faster' is not advice,” she complained. Okay, so, how did she dart forward? It was her rear legs that had the power, so needed to pull them under herself in order to push off and throw herself forward. Her forelegs couldn't really pull her along fast enough, but she did need to use them to hold herself up while she brought her rear legs into the right place and—

She slipped and stumbled. As if to signal the failure, her bell responded to the movement as it did every other, with a jingling that seemed to echo inside katie's mind for far longer than it rang in the outside world. She glanced up to see if Felicia would take advantage of her misstep, but the woman seemed to be blinking away some kind of discomfort.

Would it be rude to take advantage of that? Probably, but it hadn't been katie aiming a point-defence cannon at people and calling it fair salvage. Felicia deserved unfair treatment. The predator shuffled into Felicia's legs and bumped her backwards, almost unbalancing her entirely, though a quick leap into the air let her land in a firmer stance without risking another assault. She watched katie with more suspicion. “It is too advice. You're trying to decide what to do when your body already knows better than you ever will. Think less. Focus inwards, feel the way your body wants to move.”

“Repeating the advice doesn't make it better!” katie complained, but tried regardless. How was she meant to not think about this? She tried to remember how she'd felt when thoughts had been beyond her and fear had given her a desperate need to run. The memory alone brought an urge along with it. Kitty gave in, letting the memories drive her body. She leaped, faster than the speed of thought, faster than any decision she could hope to make.

Fast enough Felicia couldn't get out of the way, though not so fast she couldn't raise a hand to push kitty's paw aside as she swiped. She ended up caught, held in her opponent's arms. “Whoof, heavier than you look,” Felicia noted, bouncing her a little. “Use that to your advantage, you can carry more momentum than you think. Now, again.”

Kitty was dropped unceremoniously. She tried to twist in the air, but lacked leverage and so ended up landing tangled. She scrambled up to her feet, following the mantra of think less, and moved to leap again. As she did so, one of her rear paws slipped and a claw struck a rock, scoring a line right across the eye.

Kitty winced. “Dirt,” she swore, freezing up before carefully moving herself to inspect the injured pet rock. “Um. Uh.” Dirt! She could feel her implant stepping in calm her, forcing her heartrate steady while refusing to permit the adrenaline that she expected into her bloodstream. It let her know it was doing it, raising a quiet notification in the back of her mind that she was being adjusted to keep her within her configured bounds. Kitty allowed her moment of anxious panic to pass without catching. The rock friend recieved a careful lick, cleaning away the scratch and leaving it looking good as new.

“But look,” kitty insisted, whirling back around, gesturing to her thankfully-okay friend. “How are we meant to not think about our actions? Who wouldn't say that we're dangerous?” Her bell chimed along with her words, collar bouncing with the shifting of her stance and her neck, swinging from side to side with the cadence of her speech.

“Dangerous...” The queen blinked again, shaking her head as if to clear it. “Uh. Yeah. We are dangerous,” she admitted, “but there's a paradox in danger. Remember back in the old days, how a Danger sign made you feel safe, because it meant the threats had been considered and accounted for?”

Katie blinked. “...no? Danger signs always terrified me.”

“Well, they made me feel safe. I never felt less safe than when there were no warnings, because that just meant nobody was paying attention to the risks.” Timed with the final word, she stepped forward, casually striking one of the rocks with the tip of her foot to send it careening across the hab roof.

Kitty didn't have time to think about what to do, but implanted instincts drove her paw forward, snatching the friendly rock out of the air so it could be carefully placed next to the other. “Watch it!” she complained. “These are somebody's!”

“It was in no danger. I knew you would catch it, and if you didn't, Mistress would have. That's the point. The risks are being paid attention to. How could you make anyone safe, katie?” She ran forward and stomped on the place kitty had been a moment earlier hard enough to throw dirt into the air. The cat scrambled, having barely thrown herself to one side to dodge. The follow-up blows missed by wider margins, kitty finding the beat of their dance and sticking to it. The loud chiming of her bell provided a potent timbre accompaniment to the rough bass of Felicia's superhuman strikes.

“Don't—” kitty ducked, letting a kick go over her head— “make us superhuman?”

