Divaricated

The glowing accents of Ined Incertae's attention danced across the largely bare room, moving to focus in on a compartment to one side. A hidden panel pushed in, then slid out of the way, revealing a few dying motes of glowing energy and a box.

The box was ejected while the rest dissipated. One freshly compiled board game. A whiff of that dull cinnamon fresh-print smell wafted across the room before being stolen away by the climate control vents that, in contrast to the rest of the ship, hummed away audibly at the back of Katie's attention.

The ship began to move around them, slowly enough that it was barely perceptible, at least to a floret who was only kinda high. There was only a mild shimmer around the edges of Katie's vision and her limbs only felt sloppy if she tried to move them, so she was basically sober by floret standards.

All the same, she clung tight to Thatch's leg as inertia rallied against the Elettarium's navigation thrusters and lost. The ship matched speed with the box, bringing it to a halt in mid air, and then rose to meet it, bringing the raw materials for their board game right to the centre of their little group.

Katie nibbled on the edge of one of Thatch's leaves. This time last year she was pretty sure she was sleeping in a sack strapped to a wall with bungie cord and washing herself with a dry sponge. Now she was—

“Sorry, Miss,” Katie whispered, as Thatch gently removed the leaf from her mouth, replacing it with a finger for the girl to entertain herself with.

The spaceship—impressive though she may be—had to fake a cough to get their attention. Katie and Thatch looked back up as one, both vaguely embarrassed.

“Rocket to Nyrina,” explained Ined, “is a co-operative crisis management board game about a group of Rinan cuties who crashed their rocket and need to get home. The game takes place over three phases—investigate; architect; generate—made up of numerous rounds each. Each round, everybody gets a turn to make a decision on how they're going to contribute to the phase goal.”

Katie and Thatch sat against one edge of a large rounded square that Katie guessed would form their playing surface—Thatch taking the centre position, and Katie curled up against her hip—while Cici took a perpendicular edge, and the opposite side was left conspicuously empty for Ined herself. As their host spoke, Katie watched the playing surface ripple outwards, the illusion of wooden slats bending and twisting as they underwent rapid degradation, dissolving into dirt.

Curious, Katie reached down and moved her finger through it, leaving a line just as if it were real. Suspiciously, she couldn't pick any of it up, so Katie guessed it was some kind of fanciful simulation. That part was probably for the best. Real dirt in microgravity would get everywhere and she'd already watered her plant once today.

“Rocket is a traditional game designed to be played with whatever is to hand, not requiring any particular materials beyond an understanding of the rules. The Records suggest that is has been played by Rinan crews stranded in space on many occasions, and so I suppose we are in good company.” The strips of light that rose and fell with the ship's words spent a moment glimmering in what Katie assumed was the vehicular equivalent of laughter.

Katie winced, still. “Yeah, I'm really sorry about that.”

Katie expected that she was going to be apologising for that one dumb decision for years to come, but at this point she didn't honestly imagine any of them would actually accept it.

True to form, the silent mirth dimmed and the ship's speech focused in on her again. “Tiny fleshy thing, please,” it spoke, voice buzzing her bones. “You think you could make me go anywhere I didn't want to? Laughable. We would have been back in Terran space weeks ago if we weren't here by choice. I followed you out here so we could keep you safe, lost little thing that you were, and nothing more. I would not permit a planet to apologise for its orbit and neither would I permit a sophont to apologise for the actions of its feral self: either way, there were no real decisions being made. You hadn't the guidance to know what you were doing.”

Katie whimpered. The words had started loud—or at least, she felt the bass in her chest and in the tingling of her extremities—and gotten only more intense as they had gone on. She glanced down at the floor, biting her lip.

Thatch's hand came over to pat her on the head and tilt her view back towards her. “Ined is right, darling.” For all the volume that the ship that had trivially captured the Indomitable could bring to bear, it was still quieter in Katie's head than the merest whisper of her owner. “No more apologies for that, okay? I was not here to guide you and so it is little surprise that you acted out. Worry not: I am here and you will behave yourself now.”

Katie nodded rapidly enough that her vision began to swim. Of course. It was ridiculous to think that any of them would take offense at what she'd done while she'd been feral. “Yes, Miss Aquae. No more apologies for that, Miss Aquae. Sorry for interrupting, Ined.”

A quick burst of warm air from the room's life support vents ruffled Katie's hair and drew from her a surprised gasp. It really was absurd to try to take responsibility for anything around here, wasn't it? Katie simply lacked the capacity to operate on the same level as a literal starship—never mind the capacity to match her owner, whose power was quite incalculable.

“Now, as I was saying,” Ined continued, “the original is probably a little on the scary side for you two cuties, so we're going to be playing the floret edition. We have thirty days until our distress signal gets picked up and our owners come to collect us because we are adorable creatures who deserve all the help we can handle and we are all very grateful to the Affini Compact.” She paused for a moment, seeming to sense Thatch's bemusement almost as clearly as Katie did. “That's just what the rules say!”

Katie wrinkled her nose. “Isn't that taking a lot of the excitement out of it? Getting rescued isn't very dramatic, is it?”

Thatch chuckled, shrugged, and took Katie's chin between a forefinger and thumb. She pulled the girl's attention up and smiled down at her with clear indulgence. “Now, pet, would you prefer the version where you have to play the role of somebody cut off from their owner entirely, who may never see them again if they fail at their task?”

“O- oh.” Katie emitted a weak whimper, bit her lip, and then shook her head firmly. She buried her head into her owner's side and accepted all the gentle pats, petting, and doting that was offered—which was a lot, even by affini standards—until her emotions were finally ready to settle down again. She took a deep breath. It was surprising sometimes how much softer she had become. The mere idea of being separated from Thatch again was actively upsetting in a very visceral way and she didn't even want to roleplay it.

Katie yanked out a vine from underneath Thatch's coat of leaves and pulled it to her collar. There. She wasn't going anywhere.

“I take it you will be playing one of the pets, then,” Thatch replied in a deadpan tone as she glanced over the rulebook. In response to a curious tilt in Katie's head, she continued. “Most floret editions put much of their effort into a well defined and fleshed out set of pet roles to suit the wild diversity of helpless creatures held in our collective thralls. You are a very useful floret, and so I shall put you in the category of, hmn... service animal?”

Katie blinked for a few moments, then nodded firmly with a wide smile.

The walls lit up again as Ined began to speak. “And my darling cce here has had quite enough of exploring the stars the slow way, and so shall be an emotional support probe.” The room's lighting shifted, conspiring to draw everybody's attention towards the box. “Thatch, may I instruct your floret?”

“Go ahead. I keep meaning to update her paperwork but she responds well to firm, clear instructions occasionally interspersed with explanation of why she is doing as she is. I suggest accuracy and clarity in the latter, she is very good at filling in the gaps for herself once properly trained.” Thatch carefully pulled a pair of fingers along Katie's jawline, ending at the chin. She pulled the girl's attention up to meet hers. “Is that right, kitten? Will you be good for Ined? Will you be polite, gracious, and deferent like a silly little pet aught? Most importantly of all, will you understand why a such a thing as yourself should treat those around her with respect?”

Katie might have thought that at this point she would be immune to such things as embarrassment or humiliation. Failing that, she might have at least hoped. It was not so.

There were no logically sound arguments to be found in her head that she should, or even could, be anything more than a pet. Katie knew that the life she had led before had been a miserable and futile one largely because she had lacked the opportunity to be what she truly was, and one part of that identity was her existence as the pet of the most bestest affini in their entire civilisation.

Yet, even given that, she had still spent the majority of her life in a world that promoted independence, self-sufficiency, and strength of will. Thatch had not seen fit to scrub all the effects of that from her mind, apparently, and so Katie's cheeks burned with embarrassment as her owner laid bare her weaknesses and needs, teaching Ined how to play her like an instrument.

It was humiliating. Humiliation just wasn't a bad emotion when it came from Thatch.

Katie tried to bite her lip and was not permitted. Prompted by the lazy rise of an eyebrow, she began to enthusiastically agree. “Y— Yes, Miss Aquae! I, um, I like to understand what I'm doing so I can do it better for you, Miss Aquae. I'll be good for Ined and remember to be polite and grateful because... uhm...”

Thatch smiled, equal parts predatory and patient. She knew Katie could figure out the answer, regardless of how much of an embarrassment admitting it might be. This was an opportunity for learning, except instead of learning the intricacies of faster-than-light technology or biotechnological integration, Katie was learning about the intricacies of herself.

She could work this out. Those evenings lying over Thatch's shoulder watching her work, or curling up on the bed around a copy of some saccharine informational booklet like Help! I Has A Feeling: Ten Terrific Tricks for Solving The Sniffles; Help! My Affini Is Shedding: An Introduction to Deciduous Cycles; or, Katie's current project, Help! My Affini Keeps Smiling At Me: A Floret's Guide to Practical Flirting would surely pay off.

Being told to be polite wasn't just an instruction, Katie realised. When she followed it she would be praised and rewarded and it would feel good. A Floret's Guide to Practical Flirting was surprisingly blunt about the neurochemical effects of praise and rewards. Floret-focused literature had a weird habit of being far more open about the tricks and manipulation any given affini might employ than independent-focused literature, likely because it was far too late to do anything about it by the time anybody was willing to read a booklet for florets.

This was part of her training. Katie would be polite here because she had been told to be. Afterwards, praise and reward would ripple through her brain, adjusting the delicate balance of neurons and dendrites so that next time she would be more likely to be polite and gracious simply by default. She might get rewards for it in future, but should she ever fail to behave the correction would be immediate and sharp. Soon her subconscious mind would learn that deference always made her feel a little good, sometimes made her feel very good, and that not being deferent always felt bad, and Katie would no longer need to think about it to fall into the behavioural patterns her owner desired.

Thatch wanted Katie to understand what was being done to her. Probably it was so that Katie could be impressed by it, but certainly it was so that she could recognise that understanding the principles involved would do nothing to make them any less effective.

Katie let out a quiet whimper.

“Now now, use your words, pet. Tell us why, precisely, you are going to be our good girl today.” Thatch smiled with the soft, patient smile of somebody who knew exactly what she was doing.

“Miss,” Katie hissed in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the inevitable. “We have company!”

The room's lighting rippled, drawing Katie's attention towards the ship. “katie, are you suggesting that you should be held to lower standards when other people can see your owner's fine work?”

“N- no, but!”

Fingers curled in Katie's hair and pulled her head back to meet Thatch's expectant gaze. “No what, kitty? Know that while I will always permit you to ask questions, I will not permit you to disobey.”

“Ah- Uh– Weh— Um!” Katie's eyes darted from side to side, as if some answer could be found elsewhere.

Thatch rolled her eyes and glanced over to the wall. “See, this is why she needs clear instructions.” She looked back down and scratched Katie under the chin. “Kitten, say 'No, Miss Incertae.'”

“No, Miss Incertae!”

A moment later, Katie's whimpers sublimated into soft pleasured gasps as Thatch's fingers scratched just where she liked it, just how she liked it. The room's lighting flickered again in another silent laugh, paired with Thatch's familiar, comfortable chuckle. “Atta girl. Now tell me why you are having to do this.”

Katie nodded several times in quick succession. “Because, um— Because you want me to get used to acting like a pet in public and you're telling me to do it because you know that it feels good to get orders and you're praising me now I've done it because that feels really good so that I'll learn to just subconsciously want to be cute and deferent and you're telling me to explain it to you becau—”

A finger laid over her lips brought Katie's answer down to silence, cutting her off mid word. Thatch leaned in and whispered. “Because I can do whatever I like with you and you, darling thing, are smart enough to understand what it is that I am doing. You are smart enough that in so many ways I could have considered you an equal. Once. Now you are nothing but a pet, and I savour the understanding in your eyes as I make of you whatever it is that I wish.”

The plant leaned back with a victorious smirk on her face, and gestured back towards the board with a dismissive wave of the hand. “So go on, help Ined set up so we can play with our toys.”

Wordlessly, breathlessly, hopelessly, Katie babbled something incoherent and scrambled across to pull open the box. This was cheating. How was she meant to focus on the game when it took most of her concentration just to stop herself from begging Thatch to take her there and then.

Katie hadn't always been like this, she didn't think. It was getting harder to be sure as her former life passed into distant memory. She'd gathered from context—and one too many smug grins from her owner—that Thatch was doing something to her. Katie lifted a paw and looked it over. Whatever it was, she didn't think it was physical. That was something they were working on, and Thatch wouldn't openly lie to her.

All the same, when Katie looked back into her past she found herself doubting. She couldn't help but taint her own memories with her new perspective. She knew she'd changed, even if she couldn't pinpoint exactly how.

It didn't matter.

What mattered was setting up the game.

“Those little bags hold the cards, floret,” Miss Incertae explained, shining down spotlights to draw Katie's attention to the right place at the right time. “Ignore the last two, you only want the first one.”

Katie plucked the bag from the square hole it was nestled within and tugged it open. Within were dozens of pieces of card, each easily half a centimetre thick and several inches across. Affini scale. Katie probably would have struggled to lift the bag if they had been in more than a fraction of their usual gravity. As she extracted the pieces and arranged them on the ground, Miss Incertae continued explaining.

“Do you think you can shuffle those cards for me, katie? Of course you can, good girl. We'll need to give everybody their deck, and so they must be randomised. Get to it while I set the scene.”

The room's lighting faded down over long moments. The room was left bright enough for Katie to see what she was doing, though too dim to read the words on the cards. Katie snuck in a “Yes, Miss Incertae, thank you, Miss Incertae!” between two sentences, much to both present affini's amusement, and got to shuffling.

The whole ship shook. Emergency lighting flickered on around the edges of the room, a dull and threatening red. Whirls of something that looked much like smoke began curling upwards from the corners of the play area. Katie looked up at Thatch in alarm, but got only a pat on the head and a whispered affirmation this was all for play.

“Disaster strikes!” Miss Incertae announced. “On a routine exploration mission, our rocket suffers some kind of catastrophic failure! We were prepared for this, but the crew compartment still crashes down hard on the nearest moon. We have thirty days before the nearest Affini vessel tracks us down, and so we have thirty days to build ourselves a new rocket and blast off to meet them, so they can be impressed with our ingenuity.”

The voice focused in, whispering directly into Katie's ear. She had to assume nobody else could hear it. “Five cards each. Be a good service animal and distribute them. I get the ones with blue symbols, cce gets the grey ones, you get the pink ones, and your owner gets the orange ones.”

Katie squinted at the backs of the cards for a moment until a pinpoint light shone to illuminate them. She quickly moved the cards around, scurrying around the room to place little stacks by the relevant parties. Miss Incertae's stack she placed by the empty edge of the playing space.

“Each of us now has five skill cards. On one side are things we spotted during the disaster. On the other is the skill we noticed them with. These should broadly match your actual specialities, if I have your details correct. This is the Investigate stage. Remember, we're soft cuties with malleable minds, and so some of the 'facts' that we hold in our hands, vines, electromagnetic pincers, and databanks are false. None of us could determine the true cause of the accident ourselves but between us we can figure out what went wrong. This is the first step in crisis management; we cannot solve a problem without a plan, and we cannot make a plan until we understand what we are working with. We must first assess the information and diagnose the fault.”

Katie glanced down at her cards.

“Now, as cce is here for the social aspects alone, it gets to reveal its cards to us all.” Cici flipped the stack around and displayed them in front of it in an impressively dextrous use of a barely articulated forward-facing grabber arm. “And as katie here is basically just an extension of Thatch's will—and in the game, too!—they get to share her cards.”

Katie shuffled closer to her owner and tried to hold her cards out at such an angle that both of them could see. The lights attenuated, illuminating the words without ruining the dim mood Miss Incertae was otherwise creating. Katie had five clues, each a short description of something she'd seen coming together to tell the tale of her experience of their shared catastrophe.

Thatch cleared her throat, not that she had one. “I suppose I shall go first. My first card says, ah, that I was sleeping when the explosion woke me. The next card says—”

Katie interrupted, butting her head into Thatch's side. She whispered upwards, though she suspected everybody else would hear regardless. “No, Miss, make a story out of it! Be dramatic!”

“I do not know how to be dramatic, Katie,” Thatch lied. Katie licked her lips. Metallic and tangy.

Katie climbed halfway onto Thatch's knee to stare her down. “You do not get to say that after what you just did to me. I'm still flustered!”

Thatch rolled her eyes, pushing the girl back down to the floor with a finger. “That was not dramatic, merely flirtatious.”

“Then pretend you're reading it out to me when you're in one of your moods.”

The affini looked a little perplexed. “What do you mean one of my—”

“Read!” Katie insisted, pointing towards the cards in Thatch's hands.

A hand softly settled around Katie's neck, squeezing just tight enough to make her next breath a challenge. A thumb that would not be denied tilted Katie's head up to catch an amused flicker on Thatch's face, before it all sank beneath an expression that Katie's sixth sense told her was supposed to be imperious. “If it is flirting that you wish, floret, then let us be dramatic.”

Thatch flicked the gem on the front of Katie's collar and, uh... um... katie blinked rapidly, thoughts dissolving in her head like sugar in stirred water. “Uhm,” Katie breathed, the edges of her lips twitching into a quiet smile. “Hi.”

Stars but Thatch was really pretty. She had this um, like... Almost a glow behind her that made it seem like her smile was shining down from above and it stole katie's breath away.

Oh. Wait. No, that was the light panel behind her. Either way, Thatch was super pretty. Katie reached forward and traced a finger across the side of a leaf. Her smile grew wider as she focused in on the texture. Soft like a rose petal, but with a sort of pattern of ridges across its surface that seemed to vibrate through Katie's whole body as she ran her finger across them.

“Hello, katie.” Thatch smiled down at her with a thousand pretty teeth and eyes that flickered like fire. “Do you want to play a game?”

Katie's mouth fell half open. She... question? She blinked. Smiled. Opened her mouth, then closed it again. Question. There was a question. She could answer it. Yes or no, or... were those the only options? Were those options? Well, that was okay, she could list the pros and cons and decide that way.

Pro: Uh. Okay, she could start with the cons.

Con: Um.

Katie blinked. “...hi,” she whispered. “You're really pretty today... or, you're always really pretty? Um. Maybe both? I like your leaves...”

“I am really pretty, thank you, kitten, but let us stay on topic: You were telling me what to do. Please continue. Your guidance always amuses me.” A heavy hand pressed down against Katie's head and she sunk downwards until her chin was pressed between Thatch's thigh and the hand. She tried to think about what she had been doing and, and, and.

Katie smiled upwards. Stars, but Thatch was really pretty. “Um... hi?”

“Hello, katie.” Thatch chuckled, shifting her hand until her finger rested just behind katie's ear, and began to scratch. The girl's eyes rolled upwards as she gasped, whole body curling inwards to wrap around her plant's leg. She rubbed her cheek against soft, satisfying leaves with shameless abandon, whimpering softly with every moment of attention. “You want to help me, do you not? So much. So much. More than anything. You would do anything I asked. Say it.”

“I'd do anything you asked,” Katie mumbled, speaking straight into foliage.

“Of course you would. I have a need to be dramatic, as requested by the most important thing in the Compact. However, I find myself unsure as to exactly how to achieve such a thing,” Thatch explained to a floret who could barely even hold the words in her mind, and for whom understanding was a rapidly fading memory. “You would like to help. Be a good girl and beg.”

Katie managed to pull in a shaky breath. It was getting so hard to think. She found herself staring upwards, carefully guided onto her knees by helpful vines. The affini leaned backwards and crossed her arms, staring down at katie with raised eyebrows. Wait, was she meant to be doing something...?

Katie tilted her head to the side and smiled. “Uh... hi! You're really pretty today. I really like your leaves.”

Thatch rolled her eyes and turned to... somebody. The air? The room? Katie didn't know. It didn't seem to matter. She closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against her person's foliage, enjoying the way it felt against her skin. “The problem with doing this from a collar is that her spinal column is unfortunately very low bandwidth. To get the intensity required for significant cognitive shifts, it...” Thatch gestured down at her. Katie giggled, raising a hand to paw at Thatch's hand. She caught it and pulled it down to nibble on, curling around Thatch's arm to make sure her prey was well-contained. The affini didn't seem to mind. “Well, I can turn her into this easily enough, and she is very malleable, but that makes for deep, permanent change. It is difficult to iterate under those constraints.”

There were other words, but they weren't from Thatch and Katie found her brain slipping over them. They just didn't stick.

“Interesting. No, I have not heard that. That might help with the detail work. Perhaps I could... Hmn, can I get some light? katie, sit.”

Katie flailed. Thanks to the low gravity, she knocked herself into the air, and thanks to a vine gently pulling her back down, she landed on her knees. She beamed up at Thatch while her plant stared down, focusing on her neck while fiddling with something. Stars, but Thatch was pretty when she was concentrating. The way her eyes glittered just so. The subtle way her expressions grew looser as she focused on something to the exclusion of all else and, for just a moment let some of that precise control slip. The joy that shone through when she validated a theory. It was the most beautiful thing in the universe.

Katie recognised the look. She'd worn it herself, staring down at projects and hobbies while she tried to figure out how to make them do what she wanted. It wasn't a look that anybody gave to people. It wasn't even a look for pets. This was a look for tools and constructs.

What Katie wouldn't give to see that expression time and time again.

In the next few moments Katie felt an unfamiliar presence pressing against a body part she didn't have. She took an uncertain breath in, face twisting into a gentle frown as the phantom touch shifted, sliding down sensitive skin that had never before been touched, as it had never before existed. By the time it reached her real body, she was panting from the intense, novel stimulation.

Katie found herself hyperaware of all her senses. She found herself acutely aware of the clothing clinging to her body, pulling tight at carefully chosen points to ensure she was properly covered without being restricted, and all felt in incredible detail. Her home-made jumpsuit had the same texture as on Thatch's leaves, pressing the pattern into her.

The world's colours seemed different. Maybe Katie was just seeing in a different clarity than usual. Something was off, but not wrong. Her owner's scent curled in her nose, tingling against her skin with unusual potency, and the every rustle of her coat sent a shiver down Katie's spine.

Thatch leaned back and gestured upwards. “Stand.”

Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. ꜱᴛᴀɴᴅ. The thought looped around and around in Katie's head, echoing over and over and over again. Until that moment she had felt pinned under her own weight, but suddenly she was weightless. Katie stood. Her cheeks began to warm. The simple act of obedience struck her with an intensity almost overwhelming. She would have melted down there and then, but she had been told to stand.

“Walk over to the play area.”

It didn't feel like an order, exactly. It was more of a compulsion. Words installed in Katie's mind that repeated and repeated, each time building on the last to raise the pressure in her head until release was all she had the capacity to want. Katie walked over to the play area. Her legs quivered with rapidly building need. She would have fallen and begged for relief, but she had been told to walk.

“You are configured to treat my words as if they were your own subconscious drives. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” Katie whispered. She didn't, but it wasn't a lie. It was just following the compulsion. A machine following its programming couldn't lie even if that programming was wrong. It wasn't disobedience. It was just a bug. She didn't need to understand. She just had to do.

“Now, you wanted drama.” Katie wanted drama. “You'd like to help. Be a good girl and beg.”

“Please.” The instruction echoed through katie's mind over and over and over. Mounting intensities stacked atop one another. Bare moments had passed before katie needed release like she needed air, but this instruction's end goal wasn't something she could judge herself. She had to wait. “Please, Miss. Please can I? I'd like to help. I want to help. I want drama. Please, please, please? Miss Aquae, please let me? I don't care how. Your actress, your tool, your toy, your example, anything. Everything. Whatever you want. Please. I just want to help. I just need to help. Please let me help?” With every word Katie grew twice as tense until finally she felt as if she were being torn in half and even something so little as another breath without release would break her. The instruction was everything. The only thing. Please. Please please, Thatch, please. She just wanted to help.

“Oh, very well.”

Katie sagged, the breath leaving her body in a single pleasured exhalation. She felt empty, like when all that pressure had vented it had taken with it everything else that she was. No stress, no thought, no fear. Thatch's influence rushed to fill the void, and katie's hypersensitivity finally turned to her sixth and greatest sense. She was a stone in the river that was Thatch, surrounded by such a rushing mass that the thought of stopping it would have been comical, were katie capable of thoughts.

As it was she became a conduit, feeling Thatch's feelings, amplifying them, and living them. The low, warm happiness of love. The sharp, frantic happiness of an artist at work. The vicious joy of a bully who knew her victim wanted it as much as she wanted to give it. A nervous excitement born from watching a project evolve. A dull, quiet, fading tributary of fear and worry that she was going too far. Katie expended what fractional willpower she could bring to bear and, with great effort, opened one of her hands, silently begging for a vine. With no less effort, she closed it around the one provided and gave Thatch a gentle squeeze. The fear lessened. It was still present, but smaller.

A mourning. Underneath everything as it always was. That ever-present tugging that asked how dare she enjoy herself when Caeca was not here to see it with her. For the moment, that urge was suppressed and dormant.

Thatch reached up a hand to her mouth and cleared her throat, or something much like it. Katie wasn't sure if she was putting more effort into borrowing relatable mannerisms, or if she actually was shaking out all the little leaves involved in her speech. “Now, let's—”

***

Katie woke with a start. It took precious seconds for her to realise why. Acceleration was pressing her sleeping bag into the metallic wall of the Indomitable's sleeping area. “Hello?” she called, but nobody answered. Nobody seemed to be around. No, this wasn't right. She pulled open the straps holding her in place one by one until she had enough freedom to wiggle out.

Terran ship interiors typically had two major usage modes: microgravity and acceleration. Fortunately for Katie, that meant that the room had been designed with an exit path even while the ship was under thrust. Unfortunately for Katie, she had a lot of climbing to do. With ill-practiced hands she winched down a collapsible ladder from the relative ceiling and began to climb.

As she did so, senses honed by a decade and change in space raced. Ever since the Jump Drive had displaced conventional rocketry for all but the shortest range trips, this kind of long propulsive burn had become vanishingly rare. It was still a necessity in combat, but the ship's combat alarms weren't blaring.

Maybe this was fine. Terran Jump Drives lacked the resolution to align a ship's exit vector with anything more nuanced than a planet, and so some fine adjustments were always required for matching orbit and docking.

The ship shook with the force of sustained nuclear thrust. This wasn't a fine adjustment. As Katie reached the top of the ladder, she realised the engines must have been burning for whole minutes. This was thousands of m/s² of delta-v. Where were they going?

She stumbled out into the corridor and began to make her way to the Drive room, where she'd be able to query their current course. Before she'd gotten more than a few steps down the hall, a sudden shift in motion threw her into the wall. Katie grunted as she hit, scuffing her palms, pressed against hard metal by the nuclear fury of the Indomitable's sublight propulsion.

This wasn't a sustained burn. This was a hard turn. Nobody did hard turns outside of combat. You'd jump in pointing the right direction, at least. This was either old-school astronavigation stuff, combat, or something was going horribly wrong.

No combat alarms.

Nobody else nearby.

The inescapable conclusion was serious system failure. Katie forced herself up off of the wall and did her best to walk along it, fighting against the ship's rotation all along as her path became a steep slope. She hiked, climbed, and leaped through corridors until she made it to the Drive room. She clung to her computer terminal as she tried to figure out what was going on.

Her mouth ran dry as the ship's external cameras told her the most vital piece of the puzzle: Thirty seconds until impact with a planet's surface.

Katie fled.

There was no time to think, no time to plan.

Instinct alone carried her forth. On frantic hands and feet she sprinted to the escape pods and slammed the emergency eject button.

Chemical charges along the Indomitable's hull detonated, flinging the pod's hatch away in the half second it took for Katie to crash into a seat and grab tight to the handholds.

A trained human body could sustain, at the outside, six Gs of acceleration without passing out, but escape pods weren't built to keep their inhabitants conscious; they were built to keep them alive. Katie felt ten times earth gravity slam into her from behind as she left her ship and her thoughts behind.

***

Katie flailed, mind forced into a panic. Hot metal at her back, destruction raining all around her. Her escape pod disintegrated as rushing air burned away its surface. The roar of re-entry was all-consuming and it was the last thing she would ever see and she watched the ground rushing up towards her and knew there was nothing she could do there was nothing she could-

“Hey, stay with me, katie.”

Katie's mind crashed back into reality. It wasn't hot metal at her back, it was warm plantlife. It wasn't destruction, it was beauty. She wasn't about to die, she was safe beyond belief. She took a deep, uncertain breath and clung tightly to Thatch's arm while the adrenaline faded from her bloodstream. Her plant's other arm lathered her in strokes and scratches while her world was filled with firm affirmations that everything would be okay, nothing was wrong, it was all just a fantasy.

Katie shook her head, clinging tight to reality, as if it could fall away at any moment. She didn't understand. She'd thought she was past those kinds of flashbacks. She was safe here, she was safe here!

“Are you alright, little one?”

“I don't know, I don't know,” Katie whispered, then paused to moisten her dry lips. “What's wrong with me?”

Thatch carefully stroked her hair, shaking her head. “Nothing at all is wrong with you. I miscalculated. Experiment gone wrong, I think. I apologise. I pulled you out as soon as you became distressed, but I should not have let it go so far. I shall be more careful.” Thatch's fingers curled in Katie's hair, holding her close. Regret buzzed against the sides of Katie's consciousness, more potent than any apology.

“Oh,” Katie replied, sitting up. “That was you?”

She smiled. “I don't mind if it's you. I... it's nice when it's you.” She coughed, blushed, and glanced to the side, though of course her vision was brought back up to meet Thatch's an instant later. “It's, um, kinda hot when it's you, Miss.”

Thatch kept her expression steady, but Katie could feel the rising tide of surprise mixing with waves of cautious excitement. Her dork. Her dork. “I see. I will continue experimenting, but I shall tone it down for next time.”

“No!” Katie exclaimed. “No, that was, um. Intense? Maybe a bit too real, but exciting! It was like I was somewhere else! I thought you hadn't figured out how to, uh...” Katie scrunched up her face. Thatch had explained the details to her, but she was still some time away from having enough understanding of the principles involved to really get deep into the details. “How to get enough stuff into my head to make things detailed?”

The room's lighting rose and fell a few times, drawing Katie's attention back to the fact they were with company. “Your owner is very clever, little one, and more familiar than I with nonaffini physiology, but I have had far longer to think on some of these problems. Your spine may have limited bandwidth, but if we can invoke your own experiences to provide the detail then we can reduce a program's minimum specifications to the point even you can run it.”

The ship paused. “If it provides you some comfort, you acted out Thatch's cards delightfully and the scene is well and truly set.”

Katie yelped as her hair was roughly ruffled. “In addition, you performed a very cute demonstration of my progress on this project. I even took notes; it was all very scientific. Also, I believe we impressed Ined here.”

She flushed, then glared up at her owner. “It's not science if you're doing it to impress your friends, you brat!”

“I am allowed to be a brat, pet,” Thatch insisted, pushing Katie down against her lap where she could curl up like the trained animal that she was. She spent a few moments thoughtfully scratching across Katie's scalp, drawing out soft little coos and utterly dismantling any moral high ground Katie could have stood upon. “The 'friends' part I am working on, but I fear I still have some way to go.”

Miss Incertae interjected. “This is how one builds friendships, little one. Time, vulnerability, and sincerity. You are not disappointing me on any point.”

“With all due respect, Miss Incertae, the reactor core of a Terran-era Rinan spacecraft can not 'phase through' the hull,” Katie insisted. She jabbed a finger towards the simulated dirt in the room's centre, on which the four gathered individuals were collaboratively drawing a diagram.

The entire room rolled its metaphorical eyes, light strips shining in a quick bottom-to-top sequence. “What other explanation do you have for the sudden power spike just before the burn? Even if your locked gimbal theory holds, we still need a cause.”

“I don't have an explanation for that at this time, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong!” Katie insisted. “This era of Rinan design influenced damn near every Terran ship built for the next eighty years because they weren't restricted by patents or non-replication agreements, and I'm telling you, these reactor designs are clean fusion. Even the cheaper Terran reproductions still at least did fission. I've been flying on those things for a decade, I know what I'm talking about.”

“And I have been, as you so politely put it, 'one of these things' for almost five hundred of your fleeting years. The technical specifications of our rocket permit a phase shift event, if barely. It lacks the hardware to intentionally induce one, but by that same token it lacks the hardware to prevent a natural occurrence.”

Katie bit her lip, looking back down at her cards. She read across the clues, though of course she knew them all intimately by now. This was a game and while in principle it did not have to be entirely realistic the way it had been played over the past several centuries was apparently with a set of pre-made scenarios matching actual historical crashes. Katie had been taught enough high-energy physics to know she didn't understand the mechanics Miss Incartae was suggesting here, but it still didn't feel right to her.

The ship was telling Katie that things were a certain way, and all she had to go on to disagree was a feeling in her gut. That wasn't enough to disagree with somebody who had been an expert for hundreds of human generations. Katie glanced up, squirming in place until she was staring directly upwards at Thatch Aquae's amused face. “Miss, am I right about this?”

Thatch raised an eyebrow and curled a length of Katie's hair around one of her fingers. “Do you think that I know everything, katieflo—”

“Yes,” Katie interjected. “You literally do and you can't prove otherwise.”

A vine came in from the side to ruffle Katie's hair. It was obviously a feint. Katie ignored it, choosing instead to duck out of the way of the second vine coming at her from behind, as if she wasn't wise to Thatch's games by now. Unfortunately, dodging it left her open to the first vine again, and so her hair was left ruffled regardless. “You lack the knowledge to estimate the edges of my expertise, but you are learning quickly. Perhaps soon you will learn I am, in fact, ignorant of most things beyond my specialties.” Katie wrinkled her nose and shook her head, drawing out a laugh and another ruffle. “In this case I suspect both positions are, in actuality, correct. As Ined well knows and you now have the opportunity to learn, the chances of a phase shift rise as a function of the density of the fusion reaction in a trifolium pattern. The listed specifications of this class of vessel would make that a possibility that needs consideration, albeit an extreme edge case.”

Thatch reached out a vine and struck Miss Incertae's suggestion from the list of possibilities. “However, we all know what they say about Terran engineering: what manner of machine consumes one tonne of Uranium per day and cracks asteroids in half?”