“You aren't scared of me because I'm no longer human. You're scared of me because of what I did when I was.” Felicia kicked again, forcing kitty to duck to one side, only to reveal it a feint as she shifted her stance and brought her foot down hard. “Don't pretend that any of us used to be safe. We were all just in a race to get everyone else before they got us, and I was good at it.”

Her movements seemed more sluggish than kitty expected them to be. Maybe she was going easy. Kitty was still just a cat dancing with a trained fighter, even if she seemed to be pulling her punches.

All the same, the blow connected hard.

Kitty yowled, implanted feedback complaining about superficial damage to her superstructure. The kick knocked her to the floor, smothering the sound of her bell and filling the air with a sudden silence. Limbs quivering, she picked herself up, and found her smile. It might have hurt, but she didn't feel very human.

The pirate stood over her, looking down with intent focus, lightly bouncing on her feet to a strangely familiar rhythm.

“Shouldn't we be held to higher standards now?” katie asked, breathing hard, carefully backing off to get a little distance. “I thought the whole point of this was making sure all our old hurts got their repairs? How does making sure we can do even more harm help anyone?”

Felicia blinked a few times down at kitty. The two were keeping their stances light, bouncing on paws and feet. The air filled with katie's portion of Thatch's gentle song, ringing out from the bell. Felicia nodded along to the beat. “Because...” She blinked a few more times, then focused. “Uh. Because we're—”

kitty took advantage of her confusion, pouncing forward. She didn't expect that she'd land a blow, but she suspected her opponent would be disappointed if she didn't try. As she sailed through the air, she watched carefully, waiting for the counter-strike, trying to figure out how she would avoid it next time.

Nothing came. Surely Felicia would dodge, then, get out of the way somehow. Kitty began to consider how she would land safely at the other side of the jump.

Her sparring partner began to move, but much too late. Kitty crashed into her at speed, knocking her from her feet and into the air. Felicia hadn't even readied herself for the blow. The same seventh sense that had been helping kitty keep track of the goings on of the match jumped in here too, giving her the uncomfortable recognition that on their current trajectory, Felicia was likely to strike her head on one of the friendly rocks, and some distinctly unfriendly consequences might occur. Both could be hurt.

Dirt. Kitty'd fucked up. Her implant allowed the adrenaline this time, but its touch across her mind actively prevented panic or stress. She had to focus. She had to be in control. There would be time for philosophy later. She reached out, claws outstretched, to grab onto Felicia's clothing and pull herself close. With a foreleg wrapped around the woman's body and her other paw holding the back of her head, they fell, wrapped together to ensure that when they hit the ground in a thump it was softened and safe.

Kitty sat up, taking her victorious place upon Felicia's chest, and looked down at her defeated quarry.

The pirate queen groaned. “You're doing something to me,” she complained. “Can't think straight. Every time that bell— I just, it wipes my thoughts away.”

Oh. Kitty laughed. She suspected that Thatch hadn't considered the potential side-effects of reinforcing kitty's cognition with an external reminder of the rhythm she lived her life to. She saw no reason to mute her own music. With a sly smile, she slipped a claw along the captured pirate queen's chin. “You were saying something about danger, Felicia.”

“Yeah,” Felicia replied, nodding slowly to herself. “Right. Something about danger?”

“That it's okay that we're dangerous? Yeah, you were telling me why.” Even kitty could hear her cadence like this. She'd been sleepwalking deeper into Thatch's beat for so long that she hadn't really noticed the steps, and by the time they were obvious to everybody else she was too used to them to care. Between her words and her wiggles, she created an enthralling soundscape of complimentary patterns and it was very clear how her subject could not help but be drawn in.

Felicia nodded, movements sluggish yet precisely when kitty had expected her to nod. It was her turn in their duet. “It's okay. There's nothing safer than a dangerous thing in expert hands.”

“And that's us? Yeah.” Did kitty— did katie count as expert hands? She had been trained by the best, both in her technique and her ethics. She realised, quietly, with a claw carefully adjusting Felicia's head to make sure she stayed in a comfortable position, that she was glad that it was her doing this and not somebody else. Somebody else might have gotten it wrong, but katie knew she could handle this capacity with the respect it deserved.

“Yeah,” the once-upon-a-time queen whispered with almost a sigh, replying to the beat set by katie's patter and pose. “That's us.” She smiled a quiet smile. Katie glanced up at Rosacea, silently asking the simple question of whether this was outside the bounds of their contest.