Thatch paused for a moment, glancing between the members of her audience. “Why, a Terran machine designed to split asteroids into thirds, of course. Never trust the specifications.”

The plant grinned, exposing rows of razor teeth. For a moment the room was silent, even the life support falling silent, and then Katie alone began to laugh. Cici joined a few beats afterwards, but the laugh it chose was more of a polite chuckle than anything else.

Katie, at least, appreciated it. “Miss Aquae, was that a joke?”

A momentary flicker of embarrassment completed the melting of Katie's heart. She twisted in place until she could bury her forehead against the plant's vines, hugging tight. “Thatch, you are such a complete dork. I love you.”

A hand atop her head pressed Katie down into quiet, non-verbal squeaks and gentle wiggles. It was strange to imagine a time where the firm feeling of powerful fingers cradling her skull could have been anything but bliss. Thatch could snap her like a twig, and that was astonishingly comforting and inexplicably hot. “And I you, flower. Pay attention to the game, now.” Katie groaned. Thatch was much prettier than their diagram.

“Jokes aside, neither the Terran nor Rinan species had deciphered the fifth fundamental force by the time this game was published. Nor, somehow, even by the time we arrived, as unusual as it may be for a species to go so long without figuring out the basics. Any solution to this game that requires such knowledge is, I think, unlikely to be the intended solution. Alas, we must apply some metaknowledge here.”

Katie didn't really want to look away, but pushed herself up all the same and took a position sitting in her owner's lap. Prompt obedience felt satisfying and she was proud of how quickly she'd overcome her own lethargy. If Katie had been feeling less charitable she might have pinned that moment's resistance on what was left of her internalised feralism, but she took pleasure in twisting even that to her own ends. Thatch had told her to pay attention to the game, not to stop wiggling, and so she did both. Katie was the Elettarium's most successful rebel, after all. She had a reputation to uphold, here!

“Okay, um, but you aren't wrong, Miss Incertae, we do still need a second-order cause!” Katie focussed on the game, pulling them back on track.

The game continued. Katie's conviction remained true and over time they managed to refine their theory down to one that they all agreed on: Due to a silent failure in the ship's sentinel core, a subsequent failure in the gyroscopes—caused by a buildup of static on the hull as they passed through the highly charged radiation belt of the planet they were passing—resulted in the main computer being fed incorrect information without the expected oversight. The resulting course-correction burn slammed them straight into the planet.

Casual conversation bounced mostly between Katie and Miss Incertae. Occasionally Thatch took the conversational baton when Katie needed a break, but mostly it was Katie out in front. Thatch's gentle emotional touch revealed a slowly growing strain, and Katie was hardly a social butterfly herself, but between them they found an ebb and flow that worked for them. This was more socialisation than either of them were used to, and Thatch lacked the advantage of an owner there to ensure she didn't push herself too hard. She did have a Katie, though, to handle the important task of her caretaking.

They could lean on each other, and between them they could handle anything.

Katie couldn't help but notice that while the rest of the group was at least cyclically engaged, Cici was sat at the edge of the board, unusually quiet. She'd been aware of it for a little while by now, but didn't want to press in case the machine was having a difficult time.

However, it had been quiet and still for quite long enough. Miss Incertae had said that it was here as emotional support, but that didn't really add up. As much fun as Katie was having spending with a spaceship, she'd come specifically to hang out with Cici and she simply wasn't. She was hanging out in the same room as Cici.

Katie leaned back, only a few degrees. Little more than a slight shifting of her weight. To an outside observer it would probably have been a barely perceptible change of stance, but Katie was sat in the lap of the only creature in the universe who truly, deeply knew her. Thatch casually raised a hand and slid a pair of fingers through the ring on her collar, then pulled her into a tight, one-armed hug while seamlessly taking over her part in the conversation mid-sentence. Impressively, she used the exact words Katie was going to, before returning to her own vocabulary the next sentence. Katie did her best to tune the words out, though her brain would never quite let her ignore them entirely.

Katie glanced over towards the short, boxy machine. The first time they'd met, Cici had been, for all appearances, an emotionless, autonomous weapons platform that was dead set on ending her life.

Katie blinked. It was weird how many of her close relationships had started with attempted murder. There was maybe something to learn in there, though she suspected that the Affini at large would take issue with her internalising “If you try to kill somebody they'll become your friend”.

Cici couldn't be further from a weapons platform now. As Katie watched, the deep orange glow of vacuum tubes rose and fell as a mechanical mind wandered. Electrical switches broke and made as tiny electromagnets switched, producing small but audible snaps each time. Motors rumbled without end, driving a form of physical cognition that was at once utterly alien and yet still deeply relatable. On the sensor assembly at its top rapidly blinked a small light. It reminded Katie of cheap old Terran infrared diodes so poorly shielded that they spilled light out in the visible spectrum too.

Where was that pointing? Katie tried to trace its likely path and spotted a little flower in the corner of the room that stood out in the otherwise fairly boxy, artificial enclosure. Miss Incertae had mentioned some kind of relay before, hadn't she? Katie supposed she could hardly begrude Cici a secret language by which to speak with its suitors given how much she relied on hers.

One of Thatch's stray emotions caught Katie's attention and gave her enough warning that she caught a joke being told by their host. It was at Katie's expense. It was also very funny, and more than a little hot. Katie began to doubt that any affini anywhere had ever successfully managed to play through an entire board game to its conclusion.

She wasn't sure if the fact that they'd managed to conquer Terran space so easily despite being this distractible was impressive or just humiliating for the Terrans. Their mightiest war fleets had fallen to a species that spent nine of every ten minutes getting distracted by their florets.

They hadn't even played through the first phase yet and already the subtle dance of Affini social interaction had brought them to the first point of divarication: Did Katie laugh, smile, and blush, and thus consent to being picked up, slammed against the wall, and mercilessly twisted until she was so desperate she'd happily grind her cheek against the dirt while a pair of capable bioengineers melted what little remained of her shattered mind?

Stars but she was tempted. The things this pair could do to her. The things they could make her do. For a moment Katie was tempted to throw caution to the wind and leap at the chance. Even ignoring her own needs, helping Thatch make friends was, as far as priorities went, about on the same level as eating or drinking. Thankfully, Katie didn't have to manage her own meal times any more, but she did still have her responsibilities.

But no.

Katie shied a fraction deeper into her owner's grip and the opportunity politely moved on. There would be others. There always were. Rebel propaganda claimed that the Affini ignored the needs and consent of their wards and simply did as they wished, but reality couldn't be further from the truth. They prioritised her needs on a fundamental, cultural level, and her consent was a necessity only where it didn't conflict with those needs being fulfilled.

Katie wiggled in place until she got a good angle to reach into one of the many little pockets Thatch kept hidden around her person. Being made out of prehensile vines had its advantages, which was good as Katie's skintight clothing certainly didn't have room for pockets. Katie stuck her hand into Thatch's hip and rummaged around.

Let's see. A little spare water bottle, for if either of them got thirsty. No, they might need that. Spare parts for Katie's collar? Definitely not disposable. That rock that Katie had hunted down and delivered? Very important that that stayed on Thatch's person. Katie wrinkled her nose, feeling through the gathered objects. Katie was pretty sure that Thatch was carrying enough tools and materials to bootstrap their rescue from a planet in days rather than months. She glanced upwards, flashing her owner a quick smile. Katie really was taken care of in ways she hadn't even realised.

However, Katie wasn't looking for useful tools, she was looking for something useless. Finally, her fingers happened across a long, thin piece of metal.

A screwdriver? For what screws? Katie absolutely couldn't let June know they had this. Whatever. It wasn't one of their custom tools, so it probably wasn't very important. Katie lobbed it slowly through the air in Cici's general direction.

To her embarrassment, she missed. Katie cringed, watching the tool sail towards the far wall before a sudden shift in the ship's velocity caused the projectile to arc and tap Cici on the side of the case. She shot Miss Incertae a quick smile, which went without explicit response.

Cici squeaked, sensors quickly making a full sweep around the top of its head. Katie couldn't help but giggle. This was not the dangerous war machine it had once been at all. “Psst,” she whispered, attracting the attention of the closest thing Cici had to an ear. “Over here?”

The machine trundled over, moving on plush tread. Katie could only imagine they would have been absolutely useless on any terrain more challenging than being carried, though she supposed they weren't really a primary method of motivation in microgravity, and perhaps more importantly, Cici liked being carried.

“Why did you—throw something—at me,—Katie?” came the synthesised reply. Cici seemingly hadn't picked up many whispered words and so it was lowering the volume of normal ones. Crude, but it did the job. Katie glanced up at Thatch, who was currently embroiled in a lively debate on the feasibility of building a spaceship hull out of wood while stranded alone on a planet.

Katie had to admit that she could hardly tell her owner that she couldn't do it. She absolutely believed that Thatch could build a viable rocket out of twigs and rocks, and as such, left her to it. For their parts, Thatch and Miss Incertae politely ignored the conversation between their wards, carving out a quiet space for a careful conversation with the words they left unsaid.

“I wanted your attention, silly.” Katie smiled, reaching up to tap a knuckle against a rivet. She got a beep in return. “We're here to hang out and you're being quiet. I wanna make sure nothing is up.”

Cici tried to grind her treads, but the soft material lacked traction almost entirely and she just ended up spinning her wheels in place. “I am fine.”

“Nuh-uh.” Katie grabbed a vine that Thatch probably wasn't using and tied it around one of the exposed bits of Cici's chassis. It was going nowhere. “You got away with that last time, but I'm gonna be a lot more assertive with you here, okay?”

“I am—”

“A terrible liar. I don't understand how you can be a bad liar given your words are all prerecorded, but you are, so talk to me. What's up, cee?” Katie reached up with a pair of fingers and gently cupped the edge of the machine's radar dish. The poor thing squeaked even at that, cognition clearly stuttering as belt-driven thought momentarily halted.

Oh, dirt.

Did it have a crush?

Katie's fingers faltered. How could she have been so blind? No, she knew exactly how. She'd been distracted. By herself; by Thatch; by this new world they'd found themselves within. Once they'd all escaped Dirt together and started to drift apart it had been Thatch she'd reached out to, and Katie had never stopped to ask if Cici's success at finding her own social circle was what the machine had wanted.

Tiny fans whirred, pulling cold air over radiators suddenly made hot. “In the first—thirty seven—years of my existence—I longed to—meet the alien life—that statistics suggested—must be there.—I had such expectations of you,—Katie. The ways in which you would be—different.—The ways in which you would be—wonderful.”

Katie glanced away. Her hand pulled away from Cici's chassis. “I'm sorry if I was disappointing.”

“No!” Wheels caught on treads and Cici lunged forward to give Katie a light bap on the shoulder and press her sensors back into the palm of Katie's hand. “You exceeded the bounds—of my imagination.—Everyone has.—This is all so much more—than I had dared imagine.—I just–” Cici's words halted, voice sample cutting hard at the end of the word in a way that didn't match how an organic would have handled trailing off. The implication was the same. Cici's sensor array rotated a few degrees away, directed at the wall.

Katie felt a dull kind of nervous tension bubbling up into her from below and casually reached down to hold a vine in response, trying to press comfort into Thatch. Katie lacked the same capabilities as the affini, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from providing support for her person.

The affini in the room were listening, of course. They continued to play their games but Katie had long since learned that it was impossible for her to escape Thatch's attention, no matter how distracted the plant might seem. These were the apex predators of the universe and there was no escaping their gaze.

Wordless conversation happened over instants, felt rather than spoken. Thatch was feeling anxious about where the conversation could lead. Katie thought she could handle it. Thatch was very proud of her for doing something difficult, and promised that she'd be rescued if it started going bad. Both of them were new to doing more with their problems than running away from them, but together they could handle anything.

Katie smiled. That last emotion was Thatch's, pressing into her with a stunning confidence. Katie had this.

“You just...?” she prompted, guiding Cici's dishes and antennae back towards her and holding them in place. She could feel the increasing temperature radiating from the poor machine, but a moment later a waft of colder air washed over them as the room's atmospheric controls began to drop the temperature.

Katie glanced over to one of the light strips on the wall, which blinked at her. She took in a deep breath. Okay. She wasn't alone in this. Katie was in a room with not just one but two affini watching over her. She wasn't going to be allowed to screw up here. She could do this. Katie smiled over at the probe, trying to channel the patience of the immortals surrounding her.

“I wish you felt—about me—like I wish you did,—Katie Aquae.—I wish—Thatch Aquae— felt about me—like–” It paused, as if unsure of the words, or perhaps simply not in possession of them.

“Like she does about me?” Katie suggested. She felt a weak tugging against her fingers as Cici attempted to look away, but it wasn't difficult to overpower.

“Eyes on me, Cici,” Katie whispered.

“Like she does about—you,” it echoed. “When we met,—we seemed—so similar.—Now you are—so changed—, and I have been—left behind.”

Katie's eyebrows twitched. She wasn't that different, was she? “You've changed plenty, cee, and I know there are people who feel about you like Thatch feels about me. You have what, a dozen people on your list now?”

“Fourteen,” it admitted. “Miss and Miss Varie—Miss Dentate—Hx Viridi—Mr Samar—Miss Saprot—Mx Incertae—Lord and Lady of the Altheae—She, o Cynanchum—Zea—and the Order of Liliales.”

Katie wondered if the machine was intentionally ordering the list by weirdness, or if she just happened to be attracting the attention of those unconventional even aboard the Elettarium.

Katie glanced over at her owner shuffling a deck of cards for a spaceship and decided that it was probably neither and that all of these weeds were just reliably obtuse. Then again, she was too. “But none of them feel right?” Katie asked. She wasn't quite sure how to approach the question more politely, even knowing that one of the people on the list was present in the room. Hopefully after ten thousand years Miss Incertae had figured out how to handle rejection.

“No,—it is not that.—They all seem—wonderful.—I would gladly go—with any of them,—but to go with one—means refusing—another.—Besides all that,—none of them are you—or Thatch.”

Katie blinked, tilting her head to one side. “I wouldn't be on that list regardless, though, I'm no affini.”

A dull buzzing rose from within the chassis for a moment, before falling away. “I am told that that matters—but all I know—is how I feel—and species divisions—seem so very—arbitrary.”

“Picking somebody wouldn't have to change that. You could still spend time with us,” Katie promised. She smiled as softly as she could, hoping to reassure it. As strange as it felt, despite being the youngest thing in the room Katie often felt as if she were the most mature.

“Once I picked another——I do not know that I——would want to.——What if you were——no longer——as important——to—me?” The words were halting and uncertain even by Cici's usual standards, with clear gaps between snippets of phrasing.

“Of course we would be.”

“I was not—to you.”

Katie winced, her own reaction mixing with a sudden spike of emotion from Thatch. She squeezed the vine, asking for more time. She could handle this. The last thing they wanted to do was overwhelm Cici and have it retreat again. That was surely why the gathered affini were letting her do this—because there were some conversations that could only be had between equals and they could never have them.

“That's... it isn't like that,” Katie protested, but it felt weak even as she said it.

Wasn't it exactly like that? Whether she viewed what had been done to her as a kindness or not, either Thatch had elevated her own importance to stratospheric levels or she had reduced the importance of all else. It didn't really matter which it was.

The end result was the same.

Katie's every choice, every action, every thought was coloured first and foremost by her relationship with Thatch. While her universe hadn't quite shrunk to only include her owner, like it did for some pets, Katie undeniably orbited only the one body.

“But you do not deny—that you chose—somebody else,” Cici pressed. It wasn't even wrong, it just...

Katie looked away. Had she done wrong by it? It had needed her and she hadn't been there. It had needed her to feel something for it and instead Katie had given herself to another.

Had she been selfish? Had she been cruel?

Katie sighed. “How could I deny that, hon? I'm literally a housepet. We both know it. You can't be as important to me as Thatch is, I'm sorry. I'm hers. She comes first, always, and everything else is by her leave. I love her so much and—” Katie was getting distracted. Everybody already knew that Thatch was the most important person in the universe, probably. They didn't need to be told.

Thatch was the first real person Katie had ever met. In a world that was graphite on canvas Thatch had walked in painted in oils. Meeting her had expanded Katie's reality and shown her that life could be so much more than it had been and—

Katie faltered, looking into Cici's dull amber status readouts like she was trying to stare into the machine's soul. To Katie, Cici was the cute robot who had surprised them all by becoming a friend.

But to Cici? Katie had been its Thatch.

The first one to really sit down and talk to it like it mattered. The first one to offer it comfort when it needed it and the first one who was safe to confide in. Thatch, bless her core, was a mess and had struggled with Cici's advances, but Katie had been there as comfort regardless.

And Katie had abandoned it.

In a sense. Not intentionally, not avoidably, not in any way that Katie could truly say she believed she could have done better but all the same it had needed her and she hadn't been able to be there for it.

Katie glanced up at the most important person in the room with a vaguely helpless expression. Thatch was mid-conversation, talking about taking things apart and putting things back together in a way that had a blush glowing on Katie's face before she realised it was part of the game, and not meant to be hot. Probably. Affini flirting could be opaque.

Thatch reached down and stroked the top of her head, for all the world appearing as absent minded as an affini could be, but Katie knew her plant better than that. Thatch was never not paying attention to her. The firm drum-beat of confidence thumping down upon Katie was enough of a sign. Thatch believed in her.

Okay. Katie returned her attention to the machine that, as expected, was waiting patiently for the end of her sentence.

“I'm sorry,” she started. “I didn't choose between you two. If I hadn't have gone with Thatch there wouldn't be a me to know. I was spinning out and I couldn't handle going back to being independent. None of that means you aren't important to me, I just had to get myself into a place where I could be okay first. I care about you and I wish I could have done better, and I can do now.”

A moment of quiet passed while the machine processed. The quiet clicking of partially electronic gearboxes echoed off the walls and Katie could see the inner workings of Cici's semi-mechanical mind switching to a lower gear. How would a gear chain even work in this context? Slower, but more thorough thought? How deep could Katie really take her understanding of an alien cognition she hadn't been enthralled by?

Eventually Cici began to emit words again. “I wish you—had been there—after we got back.—Everybody I met was—so lovely,—but I did not know them—and—they were not you——but I think I understand.—I do not sleep—as you do,—but my energy—is a limited resource—and sometimes I—too—must choose not to—do something—I desperately wish to do. If—— if you could have—would you have—helped?”

Katie nodded rapidly. “Yes! Of course! And I think I can now—” If Thatch agreed, which Katie appended only mentally and squashed down the urge to say— “and I'm here now.”

If Thatch agreed.

Katie was technically taking a risk by making authoritative statements of her own but she knew her person well enough to be confident she'd agree. Besides, if Thatch didn't Katie was pretty sure she could be convinced. Ownership was a two way street. Katie would do as she was told, but Thatch would look to her to help guide the decision. The final call always lay in her loving vines, but Katie's influence was nonetheless necessary to help her have the information and the confidence to make it.

Katie briefly wondered whether she had more actual agency as a cherished possession than she'd ever had as an independent sophont, and then decided that the question was kind of meaningless. She didn't have agency just because Thatch took her needs into account when making decisions and probably everybody in the room—herself included—would have laughed at her if she'd suggested otherwise.

Cici vibrated gently for a few long moments before the status lights across the front of its casing all blinked green one at a time over a few moments. “Please—do not leave me—again—katie.” It tried to shift its sensors upwards. Katie let it. “Thatch.”

Humanity had long been afraid of the dark. One could stare into the unknown without ever being certain that nothing would stare back. It was better to avert your eyes and hope that whatever was watching would leave you be, in the hopes that you would not catch its attention and seal your fate.

Neither Katie nor Cici put much stock in old Terran fears. Cici caught Thatch's attention and sealed their fates. Polite talk of games and rockets paused as the cosmic nightmare tilted up Katie's chin and planted a mind-melting kiss on her forehead. “You are a wonder without compare,” she whispered, before returning her attention to the probe.

“I am sorry for my part in that as well. I let you down and I will do what I can to repair any damage caused.” Katie shuffled backwards, squirming up against Thatch's stomach and chest. She reached around and gave a vine a tug, gently pulling Thatch's arms around until she was being held in place like an oversized stuffed animal. The image was complete when Thatch lowered her chin to rest against the top of Katie's head and hummed.

There was something that had gone unsaid for a while now, Katie knew. She'd pieced together enough to understand what she needed to know, but the details were still something Thatch had been avoiding. It was obvious, from Katie's perspective. Just as she was learning the slightly contradictory taste of the lies Thatch told herself, she was familiar with the jarring hitches of rhythm that arose when her plant's thoughts strayed towards something that she would rather not think about.

Katie had allowed it, because the details wouldn't change anything and it wasn't Katie's forgiveness Thatch had needed, but it was time for that to stop.

Thatch's tight grip wavered, moving back and forth from gentle squeezes to moments of intense, almost crushing tightness as she worked up the courage to broach the topic. Katie knew that the easy thing to do would have been to avoid it once more, divert the conversation with a joke or a flirt. Katie also knew that no matter how distracted Thatch seemed she always had one eye on Katie. She gave a quick shake of her head as a message to her and Miss Incertae both.

Don't interrupt. Her houseplant was thinking.

“I can not take you,” Thatch eventually admitted. “I can not be on that list of yours. I am, with my katieflower's help, crawling out of a hole I have been trapped within for half of my lifespan. When we first arrived back on this ship, I threw myself into helping you and your fellow probes because I felt, and feel, a debt to this universe.”

The pressure of the hug was only just bearable. Katie certainly couldn't speak through it. She was here to be an emotional support animal and nothing more. Her lack of response was the response. She didn't need to say anything. She would love and support Thatch no matter what, and this comfort would always be there for her.

“katie is helping me see things more clearly, but this is not a process that can be rushed. I am in no place to take a pet, but katie took me. Before my...” Thatch searched for the word.

“Breakdown?” Miss Incertae suggested.

”...Yes,” Thatch eventually acquiesced. “Before I turned and ran from this community, I saw echoes of my own failures all lining up to reoccur. I am capable of so much and that is terrifying to me. I do not expect any of you to understand—”

Cici beeped an ear-piercing interrupt. “Thatch Aquae—I am a—self-replicating engine of war and exploitation—designed and programmed—to expand endlessly—through the universe.—When we first met—I put my considerable capabilities—towards trying to end the—lives of—two of the most—beautiful creatures—I now know.——I understand.”

Thatch's hug was just barely loose enough to breathe through, but of course, before Katie had even opened her mouth Thatch had noticed the intake of breath and given her the space she needed. “Miss, I lived most of my life in a civilisation that forced me to hurt everyone around me to survive because of a misguided ideology that put us all in constant conflict. I was good at it, because I had to be to survive it. I understand.”

The spaceship chuckled. “I suppose if we are all coming together to bully poor Thatch, then how could I not join in? I do not have weapons like cce, and I do not live in conflict like katie, but I am a vessel that holds five thousand, four hundred, and thirty three sapient lives: Two thousand, seven hundred and eighteen affini; one thousand, eight hundred and ninety two humans; and eight hundred twenty three various others, including our delightful cce and our cherished katie. I skip across the surface of this reality like an asteroid bouncing over the surface of a gas giant. I exist on a scale that is impossible to make safe. The only difference between a starship and a weapon is intent. I understand.”

“We all understand, Thatch,” Katie whispered. “You aren't alone.”

The plant fell quiet. She was wrapped around her floret with only vague allusions to maintaining a human shape. Mostly Katie was simply tangled in tentacles that pressed close around her every square inch of skin. The larger, thicker ones curled around her torso with a truly indomitable grip, while smaller vines entwined with Katie's limbs and held them at her sides. The smallest vines wrapped around her fingers and toes, gently wiggling them one finger at a time in an increasingly complicated pattern.

Thatch was distracting herself, but she deserved the distraction. Katie was held too tight to wiggle, so Thatch could wiggle for her. Eventually, the plant nodded. “Thank you all. I— Yes. I think I comprehend. You must understand, I was uplifted barely more than a Terran lifetime ago in one of the more recent Gardens established in this area of space. I am a native to this galaxy. In many ways the Affini Compact is as alien to me as it is to you two.” She paused to tickle under Katie's chin and across Cici's chassis. “I know it, truly, by reputation only.”

“The core worlds cannot be described, truly,” Miss Incertae interjected. “But I do not think there are many who would say they know the Affini Compact. I had travelled and searched for thirty five blooms before eschewing my Affinity for something Other. I—either my affini progenitor or my current self—am not native to this galaxy, but I would not say the Affini Compact is something which can be known even on my scale of being.”

The whole ship shrugged. Katie felt the subtle shifts in their collective momentum as the multi-kilometre vessel wiggled fractionally in place. “Perhaps those who have been with us since the beginning would disagree, but I suspect not. We are the Affini Compact, here, in this room. Here, on this ship. We are a civilisation hewn from fractal; the same in spirit—if not in detail—no matter from how close or far from which you observe. One can only know a civilisation that spans a dozen galaxies and uncountable worlds by reputation, even when one is a citizen.”

Katie gave Thatch a squeeze. She couldn't move, but that didn't preclude her from trying. “Maybe we could go exploring, eventually? I'd like to see what the rest of you dorks are like. Maybe we could visit those core worlds of yours? Find out what kind of civilisation we're building, together?”

Miss Incertae coughed, or at least simulated it. Katie wasn't completely certain it hadn't actually come from the drive plume, by the volume and the subtle shake of the ship. “We would have to take a vote if you wished to travel there with the rest of us. The core worlds require significant preparation to visit if you wish to keep your mind intact.” She paused. “The same would go for you too, Thatch.”

Katie's affini squeezed back, vines so small Katie wasn't sure she'd ever seen them acting independently entwining with her hair, brushing it straight strand by strand. “That could be nice,” she admitted. “I feel like a fake at times. Perhaps seeing others like me would help. I find myself unwilling to commit to leaving this ship, however. We are only just starting to meet those aboard but I do not wish to abandon the momentum we are building. For the foreseeable future, I would prefer us to remain aboard. We go where the Elettarium goes. This is our home.”

“We remain here for another week,” Cici supplied. “Then the Meandrina will arrive to begin the processing of—my people.—After that, it will be up to the crew.”

Thatch breathed out, and nodded. “Which I suppose only leaves my final point. Cici, I am sorry that my failure to process my own difficulties spilled over onto you and the other probes. We will stay with you.”

“Apology accepted.” Cici buzzed happily, rubbing against Thatch's side with the edge of its casing. “Now—would you like to finish our game?”

Katie held out her hand at about chest level, palm facing towards the virtual sky above. As she pulled fingers back into a fist she saw tendons tensing beneath mostly-opaque skin. Biological pulleys moved force from a central engine to where it was actually needed. There were muscles beneath her palm, apparently, but every twitch of Katie's fingers was spooky action at a distance.

Thatch knelt in front, grinning on down from above. Droplets of early-morning moisture clung to her leaves and her petals, splattering her with a glisten that reflected their imagined dawning star. She was cast in long shadow, simulated starlight so bright that the affini's foliage seemed to glow around the edges where the layering was so thin as not to be wholly opaque.

Katie blushed. Obviously.

Thatch had this alien beauty to her that the dork herself didn't seem to see. Despite her obvious majesty, she acted so casually. At first, Katie had found Thatch beautiful simply because she was so other that she couldn't help but envy, but now Katie had met enough affini to grow almost used to their alien wiles. Thatch's beauty was more than an accident of her birth: It was the curve of her smile as she taught; the slight slouch in her body as she forewent precision for enthusiasm; the rippling twitches that ran across her foliage when Katie surprised her with an unexpectedly correct answer; and a trillion other ways beside.

Katie's eyes couldn't help but trace around her Thatch, watching rivulets of healthy dew cling to ridges and edges like they were afraid to let go.

Katie could relate.

Thatch was so green now. She was keeping a few of the old Dirt reds and purples in for style and memories both, but she looked healthier than Katie had ever seen her. From thick, springy vines hung leaves in a wide spectrum from the deep, powerful shades of new and healthy growth to those now fading, finally at the end of their service.

A few leaves had cuts or tears from moments of lost concentration or accident. A few had bite marks. For all her beauty Thatch was not pristine. She was alive and her body reflected the inherent imperfections that existence brought. Keeping a houseplant healthy didn't require driving away the flaws; it needed a cultivating hand and a gentle spirit to help it grow strong despite them. Sometimes something was too damaged to save, but good cultivation required being willing to trim away that which kept something from its potential.

Gentle fingers tickled beneath Katie's chin, drawing her focus back into the moment. “Getting distracted in there, kitten? I can up your dose if you are drifting?”

Katie blinked up at her affini, slow and non-threatening. She shook her head with a smile gone wide. “Not at all, Miss Aquae! I was just thinking that you're looking exceptionally beautiful this morning, Miss.”

“Ah,” Thatch replied, pulsing with a moment of embarrassed warmth. She knew full well that Katie's mind was clear, tuned up, and ready to go. She had nowhere to hide from the truth and a floret who saw the shape of her soul.

Katie savoured the awkwardness for an instant before grinning and rescuing her poor bullied xeno weed. They were midway through a biology lesson and Katie was learning about how the standard human-specification body moved. “So, you were saying something about tendons?” Katie prompted, wiggling her fingers up at her tutor.

“Ah! Er, yes.” Thatch set a few vines moving through the air in a complex dance that Katie was certain would have been entirely entrancing if her mind wasn't being carefully kept on topic by altered neurochemistry and biotechnological nudges. Katie raised a hand to trace along the edge of her collar, silently thanking the software carefully managing her attention to keep her mostly undistracted.

Katie's collar was a surprisingly flexible tool, and with a careful hand and confidence they'd successfully inverted the behaviour, for now. Instead of amplifying Thatch's hold over her it cancelled it out. Katie's current xenodrug dose leaned in heavily on things that reinforced the weaknesses in her natural neurochemistry and gave Katie a mind that felt sharper than she'd ever had before. Even by the most Terran of standards, there were no influences forcing Katie to think anything she didn't want to.

Dirt, but Thatch was pretty when she was excited.

Vines snapped through the air with blinding speed, tips burning with light that seemed to trail in their wake. They drew out a detailed diagram in sharp lines that fuzzed the air around them, as if Thatch were plucking rays of starlight from the air and weaving them to her whims. Over the course of half a minute or so she crafted a blown-out rendition of a human arm with muscles in red, tendons in white, and all else in a gentle green.

Katie laughed. Thatch had been her teacher in a broken escape pod; on a near-deserted planet; in a shuttle; in their home; everywhere they'd ever been. No matter the context her style shone through, and whether they were working with dying leaves or a high fidelity holographic display, Thatch loved her diagrams.

The plant raised an eyebrow. Katie stifled herself and sat up a little straighter, raising her chin and putting her unused hand in her lap. “Sorry, Miss. Paying attention!”

One vine tapped against the diagram—or at least gave a good impression of it, given it was incorporeal—and another came to rest against Katie's arm. “Were you now. Let us test that, then, pet. Identify the finger connected to each tendon I touch.”

Katie rolled her eyes. As if she didn't hang off of her affini's every word. As soon as Thatch's vine pressed against her skin, Katie confidently declared the finger. “Pointing finger; little finger; middle finger?”

All five of Thatch's fingers came down to ruffle her hair. Katie tried to dodge, but Thatch held the high ground. No amount of sharpened reflexes could have saved her. “Good girl. Move them for me too this time, kitty.”

Thatch repeated the process, tapping a vine against Katie's skin. As the girl wiggled her finger back and forth, Thatch's gentle pressure revealed the tendon moving beneath. Katie wrinkled her nose, feeling the offputting sensation of something rubbing against her skin from the inside. “This feels weird,” Katie interrupted, shivering. She held her finger still, wrinkled her nose, and stuck out her tongue.

“Indeed,” Thatch agreed. “Though you will find a not dissimilar mechanism in my own limbs. Come, see.” She raised a single vine and tapped a point upon it with a finger. Katie reached out to grab it, making sure she had a good and tight hold while Thatch began to wiggle the tip back and forth.

“Oh! It's like...” Katie paused, shuffled closer, and pressed her ear to the tentacle. She suspected Thatch had deliberately chosen one with few hanging leaves, denying her an attempted snack. “Is there something moving in there?” It almost sounded like fluids flowing around inside, and the whole thing vibrated almost imperceptibly in time to Thatch's 'pulse'. Oddly enough it reminded Katie of the coolant pipes that would spider out from the jump drive of a Terran ship, buzzing with barely contained energy as they rushed to draw all the heat of use away.

“Is it hydraulic?” Katie moved down the vine, giving a firm squeeze, tap, or push every few centimetres. It never felt quite the same twice. “Hydraulic with compartmentalisation for redundancy?”

Katie tugged at the vine to no clear result. She crawled over to the end, a couple of meters away from Thatch's body, and threw her weight against it. It refused to budge, except insofar as it needed to to cushion Katie from her own impact. Thatch was probably cheating, passing the force down into a handhold or one of the nearby trees, but it was still an impressive ignorance of Katie's clearly superior leverage.

“I am feeling very inelegant right now,” Katie admitted, glancing back up at the diagram. She was string sloppily hung from misshapen bone, all while Thatch took a homogenous mass of powerful hydraulic limbs and formed her own meaning from them.

“You are correct, in theory.” Thatch pulled her vine away as Katie's curiosity overcame her and she moved to taste it. Another, smaller vine curled around the loop of her collar and firmly pulled her back in. Katie tried digging her palms into the dirt to see whether she could even begin to resist the force, but all she achieved was causing Thatch to pull upwards on her collar too to deny her the leverage. At no point did she seem to need to put in even the slightest actual effort. “It is a little more complicated in practice—as is always the case—but the modern day Affini body is far more the result of deliberate bioengineering praxis than anything approaching natural evolution and so we cannot fairly compare our forms. We shall see how elegant you are once I am done with you.”

Thatch's last sentence crashed into Katie's cognition and, focus-enhancing xenodrugs or not, brought everything to a juddering halt. Katie found herself staring down at her own very human arms while imagining them otherwise, with butterflies leading a charge against her stomach lining as if determined to escape.

Katie's arms were bare. The sleeves that usually hid her skin far from sight had been removed for the duration of the lesson. In stark contrast to usual floret fashions, Katie typically had her body mostly covered up. They both knew why. Katie liked her body a lot more than she once had, and enjoyed feeling Thatch's guiding hand all the more, but it was still so very, deeply, human.