Rosacea nodded, armed with a compersive grin. “This is honourable, continue.”

“So, Felicia, you could say that I'm safe, then?” katie asked, remembering the way that Thatch's words seemed to find a slow but predictable rhythm whenever she was speaking to a katie under the influence. The one that she couldn't help but listen to; couldn't help but predict each word and each sentence even as they were happening; couldn't help but dedicate her analytical mind to paring apart meaning and hidden depths. The one that seemed to just pick up her thoughts and carry them wherever Thatch may lead. “Not dangerous, like you say. Safe, mm? Yeah.”

“Yeah. You've got warning signs.” The other pet blinked slowly. She was speaking to the beat now, too. “Can't sneak up on anyone. Makes you safe.”

“Back before,” katie whispered, drawing a claw slowly up the edge of Felicia's jaw. “Remember when we first met. The weight of your gun; the warm air of a spaceship hard at work filtered through your suit; the dull thrum of an overtaxed heat pump echoing against the walls. There were warning signs on the jump drive, labels and icons and words. Some might say it was safe, in expert hands?”

“In expert hands,” the woman mirrored.

“These hands.” Katie smiled, glancing down at hers. “Or close enough, you could say.” Her claw skimmed along the skin, pressed close enough to be felt but weakly enough to leave no mark behind. “There's warning signs on you now too, so you're safe, aren't you?” She wiggled her fingers in front of Felicia's face. “In expert hands.”

“Expert hands...”

“Expert hands. Goodness, you really are safe now.” katie giggled. It was difficult to stay afraid of the zonked out pet trapped beneath her, glassy eyes fixated on the bell, open lips mouthing every word katie had to say. “One might even say beaten, perhaps? Defeated in honourable combat?”

“N- nooo,” Felicia complained, trying to reach up to push katie off. She moved sluggishly enough that katie could simply take her arm by the wrist and press it back into the dirt. “Fighting...”

“Shh,” katie whispered. “No need for that, okay? We don't need to fight. You've possibly already realised that you can't, or maybe you're only just starting to notice. Either is good. You're safe, remember? Safe and soft in my expert hands, and safe little things don't fight, so how about you surrender? Yes.”

”...yes.”

Kitty grinned. The battle was won. “Oh, and my name is kit— is katie,” she supplied, suggesting without demand.

“Yes, katie. Surrender.” The woman seemed to know she was beaten, now, and was taking her own advice to heart, to think less, and go with what her body wanted to do.

Katie glanced over to the two affini and recieved a pair of nods. She leaped off of Felicia's chest and gave her a few last whispers, letting her know she could wake up whenever she was ready, and was under no requirement to hold on to any ideas she didn't like. After talking so much about safety, it was important to live up to that. Durable changes were something to impose with either consent or a firm vine, and katie could acquire only the first.

Thatch wandered over, placing a firm hand atop her pet's head while glancing down with an eyebrow raised. “A side of you we have rarely seen before, hmn? Should I worry for my authority, kitten?”

Katie laughed, wielding her considerable strength to nuzzle softly up into her grip. “No, Miss Aquae. I think this helped, actually. I've always been dangerous—”

“You have a certificate proving it hung on our bedroom wall, in fact.”

“Yeah, right? I'm more capable now, and so I'm kind of more dangerous, but I'm just wielding that power for you. You won't use me for anything bad, will you, Miss?”

“Of course not. I require you at your best so that we can change this universe for the better.”

“Hence, why you have nothing to worry about.” Kitty hopped up, rapidly climbing Thatch's weave. Her claws gave her so much grip here. She settled in around her person's neck, crossing her forelegs atop her head, and wiggled into place. “You've never had to keep me under control with force. You're my expert hands, and I'm your tool. The more capable I am, the better a tool you have, nothing more than that.”

Kitty could feel Thatch's love radiating off of her like a space heater. Her plant was such a romantic dork. Stars but she loved her.

Far below, Felicia was finally sitting, blinking slowly, still with a little smile on her face. “Mkay. First time I've lost like that, and to a floret at that. My reputation may not survive this humiliation.” She paused, stood, and stretched, letting out a satisfied little yawn and bouncing on her heels. She turned to grin up towards her fellow floret. “Hey, katie, best three out of five?”

”...y'know what? Yeah, okay. That was fun, let's go again.”