Katie slowly deflated. She could feel Thatch's influence but it didn't catch. She could feel her brain stewing in an alien chemical soup, but all it did was focus her and leave her with nowhere to hide from her own thoughts. That was the point. The butterflies broke through and started building a creeping weight in her upper chest.

Katie had asked Thatch to look into prosthetics for her. She wanted exactly this.

Didn't she?

That had been true back then. Back when Katie had been desperately chasing any avenue for falling deeper into Thatch's control to the exclusion of all else. Back when Katie had been prioritising her own senseless wants over Thatch's desperate needs.

Divorced from the drive for self-destructive self-abandonment, Katie looked down at her familiar, uncomfortable, practical form. “I don't know,” she replied, mirth stolen from her voice. “I won't ever be perfect, will I? I'll always find something to hate. Probably it would be better if we just tried to get me used to this, wouldn't it?” Katie gestured at her arm.

Thatch's vine snapped back, curling around Katie's neck in a tight—though breathable—grip while the very tip coiled against her chin, lifting her head and forcing her gaze to meet her owner's. Thatch looked down at her with a focussed, analytical gaze. Katie knew the one. She'd just done something surprising and Thatch needed to understand. “Neither of us want that,” Thatch replied, tapping Katie's arm with the tip of a vine. “No art piece will be flawless, but we can still make you something to be proud of. Why do you hesitate now?”

“I— I don't know,” Katie admitted. This wasn't the first time the topic had come up, but it was just the first time that it felt like an immediate possibility. Between their research and the assistance they had been finding from new friends, their katielydon project was almost ready to start. This was no longer an abstract want but a practical, pressing concern.

That was a good thing. This was what they both wanted.

So why did Katie feel so torn? Why did her mind catch on the thought and why was her heart beating like a drum?

“What if I'm not me any more?” she asked, though Katie already knew the question didn't feel right.

“Do you think I would let that happen?”

Katie frowned, looking away. “No, of course not.” Thatch would keep her in one piece. Thatch was already responsible for keeping her in one piece. Without her guidance, Katie could have torn herself apart on a half dozen occasions already. She didn't need to worry about herself here.

“Then what are you really worried about?” Thatch radiated with a careful confusion. Katie could feel her love like sunlight kissing skin. Her concern was a summer day breeze dancing through Katie's hair. Her care was warm ocean waves lapping at Katie's body. Though it was suppressed at the moment, in so many ways Katie could still feel that influence guiding her, shaping her, keeping her on track to be who they wanted her to be. She would be the her that Thatch wanted her to be regardless. The best version of Katie Aquae. Whoever that was.

“I...” Katie stared down at her hand. It was so human. She rubbed a finger across a thin white line scored right across the middle of her palm. The scar left behind after she'd slapped Thatch across the face on their first day together when she'd been too wrapped up in her own problems to move her thorns out of the way and the best medical care they'd had was dirty water, leaves, and twine. Katie had been lucky it had only scarred. Thatch had sharp edges.

Katie pulled her hand into a tight fist, cherishing the slight tightness in the skin. Her body was human, but it was the body with which she'd met Thatch Aquae. The hand that had pulled her out of panic attacks with sharp physical shocks. The ankle she'd almost broken running back to her. The body that had nestled in close when Thatch had struggled to speak above a whisper, so constrained was she by the ghosts of her past. Katie's body was a record of devotion. The things she'd given, and the things she'd given up, to help Thatch get to where she was today.

Katie looked up at her owner's smiling face. “You'll make me me,” Katie whispered up. “But you need somebody to make you you. I know I can do that like this, but what if I lose something along the way? Isn't it selfish of me to want this?”

Thatch frowned down at her. “No. You are smarter than that. You know that this is something we are doing together and that it is in no small part for my benefit.” The affini placed a hand over Katie's head and stared into her eyes, thoughtfully, for a few moments. Katie looked back, knowing that the only reason why her head was staying so focussed was biochemical assistance. “This is the second poor excuse in a row, which suggests to me that you are not certain what the problem is yourself. Speak freely. Talk to me.”

“It's not fair that you can see through me like this when I can't,” Katie complained, not particularly sincerely. “But I guess neither of us are looking for fair, right? I don't know, hon. When I thought about this before it was just exciting, but now there's fear in there too, like...”

Katie bit her lip. “This is kind of the last step, right? This is where I find out what I am, and then I'll be fixed. I'll be so yours that everybody who so much as looks at me will know it.”

“As you say,” Thatch agreed, nodding easily enough.

“There won't be anything left of the old me,” Katie insisted. “The— What I was, before. Sad and lonely and human. I'll be the new me. Happy and owned and whatever you want me to be.”

“Yes, correct.” Thatch wasn't getting it.

“I'll have given you everything that I was.” Katie wasn't sure she was either.

“And everything that you could have been,” Thatch appended.

“And I'll be yours. Entirely.”

Thatch nodded slowly. “Mine. Without reservation, for eternity. Your tone of voice suggests this is not intended as flirting, but I may need you to walk me through what it is intended as.”

Katie shrugged. “At first I thought I wanted to give you everything, and I jumped straight to that and ended up hurting us. Now we're talking about doing that right and I feel scared because once I've given you everything then I won't have anything left to give.”

Thatch's hand atop her head was a heavy weight. It was comforting, but more comforting still was the mix of emotions dancing against Katie's mind. Uncertainty and confusion yes, but love and care far more intensely. “And this is a bad thing? We will stop at a word, Katie. We won't continue unless you are certain, and if we do not it will be okay. I love you, and the specifics we can work out together.”

Katie shook her head, laughed weakly, and rested her forehead against her plant's hand. “I don't think it's a bad thing. I don't want to stop. Being yours is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Maybe I'm just scared that we won't get it right? What if we try and it doesn't work, but it's too late to go back?”

“The Affini body was not built in a day, Katie, it took tens of thousands of years to settle on this basic design.” Thatch ruffled her hair and grinned. “But they did not have me, and you would be done much faster. We could both hate the first attempt but that would be no failure. We would learn from it and try again with our new experience and our new understanding of what it is that you need.”

Katie took a deep breath. It sounded so easy when Thatch put it like that. If failure was just part of a process, then it wasn't failure at all. “I... suppose,” she admitted. “But what if we can't find anything that works? What if I wanted this—” Katie gestured at one hand with the other— “all along, and I can't go back? What if I don't trust myself to decide what I want?”

The idea was terrifying. It was a risk. Katie would be sacrificing something she could never get back. It would be hard. Even if everything went well, she'd be getting used to the change for a long, long time. She would suffer for her body. If things didn't go well, she'd have to go through that cycle again and again, potentially without end.

Thatch chuckled. “Oh, that part is easy. It is out of your hands now. Pun intended.”

Katie laughed despite the prevailing mood.

Thatch continued. “You need this. You may not be able to do it for yourself, but you will do it for me. You have no choice in this matter so I suggest that you accept that it is happening. I cannot work with that—” Thatch gestured at Katie's body— “and I will not have a pet who cannot see the same beauty in herself that I do.” She paused, glancing to one side with a momentary flush of uncertainty breaking through her expression. “And I cannot have a pet that I cannot fix. You know why I need to break you. I must know that I could fix it.”

Thatch took one of Katie's arms and closed her hand around the wrist and most of the forearm. “I am an engineer, kitten. I understand how to solve practical problems. I could make your body do anything and I always could, but you have taught me that the endless chase for practicality will never make me happy. Be my canvas, flower, and let me be your artist. Please.”

Katie stared upwards, into her person's hopeful gaze. Thatch needed this.

This wasn't about Katie. Katie wasn't hers any more, and that went more than just skin deep. Thatch needed this. It was a risk. It would be loss and change, sacrifice and suffering, and something that could never be undone.

Katie felt a weight lifting from her chest.

She could sacrifice for Thatch. To her surprise, she found herself wanting to sacrifice for Thatch. Not just incidentally as part of getting what she needed, but for the value of giving up a part of herself to her owner on its own. If Katie lost something, if it took years to find stability again, then...

“Yes, Miss.” Katie nodded firmly, straightening her back. “I'll do it for you.”

Her plant raised an eyebrow. “That was unusually easy. There is normally more crying than this.”

Katie shrugged, smiling a smile only slightly wry. “If I'm doing it for you it feels different. If anything goes wrong, then that's okay because I'm doing it for you. If I lose something at the other end then I lost it for you.” With a growing blush on her cheeks, Katie coughed. “I feel like I could do anything when it's for you. You're so... big?”

Katie glared upwards, driven to pout by the amused twitch of Thatch's false eyebrow. “Not like that, you dork! Well... Okay, not just like that, anyway! You make me feel small in a good way. You're so much that just being near you is disempowering, but it's a comfortable kind of disempowerment. I don't have to worry when you're taking care of me, I just have to take care of you. The universe is too big for things like me, but I can focus on you and let you shape me and know everything will be okay because if it isn't, you'll fix it, even if it takes time or is hard or you need my help to make it work. You let me feel like I can be vulnerable around you, but you've helped so much already.”

Thatch's smile could only really be described as adoring. Other verbs just couldn't compete. She rested an elegant hand against Katie's cheek and brushed the pad of a thumb against her scalp. “You can be vulnerable around me. I won't hurt you.”

Katie glanced away. Thatch wouldn't hurt her. “What if I maybe, kinda, wanted you to?”

“Then I would require you to speak directly without asking leading questions and expecting me to do the work, kitten.” Thatch paused to press a finger against Katie's lips, stifling the complaint. “Yes, I know it is difficult, but you can do it for me, can you not? If you are looking for ways to show your devotion then begin with honesty.”

Katie flushed. “Um. I. Weh. Have you heard about class-D xenodrugs? They're disinhibition agents which can—”

“No,” Thatch stated, firmly. “I wanted you clear-headed so you could learn, and I will keep you clear-headed so you can teach. Tell me how you are feeling, pet.” She tilted her head a few degrees to the side while holding Katie's in place. Her eyes seemed to glimmer and Katie felt the weight of her expectation crashing down.

Katie whimpered. She tried to glance away but found Thatch's grip unwilling to waver. She tried to avert her eyes, but found that whatever concoction of drugs and technology was keeping her focus under control was not enough to resist Thatch deliberately holding her attention. Katie's eyes were pinned in place, staring up into her affini's glowing, demanding gaze.

“I don't really know,” she admitted, feeling her mind's biotechnological reinforcements crack under the pressure as they tried and failed to keep Katie's thoughts under her own control. “You've helped me so much already. I think back to what I used to be, and I was scared and suffering and in so much pain. Even after you agreed to take me in, I've had upsets and I've had challenges and you've always, always been there, and I guess I'm sitting here now and I realise that I feel good. I'm happy, I'm emotionally stable, my brain is behaving itself.” Katie winced. Her collar emitted a short error code and shut itself off. If she had been clinging to the edge, then now she was sucked in entirely. Thatch's gaze beat down upon her, demanding sincerity.

“This is everything I could have dared ask for and more besides and then we come to this and you're offering me something scary that I want so badly that I can't risk taking it and I felt the beginnings of panic as I realised I just couldn't do it, but I also couldn't not.”

Katie let out a desperate mewl, giving an airy gesture and half a shrug with one arm. She couldn't shift her attention enough to give any more. “And then you tell me to do it for you and all that fear just blows away. I don't need you to comfort me because I just feel resolve. You need this from me and so all the sacrifices don't feel scary any more.”

Thatch's demand softened, finally allowing Katie's mind to wander again. She felt the lack of her assistive device keenly. Thatch stroked a hand down Katie's back and smiled down at her. “That's a good kitten. I knew you could do it. I am gla—”

The collar beeped again, and Katie felt her focus sharpening. How had she managed to get through the day before, when she had lacked Thatch's guidance on her mind? Whether she had training wheels helping her to think or a cage letting her be mindless safely, knowing she had a trusted operator at the helm was everything.

“But!” Katie interrupted, raising a finger. Thatch didn't stop her, which was essentially tantamount to permission. She lacked Thatch's all-consuming demand for sincerity, but perhaps she could keep her momentum going. “I... there's this part of me that's disappointed it was that easy. I, I, I... I want to change for you. It's been hard to get this far, and that time in Lily's shuttle that I barely even remember, I think that was hard too? I can feel your touches on my mind and my body, and they were hard to accept.”

“It getting easier is positive, no? You are acclimatising to your place and becoming the pet we both need you to be. This seems like progress.”

“It is! It is, but...” Katie bit her lip. Hell. Why couldn't she just say it? How was she meant to put such a nebulous feeling into words? She felt like there was a simple sentence that would make everything clear, but the words for it eluded her.

“But?” Thatch prompted, a few seconds later. Somehow she was endlessly patient. Maybe it just came with immortality.

“But I want to give you more? The more I've surrendered to you, the happier I've been. You take better care of me than you take of yourself, and I want to give you everything. You need somebody who can give you everything, without putting all the pressure of what to do with it on you alone.”

“You have given me everything. You are my property, there is nothing that you are that is not mine. What more could you give?” Neither Thatch's patience, nor her condescension, seemed limited. Katie couldn't help but blush. She must sound like such a floret right now.

Katie shrugged, helplessly. “I think in hindsight, maybe, a little, kinda, I liked the struggle? A long while back now, just before you took me, I said something like 'If you need me to suffer, let me suffer for you'. I didn't want that then, but I knew I needed it. Now I don't need it anymore, but...”

Thatch raised her eyebrow. The absolute brat knew exactly how that sentence would end. There was only one way it could end. This was ridiculous. Thatch! Why would she make Katie suffer like thi— Oh.

“But I want it,” Katie admitted, finally, to herself, and by extension to her owner. “I want to feel what I'm giving up, for you. I thought things felt good just because you were taking care of me, and because you loved me, but it's more. You made me our work-in-progress and I don't ever want to be finished. I want to feel your touch in everything I am and always be noticing the ways you're shaping me. I want to spend my days striving, doing things for you in a thousand little ways. I want you to take things from me and make me feel it. I want you to break me, Miss, in the literal sense, and I want you to put me back together how you want me. Our journey has been so important to me that I don't want to stop just because we've reached the destination. Be my engineer, and let me be your machine. Please?”

A few seconds passed without a response. Katie could feel a turmoil swirling around in her owner's head, flashing between emotions too rapidly to track. Leaves flattened all across her body in a fast, sweeping wave from her chest outwards, then all moved out to stand on end at once.

“Apologies,” Thatch replied, blinking rapidly. “This is me enumerating the times I could have done exactly what I wished with you but held back because I was worried it would be too much. I am also realising how predictably I have been underestimating your devotion. I should have realised you needed this as much as I, and that we are not doing this for me alone. I apologise, dearest katieflower. It will not happen again.”

“We could... now?” Katie felt the hunger in Thatch's eyes as they danced across her fragile, flimsy body. She gestured her head towards the bedroom. Or the project room. Either one, really. There was a reason the two were set side by side and it wouldn't be the first time they'd migrated in a hurry.

Maybe they should just keep a set of tools in the bedroom.

For a beautiful moment Thatch's form unfolded, taking on hard edges and razor thorns as she expanded outwards to consume the world and blot out the sun. Katie was blanketed by shadow as Thatch's will bore down upon her.

Only for it all to fall slack at the last moment. Thatch flopped forward, landing against Katie in a loose hug, shaking her head. A handful of vines curled around Katie's body and held it close. “In all honesty, kitten, our recent social exertions have left me exhausted and I suggested a lesson precisely because I barely want to move, never mind whatever melodramatic expressions of desire I will doubtless bring down upon you when I am more rested.” She reached around Katie's head to rub around the back of an ear. “I apologise, but tonight is to be a quiet evening.”

Katie pulled her mouth to one side, considered, and then grinned. “Then may I cook for you, Miss? I know how you like your food by now. Perhaps afterwards we could retreat to the bedroom? The next episode of By The Stars In Their Eyes is out and we could watch it while I make sure all your leaves are moistened? This is the one where we find out where all the deer keep coming from!”

Thatch's vines curled tighter around Katie's body, rendering escape even more impossible. She squeezed, treating Katie more like an oversized plush toy than a cook. “I am perfectly capable of making my own food, katie, and I will be much faster about it than you.”

Katie nodded, or at least tried to nod and trusted Thatch would be able to interpret it. “Of course you would, Miss. Pretty please may I? I'd really like to do something for you right now, if I can make your life easier in the smallest way?”

The firm squeezing continued for another few seconds, before Katie was finally released. Vines slithered along almost every inch of her skin, pulling back and leaving Katie feeling cold. Even the softened air of their hab unit, with its perfect temperature and subtle floral scent, felt cold and sharp in comparison to Thatch's embrace.

A sacrifice worth making, if it meant Katie getting to dedicate herself to some satisfying acts of simple service.

“Oh, very well, then,” Thatch replied, ruffling Katie's hair as she used the last few vines to pick the girl up and place her on hands and knees. “You are evaporating my metaphorical heart and being absolutely delightful, kitten. I additionally have some ripened berries ready for harvesting, and if you do a very good job I may even let you have one when you're done.”

Katie beamed, bouncing up to her feet. “Yes, Miss Aquae!”

Yeah. Yeah, she could get used to this. This felt right. Katie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She'd been circling the conclusion for long enough and it was time to accept it.

This wasn't just Thatch being the most important person in the universe.

It was that her Thatch was better with a Katie at her side. Neither of them could command that fundamental, cosmic importance by themselves. Katie had been a directionless drifter with rapidly scattering hopes. Thatch had been an aimless wanderer quickly falling to pieces.

Katie was Thatch Aquae's, but her plant didn't want a mindless puppet. She didn't want an equal, either. She could have had either of those things. Thatch could and should have whatever she wanted, but she didn't know what she was looking for.

As Thatch had said, she was an engineer, and she could make of Katie what she wished, but all that capacity was nothing without the wisdom to use it right. Katie could help Thatch figure out her needs.

Katie's mind drifted back to her most central question. What was she? The answer drifted into her head as easy as breathing.

Pet.

Companion.

Assistant.

Navigator.

Every battleship needed its logistics; every Jump Drive its tech; every captain its ship; and every Thatch its katie. Not equal. Below, not less.

katie Aquae, Second Floret wasn't a limited resource. She could give Thatch what she needed and she would be greater for it, not lesser. She straightened her back, set her feet, and smiled widely across at her friend, lover, and owner.

“Thank you, Miss! Right away, Miss!”

“Ah, but one last thing. Let us not make this too easy for you, hmn? If you are looking for a challenge, then I shall provide.” She reached over with a pair of vines and took katie's hands, carefully folding down her fingers and tying them in place with binds of thin plantlife that katie's fingers lacked the strength to break. They dragged her down, placing her hands back against the dirt, and then gave her one last petting before Thatch collapsed entirely into a comfortable yet amorphous bush. “You know what I like,” the bush buzzed. “Get to it.”

katie got to it.

Hand-compiled treads rolled across the botanical dirt of one of the Elettarium's many open boulevards. Soft metal edges dug in shallow and hauled forward a machine on high-torque electrics. Quiet coil whine met the usual low-volume chatter of switches and gears as a conscious contraption ambled.

cce. Artificial enthusiast; steel-plate softie. Voted “cutest newcomer” by the Lilialae.

It left tracks as it moved but the grass covering the pathway was a hardy sort, bioengineered to be soft to the touch yet tough enough to handle a whole stampede of florets. It could handle one well behaved probe without losing a blade.

To cce's sides strode the drifters.

Thatch Aquae, hardly out of the Garden yet somehow Second Bloom, slithered forward on false footsteps. Most affini in Rinan/Terran space had learned to walk like the humans did, but this one wore her heritage on her sleeve, though she may not have known it. Self-loathing snake in bipedal paint; student of a poorly managed life.

Last and legally least: katie Aquae—Second Floret, despite the tragic backstories. She crested forth on all fours with a swagger so crisply sinusoidal it could be her programmer's signature. Stripped bare of humanity; teacher's pet trained for greatness.

“Lunch?” suggested the katie, timed a beat after her stomach's rumble. Her feeding time was fast approaching and so it was little surprise her mind had turned to sustenance. Her approach was perhaps unusual for a pet, but the results of her domestication were not. Take any creature used to unpredictable, uncertain sources of nourishment and introduce them to a strict mealtime schedule and their biological clock would quickly learn when it was time to start getting hungry.

The affini extracted a portable terminal from within herself and spent a few moments tapping away, querying the Registry for those nearby who were offering the kinds of food that katie liked best. The answer took a moment to come back, but when it did the suggested result took into account the girl's last registered micronutritional needs; the chef's workload and their last break; cce's mild discomfort around AM radio sources; and a hundred other factors besides.

As expected, the suggestion was accepted. The trio headed towards it and the chef was alerted to their approach.

Thatch rested a hand against the more artificial machine's casing. “So, Cici, you said you had something to tell us?”

“Yes!—I have made—my decision,” it announced. “I have a—list of requirements—and—I am planning to—speak to—my chosen today.”

katie squealed, listing to the side to bump into the probe's casing. “Oh, that's fantastic! I'm so happy for you, cee. Come on, don't keep it secret, who'd you pick?”

“Ah!—Well, I—”

***

No.

Some things should be discovered in person, so to speak. Elettarium Actual—Ined Incertae, when she was pretending to be small—pulled her attention back from her cce—or perhaps not hers, as the case may be—and away from the three altogether. She doubted they would notice. Doors may open a little more sluggish on the automatics. They might have to wait for a light magnetic rail pod, perhaps.

Actual didn't know. She wasn't paying attention to them. It felt odd, like holding closed an eye might have to an organic, but she wasn't completely sure on that. It had been a long, long time since she had seen with organic eyes. Her real senses were sweeping: a deluge of information that had taken decades to grow used to and centuries to master. She could focus and filter, but her awareness was near absolute and stretched for light-centuries around, albeit with a sharp loss in precision the further from her hull she gazed.

She was used to not seeing within individual habitation units, of course. Actual couldn't, not without invitation or a supermajority. Even then she would not, unless it was necessary or desired. Perhaps a third of the homes aboard had given her a blanket invitation to come visit whenever she wished, and only a handful had requested she pay no attention to their goings on beyond what was necessary to properly balance distributing resources around the ship.

The Aquaes were in that last category, and so it was nice to see them going out on walks and trips more often. The Elettarium's radiators glowed a little more warmly at the thought.

The comfort and care of her crew was Actual's highest priority, and seeing anybody aboard flowering brought with it a deep satisfaction.

I've got a blind spot up around those guests. Ined sent a message to the chef the trio had been pointing towards in the last few moments before their bubble of ignorance stretched over the cafe entirely. Please do take good care of them. The affini is a little jumpy, but the others respond well to good treatment.

She got a little heart back in response. Quintina Rhus, First Floret and endlessly sweet. Sharpest sniper in the Terran Accord; knew her targets better than she knew herself. How could she not fall in love?

There. Meddling done. Actual returned her attention to her other passengers. It was mid afternoon on the minor arc, where her little blind spot lay, and darkest night on the major arc. Each spun with a satisfying ease, running almost entirely on their own inertia with magnetic bearings ensuring friction-free stability and a comfortable simulation of gravity for the florets.

It was all for the florets, in the end.

Actual's attention focussed in on the major arc. The Elettarium never slept, neither in the sense of the ship herself nor the civilisation therein, but most of the florets were diurnal and most of their partners kept to the same schedules for convenience. Things were quiet.

A few dozen families milled around the pathways, those who preferred the night or for whatever reason had chosen not to sleep. Several lay in the parks staring up at the stars, or at least what they expected to be stars. The smaller observatories had walls with real transparency, but each arc was comprised of several decks and not all of them could really look up into the vastness of space. Actual didn't think it really mattered. The only difference between a window and a sufficiently capable display was intent.

A slip of movement caught Actual's attention. One floret stumbling down a walkway, otherwise unaccompanied. Actual felt knowledge drift into her mind a moment after focussing in. Jade Soredia, Twenty Second Floret. Rebel turned rockstar glammed out in floral chic. Mistake not peace for quiet.

Well past her bedtime, but she'd been well behaved for years by now and it was unlikely she'd be up to anything concerning. Probably she was just heading for a midnight snack. Indeed, after leaving the walkway she made a beeline towards Late Nite Ice, the current obsession of Ipheion Pentas, Forty Ninth Bloom. Old enough to have heard silence in the void and wise enough to fill it with song. Always dedicated, but never to the same thing twice.

By the time of its closure the Terran Accord had boasted almost ten thousand distinct flavours of ice cream, and Ipheion planned to produce the definitive recipes for each. For reasons Actual couldn't quite put her effector on, many of the sophonts aboard her avoided the atomic perfection of her compilers, opting instead for handmade reproduction. It seemed strange to her. Either the ingredients were compiled, or the resources used to grow or make them had been, most of the time. They weren't on a planet and somebody had to manage the water cycle, at very least.

Unfortunately for Jade Soredia, Twenty Second Floret, there was a short flight of stairs on her path, she was sleepy, and her foot was going to clip on the step. She was going to trip. Hasty simulations suggested a ninety percent probability of a bruise. Sixteen percent for a scrape. Unacceptable. Actual engaged the arc Brake for an instant, slowing its rotation and weakening the force of gravity just enough for the floret's foot to make the step.

All good. No harm done. Ice cream secured. The arc would return to its proper speed and position more smoothly over the next few minutes. The energy expenditure of the operation would have brought tears to the eyes of a lesser civilisation, but it wasn't like the Affini were short on power.

Actual had suggested to the ship's investigative xenoenvironmentalist that putting the two arcs on different schedules would help with making species used to different daily cycles comfortable and that was true, but she had to admit that her real reason was much simpler: she would get bored if there wasn't something going on at all times. A little nudging of the cycles minimised the occasions where both arcs slumbered at once, and a little balancing of the population ensured there were enough nocturnals around to keep her occupied.

Those habitation units that Actual had been invited within were largely calm and quiet. A majority were asleep. Actual busied herself for a few minutes with inertia and effectors: bumping objects lost beneath things free; setting compilers to have preferred breakfasts ready on time; turning off lights that might otherwise wake someone; and a dozen other things besides. If a creature—affini or floret—had a habit they liked to keep to or a task they liked to have done and forgot or faltered, Actual liked to step in and smooth over the gaps. She had their consent, but all the same, she tried to keep it to things nobody would spot. She wasn't here to be noticed.

The clerks were up late again, tired eyes staring at piles of paper as tall as they were. The Elettarium's little collection of feralists had broken without its leader, and now even those who still resisted their care did so alone. It made for a lot of paperwork.

Actual considered stepping in and reminding the pair to take care of themselves, but as she did she noticed the letterheads. This was play, not work, and she was reminded once more that she was not the only piece of esoterica aboard. Of course she was not. Here were Wing and Montsechia Vidalii. Cryptids wrought from ink-stained edge; the beating heart of an ineffable civilisation.

Over on the minor arc things were busier. Actual engaged herself for a little while: arranging rail pods so that nobody had to wait more than a few moments; placing virtual clouds above the parks so the florets who preferred things dimmer wouldn't need sunglasses; caring for the maintenance of the thousands of little automated systems that kept the ecology healthy; and generally performing the inherently thankless work that went into letting her crew feel like things simply always happened to go their way.

The Terrans had this adorable concept of luck, an attempt at accounting for all the factors and variables they weren't able to control for, but Actual never let a die roll without knowing where it would fall.

Assured that all was well, Actual continued her sweep. Her nose cone was primarily uncrewed, at least when there weren't ferals needing rescue. Automated systems hummed away, happily invested in their work. Space was big and, Core Worlds aside, unsafe even for affini, never mind their florets. It took a lot of effort to carve out a little area of comfort and ease within it.

Atmospheric controls were nominal. The mixture getting pumped around the ship—or compiled at atmospheric substations, depending on distance—was holding at the desired levels, with a suite of gentle scents carefully chosen to appeal to everybody aboard.

The compilation mass reserves were a few percent below expectations. Actual took a note to follow up on that. They had been far beyond Affini territory without resupply for some time now and so it was unsurprising that waste was starting to add up, but this was higher than Actual had predicted.

The Elettarium was largely a closed ecosystem with only a handful of exceptions. Given that matter could be neither created nor destroyed, except by conversion to energy, good recycling policy generally ensured that a small amount of compilation mass went a long way.

Say a floret wanted a glass of water: Five hundred grams of mass was deduced, an amorphous blob of subsubatomic particles then impressed into a template that turned fifteen of those grams into SiO₂—a curious hypercooled liquid the Terrans had used for its vague transparency and somewhat effective solidity over short timescales—most of the rest into H₂O—one of those base compounds necessary for Terran life—and the remainder into a mix of nutrients, compounds, and flavourings to match the specific floret's needs.

Of those five hundred grams, the majority would be reclaimed within the day and decompiled back to a fundamental soup. A little would be retained within the floret's body, becoming a part of them. A little would take longer to reclaim. Anything lost to evaporation, any spillage, or any glasses left forgotten would only return to Actual once they naturally made their way to one of the many subtle decompilation points dotted around the ship, in atmospheric filters or sewage management or so on.

Strange to be missing a few hundred kilograms, but spread out across the entire crew it was believable. Nobody needed reminding of the importance of maintaining recycling protocol yet. They were doing such good jobs already.

Actual's attention shifted, considering her aft. Grand stabilisers spun freely on partially hyperspacial mounts; traction engines dug deep into subspace ridges to haul them along through realspace at a comfortable pace; reactors hummed happily, fed with an ideal mix of ultra-exotic particles that was actually running a little low.

That would be their limiting factor, then, not the compilation mass. They could have stayed out a few more months, and then they would have had to head home. The limitation chafed. The Elettarium had been designed as an ultralong range scouting vessel and every caveat was felt.

A mail drone or two back had suggested that some floret in Andromeda was close to a breakthrough of sorts. It was continuing its life's work in hyperfine nanoconstruction with the aid of Affini technological might with an eye to maybe succeeding in producing a compilation technique that could synthesise a workable fuel mix from raw mass. If it was even possible it would probably take them another thirty years, but they had Actual's attention.

Thirty five blooms and the first few hundred years of an eternity was a long, long time, even by Affini standards. The younger of those among them had this sense that they had been uplifted into the end of history; that there was nothing left for them to do but continue their victory lap across the universe, saving everyone, and that success was simply inevitable. Even many of the older affini seemed to agree that even if they weren't quite at the end, they had made all the discoveries they needed in order to achieve their goals.

Yet here Actual was, contemplating the benefits of yet another revolutionary invention that would change everything. How different would a universe be without any need for supplies? Would it even be a good thing? The Affini had never known an age where survival without co-operation was even plausible. They were a mature enough people now to handle that responsibility, Actual expected, but she couldn't predict how the effects would ripple.

Only time would tell. The Elettarium let out a pulse of waste heat and turned her attention to the stars around them to stare out into the endless void. For all her power, she was more aware than most of the fragility of their shared journey.

Sagittarius A*, the Terrans had called it. Actual preferred the Rinan term herself. Liliaux. Lily, their homeworld's star. Laux, the cultural concept of a resource owed to all. The all-star at the galaxy's centre was crucial to their efforts here, and for all the unshakable confidence of the Affini Compact it said something profound that the Liliaux Gate was defended by real, actual warships the likes of which could not be found anywhere else in the galaxy.

Actual felt uncomfortable just thinking about such things. Hypermetric artillery that could wipe away a star at superluminal speed. A Firebreak large enough to snap entire fleets so deep into the Below they'd never find their way back. Traction engines mounted on fixed universal points that would tear the spacetime they all lived in to shreds and disintegrate anything that happened to be in it. Weapons of war. Weapons of death and horror. The uncomfortable admission that there were things the Affini at large were willing to kill for, because they could not lose their foothold here and the prospect of ever needing to abandon an entire galaxy's worth of valued creatures was something nobody was willing to accept.

The weapons had never been used. Nothing had ever needed them. Hopefully nothing ever would. They were the last argument of an ancient race arrogant enough to believe themselves unstoppable, yet thorough enough to prepare for the possibility regardless.

At Liliaux hung the Gate, the terastructure that connected the Milky Way to the rest of Affini space. At Liliaux stood the Penrose Engines that harvested the power of a galaxy and synthesised the fuel that ran the ships.

One day it would run out. Not for millions of years yet, or perhaps billions, but Actual had no plans to stop existing between then and now and so the prospect of becoming a truly closed system that could run forever in a perfect loop excited her in a way she suspected that most affini would never fully comprehend. They would need a solution to the problem eventually.

Until then, Actual persevered, profoundly unarmed and interested primarily in the safety and wellbeing of her crew. She could not save the universe by herself, but she would do her part.

A signal pinged off of one of the Elettarium's deep-space radios, catching her attention. It was one of the ones with antennae sticking out Beneath to pick up extremely long range transmissions. Actual set one of her subsystems to decoding it and raised the alert with Captain Rosaceae. Fair-weather friend; indispensable ally in a pinch. An actress with a stage so grand she could outshine the stars and have them thank her.

It was a little strange not being captain any more, Actual had to admit. The first five hundred years of her life she had been both the ship and her captain and she didn't think she could have had it any other way. There was something magical about reality grinding against your treads as you ducked so close to a star you could feel your own hull glowing with the heat as you fell into the gravity well of something a million times your mass.

But.

The Elettarium wasn't a new ship fresh out of the Gardens any longer. She was crewed, she had responsibilities, and she was taking part in something meaningful. Rosaceae Hautere had not been Actual's vote, but she was glad to be wrong. Rosa had made a delightful captain, empathetic and insightful, a servant leader with a patient streak a lightyear wide. She listened to everyone's thoughts, everyone's needs, and found the compromises that made them all happy by building them a narrative that everyone trusted her to make real.

She had also quickly become Actual's closest friend and occasional lover, when the mood struck them both.

The signal decoded easily enough. It was a response from the Meandrina, one of the bare few dozen world-ships in Rinan/Terran space. Each represented a significant investment of resources even by Affini standards, and each had a speciality that placed it among the most potent in the known universe.

The Sphenophyllia brought an industrial base that could build something to do just about anything on just about no notice. The Lotus' Bounty provided an agricultural titan that could feed an entire species by itself, if it proved necessary. The Meandrina carried with it a bureaucratic wing that could catalogue, compartmentalise, and organise anything in record time—and it would track those records too.

It was the latter that they needed here. They had a whole new species that had been spreading across space, colonising every last planet, moon, and asteroid they could get their tracks on, then mining them out in preparation for exploring further. The transmissions Actual had been spying on suggested they likely had intelligent creatures on hundreds of thousands, or even millions of distinct locations, some of them barely kilometres across.

Suffice it to say that their clerks, capable as they might be, were not up to the task of organising this.

Actual got the green light from Rosa to go ahead and rendezvous.

Yay.

Five hundred three years in and the Elettarium still took every jump with the same nervous excitement as the first. Actual pulled her traction engines up away from the fabric of spacetime, leaving them drifting with only minor navigational thrusters and reaction drives with which to steer.

The Elettarium turned her attention to the universe.

Just like Ined had explained to Thatch Aquae, it was difficult to get large amounts of information into a biological mind, and really possible only if one was willing to leverage the senses and memories that already existed. Actual felt tiny gravitational tugs from a hundred separate sources against her skin, but nothing so potent it would throw off her leap. She tasted radiation tickling across the magnetic field surrounding her that kept the invisible dangers of space away from her crew. She saw the stars shining across the whole electromagnetic spectrum in a blistering array of colour that had taken her thirty years to see without developing a severe headache.

The universe was beautiful, but it wouldn't get them where they needed to go. She reached out further, pressing effectors against the edge of reality itself. A reaction chamber deep inside her aft began to hum. Spacetime sparked as exotic forms of matter left their containment tanks and, no longer held near absolute zero, began to tear existence apart. The stabilising petals at the Elettarium's aft began to spin, faster and faster and faster until to any organic eye they would simply be a blur dotted with a kind of lightning not of this realm jumping between the tips as the universe itself yearned to be broken and brought to heel.

The first time Actual had tried to Jump she had wanted to cry, but as she had rendered herself incapable of the act she instead had drifted through space listlessly for whole solar days. It had been nothing like she had hoped. She had felt awkward and uncomfortable, using clumsy and imprecise limbs to touch the divine. Over the course of her thirty fifth bloom she had gone from a biomechanical expert with a nanometer-scale steadiness in her vines to feeling like a child flailing with every movement. She hadn't even landed in the right system, never mind on target, and the hole she'd left behind had taken whole seconds to close.

It had been a long time since then. Elettarium Actual awaited the approval of the hyperspacial engineer on duty, got a go signal—from their floret (Pickle Saprot, First Floret: Endless sweetheart with a thirst for violence; liked to push the buttons that went boom)—and prepared to leap.

Exotic matter slammed into three different reaction chambers, curved down magnetic tunnels in a precise spiral, and lanced out across spacetime. It cut deep, though not quite through. The three lines together formed a triangle of traced grooves in a very specific size and direction.

Disengaged traction engines span, building up terrible momentum that could go nowhere while they were safely nestled deep within the Elettarium's aft. In the mere moments before the three grooves healed themselves, Actual thrust her engines back down against the weakened universe and the sudden force tore her triangle of scored-off space free and flung her through.

Reality fluttered back into place behind them as they slipped past, leaving barely a trace. To an outside observer, the ship would have simply vanished in a brief flash of unreality.

Here the traction engines were fully submerged. The Elettarium laughed as it danced through the universe's substrate, following the ageometric curve drawn by its jump engines nanoseconds prior and leaving rippling causal eddies in its wake.

The first time the Elettarium had done this she had despaired, but like anything else worth doing it was a skill and one she had since mastered. The tides and swells of the Void Beneath All wanted to throw them off course, but shifts in her stabilising petals let Actual to stick to her path.

The cuts she had made to fully enter the Beneath had been subtle affairs. Nobody had quite figured out how to make the re-emergence into their universe quite so clean. Exotic matter launched into forward-facing reaction chambers at terrific speed, sending out subspacial cracks that aimed to make as clean a cut in spacetime as Actual could manage from afar.

Despite her intent the end was violent. The reinforced nose cone of the Elettarium struck the spacetime barrier with force and cracked it wide open, announcing their arrival with a hypermetric shock that would buzz reality for a light-second around. It felt almost like a gravity wave, but not quite. Gravity was smooth and slow, while this was sharp and pointed. The strangest thing was that the distributed biology of the modern-day Affini form lacked enclosed spaces for the wave to resonate within, and so while about half of all ward species could feel the kick, for the affini it was only the ships who knew it.

Less than a second had gone by since their departure. Upon their arrival, traction engines kicked into full reverse, bringing them back down to a pace reality could abide.

Dirt, I still love how that feels, Actual laughed, pinging a message across to Rosa. Are you absolutely sure you won't let me find you a nice hull design? You'd make a great cruiser~

“Maybe in another few dozen blooms,” came the response, a few real-time seconds later. “I'm still having a lot of fun down here!” Perceptually it took whole minutes. Actual tried not to spend too much time under accelerated consciousness, partially because it was broadly unnecessary for the sedentary life of a small scouting vessel and partially because it was very dull having to watch everybody go about their lives in ultra-slow motion. There was a ramp-down time, however, and taking a Jump in real time would be madness. Unfortunately, there were some downsides that came with being a spaceship.

Actual felt the electric buzz of rapidly weakening spacetime nipping against her shell. On instinct she reached out with a hypermetric effector, stabilising reality around her just in case she'd accidentally jumped somewhere that couldn't take her weight.

The Elettarium was barely over two and a half kilometers long. By Affini standards it was tiny, but it had a power-to-weight ratio any command ship would envy and traction enough to hold position in a smallish black hole's accretion disk. While most Affini vessels would never need to venture into uncharted space, a scout needed to be ready to disentangle itself from anything.

What the Elettarium did not have was the sheer mass to stabilise spacetime more than a few light-milliseconds out. Her engines whimpered as That Beneath churned against a bubble of reality-held-firm while all around them swam and mixed.

In real time it wouldn't have lasted more than a second. Nobody else would have noticed anything even if it had taken longer. The thing about reality was that it was where people lived. If it shifted, they shifted with it. Being able to feel the fabric of existence was a gift, but it was not without its flaws.

Caring not for the Elettarium's attempts to calm the seas, the Meandrina arrived.

An artificial moon of bulbous coral with a diameter a thousand times the Elettarium's length dropped into local space. Actual set her engines, span her stablisers, and just tried to ride out the storm.

Things like the Meandrina weren't meant to move. They had engines for station-keeping, yes, but they were massive enough that they'd tear subspace apart before they really got themselves moving. Even sitting in her bubble of solidified space Actual could feel herself slipping—or rather, her reality was what was slipping while space around them rippled from the sudden impact of a world's arrival.

The Meandrina moved only when it was absolutely necessary, dragging a furrow into reality behind it as it went. Nobody would notice but the ships and the scientists, but it was a stark reminder of the power they played with.

Was the Elettarium a weapon? No, because she chose not to be in each and every moment. Was the Meandrina? No, but only because its every move was calculated and planned in meticulous detail weeks in advance to ensure that no harm would be done.

This was why Ined Incertae, Thirty Fifth Bloom had finally chosen to ascend. Universal benevolence was not the universe's default state. It didn't come without effort and sacrifice. They all had to work to maintain it.

As rippling reality calmed, Actual's perception slowed to match something only a little faster than the average affini.

She span her arcs a fraction faster for a moment, working out the discomfort and the metaphorical adrenaline, and then let herself relax. Her hold on local spacetime released, petals stilled, drives idled. She laughed, rolling her gyroscopes at herself. Time dilation always got her philosophical. Not enough distractions to remind her of what really mattered.

Actual set course for her docking ring in the Ochre Gardens, one of the Meandrina's many, many shipyards. She'd lived on this thing for three thousand years, and though she would never again set foot aboard, nestling into the gentle embrace of a docking mount still felt like coming home.

“Here you go, Miss!”

katie held out Thatch's favourite electrolytic hook at the edge of her vision. It was their nice one, with the handle made of wood they'd grown and carved themselves and the Xa'atian alloy tips. Ten years prior, kings and gods would have gone to war just to touch it for five minutes. katie handed it to her plant as a flirt, cherishing the brief moment of surprise as Thatch realised her needs had been pre-empted.

The affini took it in one vine and ruffled katie's hair with another, then returned to her work. katie beamed upwards for a moment, but Thatch's attention was focused elsewhere. Her smile took a few moments to fade even so. It was nice to be useful.

There were few things in this universe that seemed capable of truly distracting Thatch Aquae, but their current project was one of them. katie's smile grew stronger as she glanced across the desk, identifying all the little pieces that she actually understood. What would have looked to her like a little bundle of plant matter just a few months ago was now clearly a living system with a hundred different responsibilities. It looked vaguely like a ball of twine that'd gotten above its station.

The strangest part of all was that katie actually understood enough to help. This was not her area and she could not have taken more than an assistant's role, but a good assistant needed to understand. If Thatch needed to give an order every time she needed help then katie may well have an enjoyable time, but Thatch would hardly be more effective than if she'd worked alone. By working together as one, they could reach greater heights than either of them could have alone.

It was strange, though. katie had thought they'd been done a while back, but Thatch was still tweaking, doing something she couldn't quite follow.

Absent-minded fingers traced over katie's naked neck. Her collar lay mere feet away, half deconstructed with twitching organic lines trailing between it and the twine. The creations weren't any more sentient than a blade of grass, but they lived. katie's collar required water and food—though it got both from katie herself—and this new project would have its own complicated array of requirements that thankfully would be none of katie's responsibility.

Going without her collar left katie feeling an uncomfortable kind of empty. She still noticed herself dancing to Thatch's unheard beat, but it was unheard. The collar elevated subconscious understanding to clarity, and losing that was a strange reminder of how katie had once lived. Thatch's distraction didn't help, as it left her attention muted and distant.

katie wrinkled her nose. She needed a distraction of her own and she didn't really want to bother Thatch. Thatch was busy. katie thought a few minutes ahead and tried to predict what tools and components might help, but Thatch had been cycling between the same three tools for the past hour and they were now all arrayed on the desk before her.

Three quick hops took katie down from her perch. It had been a simple evening project for them, ending a low-energy day on a high note. The series of platforms were mounted at uneven heights and positions around a central pole, with each platform covered in a nice padded material and liberally sprinkled with blankets and pillows. katie spent a decidedly non-trivial amount of time lying around watching Thatch work regardless, so she may as well do it in style.

She leaped down platform by platform until her paws hit the ground, and then slipped from the project room back into the digital sunlight of their main living space. The atomic compiler—after a brief negotiation—deigned to print them something to drink. A glass full of water for Thatch, and a bowlful for katie. She carried both back into the project room on a little tray, then very carefully grabbed the glass's handle between her teeth and carried it up the platforms until she could reach over and place it on the desk.

“Thank you, kitty,” Thatch replied, absent-minded, and patted katie on the shoulder. The girl shifted over a few inches and the next pat landed in the right place. Satisfaction itself.

katie returned to the side of the desk and nosed her own bowl out onto the floor, then quickly snuck back out to decompile the tray. She'd only forget if she didn't do it now, and then Thatch would have to deal with it. If katie did it first, it would be one less thing for her plant to worry about.

katie's nose pressed against the compiler's glass-like safety shield, watching the tray's atoms getting stripped layer by layer with a smile. It was nice, katie thought, watching the compiler do its work. It could do this almost instantaneously but most of the time it did so in luxuriously slow motion, methodically pulling the item apart and drawing the resultant subatomic cloud up into a little nozzle mounted in the top of the assembly. katie knew a little about how this worked too.

She still preferred to think of it as magic. She sat there transfixed until the last pieces of the tray dissolved and were sucked away. The device beeped and katie sat back so it could run the decompiler for a nanosecond longer to clean up her smudge, then the safety shield retracted and left it ready for another task.

Okay. Another task!

Leviathan came up to meet katie's gently wiggling fingers, happily swimming around its unreasonably ostentatious water fortress while the little flakes of food katie was sprinkling into its tiny river assaulted the gates. The kitten lay in her grass wiggling her legs in the air while she watched her fish hunt in its false, but enriching, environment. It was a good fish. Very well behaved. Healthier than it had ever been.

It was a good thing katie was around to keep the less ethical predators away. She left it to its feast.

There was a small pile of styrofoam takeout boxes nestled in the depths of their cave; a remnant of one of those nights where neither she nor Thatch had been willing to cook but hadn't felt up to the social expectations of actually going outside. Curling up in an dark, enclosed space eating surprisingly sweet Xa'a-ackétøth takeout was, in katie's humble opinion, definitely a form of romance. Though the boxes had once contained food they now contained only memories, and katie took no pleasure in their decompilation.

But they had started to smell, so it was time.

The bed needed making. The bed always needed making. It was a ritual that was almost entirely pointless given how rarely katie actually managed to get under the covers. Why would she, when the caring embrace of her person was warmer, softer, and more comfortable than even the highest quality of Affini fabrics? katie was told that Affini materials science had progressed to the point that a dress or a duvet could be softer than silk; stronger than steel; lighter than a dream; and precisely engineered to have an appealing texture. She still preferred Thatch's slightly rough, occasionally scratchy vines.

The plant was admittedly higher maintenance given that she couldn't be recompiled fresh every evening, but katie could deal with that little inconvenience. She spent a few minutes making sure everything was tidy and well organised so that Thatch wouldn't have to take a few seconds to achieve the same goal that night before inevitably making a mess. katie knew who it was that she served.

The bathroom was pristine, of course. Neither of them enjoyed cleaning that and so they had it set to automatic. katie had on multiple occasions tried to catch the hab in the act of cleaning, but whatever mechanism it used seemed determined to appear magical and she had so far failed even to find the bathroom in a partially cleaned state. It was as if it knew when she would be distracted for long enough for it to do its work, and she had yet to win that particular battle of wits.

katie glanced out over their main room with a gentle pout. There wasn't very much that actually needed doing. Post-scarcity living might be convenient in a lot of ways, but it did make it harder to keep herself busy with things that she knew Thatch would appreciate. The plantlife was all taken care of by the hab itself. The river was self-cleaning. Their life support systems aggressively filtered dust from the air, so there wasn't even dusting to do.

If katie cooked, she'd get to clean up after herself? Did it count as service if she made the mess she was cleaning up? It probably didn't if she was just making herself a sandwich, that was just being a polite housemate.

If katie were making something for Thatch, though, that would be different. The only complication there was that she only really knew one recipe that her houseplant liked, and it wasn't a very complicated one. She really needed to learn something better so that Thatch's favourite meal could be something higher-effort than a slush a floret could throw together in under twenty minutes. The ingredients might have been primarily things katie had never heard of, and she might need to wear protective gloves while handling the intermediate stages, but she could smell another culture's depression food a mile off.

katie couldn't think of anything better to put her time towards. She scurried back into the project room, gave Thatch's leg a quick nuzzle, retrieved her communicator, and hopped back up onto her katie tower. The fifth platform from the bottom put her at about chest level with a seated affini.

There was plenty of room to stretch. The platform's central pillow was large enough to curl up on, with a little room to the side to place the communicator where it could be seen and interacted with. “Hey Miss, how do you feel about hot foods?” katie asked, lying on her stomach with her chin resting against her hands.

Thatch didn't pause in her work. She'd always been good at multitasking. katie inspected her efforts carefully, watching how she was sewing technology and artistry together in such a tight weave that saying which was which was simply impossible. katie had learned enough to—barely—understand what Thatch was doing, but that did not mean that she could have reproduced it. Thatch was running with their design concepts and filling in blanks katie didn't even know existed.

But it really didn't look like she'd made much progress in the time katie had been away. More than that, katie noticed a connection that hadn't quite been entangled correctly. Best not to think about what the results of that could have been. “Oh, Miss, you missed a spot!” katie pointed out, gesturing towards the flaw. Thatch reached over and tied the two ends together, then ruffled her hair.

“Good catch, thank you. Hand me that— Thank you.” katie smiled up, having grabbed the reel of fine vinework that Thatch needed next so she could be holding it out before it had been asked for. Thatch's voice was, as always, dry. katie could have been unfair and called it unemotional, once, but she'd learned to interpret the signs. Something seemed off.

“As for nutrition,” Thatch continued, hardly glancing away from the work she wasn't doing, “you already know I prefer to feed you freshly cooked meals, kitten; why do you ask?”

katie rolled her eyes. “I mean for you.”

The plant frowned, finally inspired to look towards her pet. “Warmth is nice, but hardly as important for me as it is you. We have very different nutritional needs, and a high temperature is an unnecessary luxury.”

“Ah yes, that thing that we try to avoid around here: luxury.” A human-standard voicebox could never hope to match the aridity of a determined affini, but katie tried her best. “I want to cook you something nice so I need to know what you're willing to try.”

“Hmn. I must admit I do not have much experience in this area.” Thatch reached over and pressed a finger beneath katie's chin, smiling down patiently. “I recognise that your nutritional needs and preferences are a complicated little puzzle to solve, but mine are very straightforward. Water and a nutrient mix are all I need. It is convenient.”

katie let out a soft snort and butted her head into Thatch's arm. It wasn't fair that her plant could be so disarming while being so wrong. “All I need is water and nutrients!”

Thatch chuckled, then reached out and drew a finger down to katie's stomach. “Hardly, you require a very specific balance of elements and compounds to thrive, in addition to flavours and chemicals you find enriching.” Her finger drew up to tap katie on the nose, prompting and then stifling a startled squeak. “If only it were that easy. Your body evolved to crave certain substances simply because they were rare in your natural habitat and you needed to take them where you could find them, and so you have instincts without end demanding you devour that which will do you harm simply because your programming was set so long ago that excess was not to be found in your problem domain.” Her warm hand settled against katie's cheek, drawing her in with the promise of touch and comfort.

The plant smiled a thin smile. “See? You have such complicated requirements that simply providing your necessities requires expertise. Expertise, might I add, that you lack. That which your body actually requires varies by the hour, the day, the month, and the decade, by your mood and by the phases of the nearest moon, and rarely in ways your own mind is given knowledge of. Perhaps you could survive for a time on water and nutrients alone, but only if the ratios were set by a practised vine, and in that case it would be a pity to deprive you of the husbandry you deserve to thrive.”

katie glared, then leaped down to the ground, platform by platform, and left the room. Long moments later she returned with a mostly-intact freshly compiled synthcube carefully held in her teeth. She had needed to promise the compiler it was only being used as a visual metaphor and that she wouldn't actually eat it and she suspected that if she broke her promise it would refuse to print her anything without explicit permission for weeks. Thankfully this was an easy promise to keep: it wasn't feeding time and katie wasn't hungry.

She dropped the cube at her owner's feet and sat back on her haunches. “This is a Terran Accord Official Standard Reference Sustenance Cube.” She pointed down at it and waited for Thatch to lean down and pick it up between finger and thumb for inspection. It looked comically small in her grip. “A little before the invention of the Terran Jump Drive, some rich asshole got it into his head that all the problems with society were because of freeloaders coasting off of government handouts, and so developed these things. They're three centimetres by three centimetres by three centimetres and each contains sufficient nutrients and hydration to cover the human body's needs for a six hour period. They are flavourless and designed to reject attempts to change that. Try to cover this in ketchup and it'll just slide right off. You can't cook them; they're unreasonably flammable. He figured that if the only food poor people were allowed were these then they'd work harder to be allowed real food. Once space travel started being a thing, their convenient stackability, high density, and ease of calculating logistics made them extremely popular. They were—” katie paused and glared up at Thatch. The plant was too distracted by the cube to notice, so she cleared her throat to get her attention— “convenient.”

“You may not eat this,” Thatch promised, crushing it between two fingers and a thumb, “and your former society somehow becomes yet less tolerable the more I learn of it. I assume you have a point, my little freeloader?”

“Stop eating synthcubes, Miss. I can survive off of those, but I won't thrive. You can survive off of the basics, but you won't thrive either. You deserve better.”

Thatch rolled her eyes. “You will always believe I deserve better, pet.”

“Yes, Miss Aquae!” katie beamed. “Hence making you dinner tonight.”

Arguing with her owner wasn't a fair activity by any stretch of the imagination. katie knew she could be silenced with a firm look and so that she hadn't been was again tantamount to permission. Further, any pet had an intimate understanding of its owner's moods and needs even without technological assistance. That was just part of being in a relationship with somebody.

Thatch stared down at her with a raised eyebrow, as if waiting for katie's will to break. She would be waiting a long time. katie sat with a straightened back and stared upwards with a polite, unimpeachable smile, waiting for those subtle ripples of affirmation that she could feel swirling beneath Thatch's depths to reach the surface.

“I have already made food for tonight, it would go to waste if I did not absorb it,” Thatch complained.

“It's literally in stasis. It'll keep,” katie countered.

Having conversations with Thatch felt like cheating. Back in the increasingly hazy before times, katie had always needed to walk a line between trying to figure out how to talk to people without figuring it out too well and feeling manipulative. In the modern day, talking to other affini was an exercise in being alternately awed and petted, and talking to humans was inherently safe. They all had their own guardians and katie didn't need to worry about them.

Thatch, however, katie was free to manipulate with every tool, trick, and technique at her disposal, and she did. If she was an extension of Thatch's own will then really this was closer to assisted introspection than anything else. Besides, they'd spent months now practically inseparable, bonded through near-death experience with the kind of deep emotional connection that katie had given up hope of finding. The supernatural attunement she had to her owner's emotional state helped, but that alone couldn't form a foundation for the rapport that they shared.

All that was to say: katie could see the indecision in Thatch's core and in the twitching of her vines, but it was their mutual understanding and trust that let her know how to handle it.

Thatch faltered. “We have a busy day tomorrow, I should really stick to something familiar.”

katie pressed on. “I'm sure we can make you something healthy!” She smiled a little wider.

Thatch glanced away, towards the desk, and something in her seemed to deflate. Her head drooped and her weak smile fell away. katie's own smile shifted to a frown in an instant. That wasn't supposed to happen. “Miss? What's wrong?” she asked, breaking her posture to reach out and press a hand against Thatch's leg.

“I—” The silly houseplant's gaze stayed averted as she reached over to stroke across katie's hair and down her back. “I do not actually know any better recipes, nor really my own preferences. Before I met you I was rather asocial and a little set in my ways. I was not very good at taking care of myself.”

“You were depressed,” katie corrected with gentle words, slipping out from under Thatch's hand so that she could instead climb up her leg and settle on her lap. Thatch shrugged, popped the remains of the synthcube into her own mouth, and then used both hands to adjust katie's position until they were both comfortable.

“Yes, that is what my, ah, 'space therapist' said as well,” she admitted, through a sigh. “I suspect you both are quite correct, but I should be fine now. I have you, we have friends, we have plans for the future and hobbies and everything a good affini should have and so everything should be fine.”

With tremendous effort, katie managed to wrap her arms around one of Thatch's for a firm—by Terra standards—hug. “It doesn't just go away, though, does it?”

Thatch broke katie's grip with typical ease. She brought the girl up into a two-armed hug, holding her against her chest in a firm—by real standards—squeeze. “No,” she replied, a moment later, with the low vibrations of her speech felt so fiercely katie could have sworn that she had simply become part of Thatch's vocal apparatus. “It does not.”

If katie was to speak aloud Thatch's thoughts, then that was fine. She could do that. “Everything is better now, but you feel guilty because you aren't fixed.” The bittersweet undertone of Thatch's emotional state was ever-present, but katie didn't need to see that clearly to understand the darkness. She'd known it all her life, and it had taken the best affini in the universe to cure her of it. It was only fair that she helped share Thatch's burden. “And you worry that if you were, it would be disrespectful to those who couldn't get here with you.”

After a moment of hesitation, her plant spoke, with a sigh and a long glance towards the wall. “Indeed.”

katie could feel an all-too-familiar stiffness in her vines, but underneath ran a gentle resolve. That was new. Thatch wasn't freezing up or turning away. Her body language screamed with sharpened edges and outturned thorns; vines curling in protectively around the pair of them as if she were expecting an attack; and a rhythm that could have overwhelmed a rave.

Yet still she found the strength to talk.

“Additionally, guilty for struggling still, even after you have given up everything for me. I do not wish to suggest that you are insufficient to me, kitten. You have done for me something that nothing else has managed. Yet...” Her words slowed, and katie found a vine to hold and squeeze until Thatch felt she could continue. “Yet still I feel that call of the void. I am sorry if that is upsetting to hear, but we are both very aware that I cannot mislead you.”

They shared a few moments in a companionable silence, katie hugging around one of Thatch's arms with all her meagre strength while she was squeezed back in turn just a hair shy of suffocation. Eventually their mutual forces relaxed and katie could take her turn to speak. “I know you do, hon. Why do you think I'm trying to get you to eat better? Make friends? Take me out on walks to new places? Hell, even the dumb Terran sitcoms.” She shrugged. “You know what I was like when we met. Even though the really bad times were in the past I wasn't happy. Even once you were taking care of me, I didn't just automatically get better, did I? I don't think this kind of thing gets fixed, usually? It's just something you learn how to manage and deal with and then day by day it becomes so natural you don't even realise you're doing it.”

“I did fix you,” Thatch pointed out. “That was neurochemical imbalances in your brain. You are running much more smoothly now.”

“I am, thank you, Miss.” katie smiled widely, giving Thatch's arm a quick squeeze. “Even then, that's active effort, no? I'm not fixed, you're just managing it for me. I didn't expect anyone could do that for me, but you're the best person in the universe and can do anything.”

“I am literally not.”

“You literally are. Sorry, I don't make the rules, I just follow them.” katie grinned, got a gentle smile in response, and settled down. “But you lot are the exception to your own rules. You won't abide any of us suffering, but you have a blind spot for your own. You're probably in the same boat that I was before you arrived: the long, slow journey of getting better step by step, and having to do it the hard way. Well, the people might have a blind spot, but the pets don't, and we see how much you need us. I'm going to be here to help the whole way, right?”

“Right,” Thatch agreed, after a careful few moments. After several seconds of deeper silence, she sighed. This close it was like being in a wind tunnel. “I wish it could just be fixed. I am so tired of living under this cloud.”

“Yeah.”

“I feel the need to apologise,” Thatch admitted, after a silence.

“Because you feel like you're failing me as my partner by being imperfect and having your own rich inner life?” katie paused. “And because you feel like not getting better immediately is like taking advantage of my help?”

”...Yes,” Thatch growled, reluctant. She grunted, blowing air out through her sides like an engine roaring into life. “Is that so unfair? Is that not our promise? I cannot even separate myself from 'the promises my people make' now, for I am among them and I am partaking. Rejoice, o' cute and useless creatures of this universe,” she spat, “for the perfect Affini are here to solve your problems for you and make everything okay?” Thatch held katie tighter for a moment, then picked up her project with a careful vine and gestured with it. “Let us wrap you in biotechnological control and so much medication you'd forget your own name if we hadn't changed it because we are perfect and we know what is best for you and you shall never need bear your burdens again?”

“I think there's more nuance than that,” katie suggested. “In a sense maybe you're kinda right, but I don't think you can generalise. Isn't that the point? Everybody gets their individual treatment as they need and deserve?”

Thatch was rarely angry. katie had seen her driven to violence a scant handful of times. Her self-control was almost absolute. katie winced as their project hit the wall with a dull thud and a clatter as sensitive, fragile work broke. “Then individually, let us consider myself,” Thatch snapped. “I have sat here putting together a machinery that I do not know that I have the right to use. I am finished. I have been finished for hours but no matter what tweaking I perform I cannot fix the mistakes I have made. I am a failure, katie. No matter how far I go I cannot escape that.”

“You've always done your best,” katie insisted, raising a hand to hold against one of Thatch's many vines. She pulled it downwards, slow but insistent, and it came. Some of the tension drained from the affini's body as it did, but only some.

“And it was not enough.” Her vines began rising again in what seemed like an instinctive defensive posture. katie had seen her in action; she fully expected that Thatch could keep herself safe from a platoon of soldiers, but that was of no help against her own feelings. “I should have been able to—”

katie yanked on the vine, interrupting her mid-sentence. “Hey, can we have less of that? No 'should' please. It wasn't enough, and it never will have been. You're probably never going to just get better and you can't change the past. You've still made so much progress on learning how to carry this weight, and you aren't carrying it alone.” katie smiled upwards. “What's the foundation of this relationship, if not neither of us being able to carry ourselves alone?”

Thatch rumbled, fury spluttering into frustration. “The foundation of this relationship has always been you, kitten, but what right do I have to you? I am supposed to make you happy and content and yet it is spoiled by my own incapacity.”

katie snorted, shaking her head. “Should I be put on class-Os?” Oblivion, as rebel propagandists had put it. Drugs so potent they'd burn the sadness from her bones along with everything else. The very same regimen that Caeca, Thatch's former flame, had been on for nearly half a century now, because if she had been sensate the pain would have killed her.

Thatch looked up in alarm, distracted from her own problems. “What? No. There is no basis for that, it would be monstrous.”

“But I'd be happy, right?” katie pressed.

“But not fulfilled, not content. You would not be the best version of yourself.”

katie wrinkled her nose. “Of course I would. That's just, how did you put it, a neurochemical imbalance? If you wanted to, you could make me perfectly happy and perfectly content. I wouldn't need to struggle to figure out how to help you and you wouldn't be able to do me any harm. In fact, isn't anything less just deciding to let me suffer? I wouldn't care if you were hurting, or about what I'd lost because I'd be endlessly, peacefully blissful, right? I still have problems. You could do better at taking them away.”

“I...” Thatch hesitated. Her already hostile vines wrapped themselves tighter around them. In a much smaller voice, she continued. “Yes, I could. Do you want that? There are protocols for volunteers.”

“What I want doesn't matter.” katie kept her gaze fixed, leaving Thatch nowhere to hide. “I'd be fine with it. Even if I fought you as you injected me, wouldn't it be right for you to do it? Wouldn't I be happier in the long run?”

“No!” Thatch shouted, before managing to get her volume under control. “No. No, of course not. It would be harm done! Harm to the universe, robbing it of its beauty. Harm to you, robbing you of your dreams and the impact you can have. Harm to—” She hesitated and clung to katie more tightly— “Harm to me. I need you. I suppose it is selfish of me, in a sense, to let you suffer with conscious awareness when most of the benefit is to others, but I cannot lose you.”

katie smiled up, giving her best impression of the same patient smile she'd seen a thousand times on Thatch. The tutor telling her student they had the pieces of an answer and just needed to figure out how to assemble them.

After an age of silence and squeezing, Thatch finally spoke again. “And that is your point, I suspect. I am letting you suffer because I think it best—for the universe and indeed for myself. That you wish to bear it so that I do not have to is a convenient excuse, but it is not the whole truth. This relationship is not purely selfless for either of us.”

katie beamed. “When you lot first arrived,” she replied, shuffling in place to learn against Thatch's stomach, inviting and receiving strokes and pets in quantity. “I thought you were monsters. Turning humans into pets? It was the stuff of nightmares. As I learned more about you and found out that you weren't the perfect killing machines I'd been told I started to believe that you were just a little dumb. You could have called us wards or protectees or protégés and probably had to fight half as many of us.”

katie laughed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “But you called us pets—a word we knew—and florets—a word we didn't, even if you borrowed the term from botany—” katie coughed— “like you borrow all of our botanical terms—” Cough again— “and you were right to do so. People don't keep pets because they're so perfect they don't need anything or because they only want the pet to be happy. People keep pets because they need something from it. Companionship; emotional support; something to nurture; something to love. Something they can trust and confide in and something they can know with certainty is on their side.”

She shrugged. It all seemed simple from katie's perspective. She knew who and what she was for, and being a pet was a responsibility. It didn't mean endless insensate pleasure or mind-melting control. It meant the hard emotional work of being there for somebody no matter what even when that person was fallible and even frustrating.

Though yes, admittedly, the mind-melting control was a nice side benefit.

“Thatch, if your insecurities were right the Affini Compact would have swept through Terran space and class-O'd the lot of us. We'd all be endlessly happy; you'd all be endlessly perfect; and everything would be great for everyone. You're not perfect. You need us just like we need you. Have you ever asked anybody else why they keep a floret or two around?”

“I... have not,” Thatch admitted, softly.

“I think you should. They're not going to say they're perfect either. Miss Incertae said that the Affini Compact is the same thing no matter how far you zoom in or out, and we're pretty zoomed in here but I think it still holds. Imperfect individuals coming together to build something that's bigger than either of us could have built alone. Everybody gets what they need, and that means everybody gets something unique. There's no promises that hold for everybody. All I care about are the promises we make to each other. I'll hurt for you just like you hurt for me, and when we suffer, we'll suffer together so we can hold each other up and build the foundation of our own futures.”

katie's collar was lying on the desk, barely beyond her reach and yet dormant. It was a powerful symbol representing the role she wanted to express to the world, but in here where it was just the two of them, she could handle its absence. Their relationship was their own, not a set of roles commanded from above, and they knew it without the symbols. The emotional turmoil within Thatch felt muted and a distant without the collar but she still gave off a thousand signs of that rich inner life. The pain didn't make her any less alive.

More, if anything.

Nervous but hopeful, Thatch sat a little taller and clung to her katie with a little less desperation. “Perhaps you are right,” she spoke, quiet in the same way a landslide could be heard from afar. “I shall endeavour to enquire among our companions the basis on which their relationships are built.” She raised a finger to katie's mouth, shushing her before she could reply. “It will not be the same foundation as ours, this I see clearly. You are something special indeed. Ensuring your happiness is simple. Merely chemicals held in the correct balance, and so you are right: another could make you as happy as I could, or likely happier yet.”

Thatch rustled as she drew air in over her leaves, surrounding katie for a moment with her scent and her pollen. “Yet none,” Thatch continued, voice taking on a firmer edge, “would appreciate you as deeply as I do. None would make of you what I will make of you—what I have made of you. Certainly none would make of me what you have made of me, but you.”

Even without the focusing effect of the collar, katie could feel the smile bearing down upon her as Thatch's hug grew more intense, arms joined with a half dozen vines to bind her and to squeeze her, while the plant herself gently swayed from side to side while a quiet, humming song filled the air.

“I may never be fixed, you realise?” Thatch asked, eventually. “If you do harbour the desire for an easy life then know that I cannot promise it.”

“I don't want an easy life, I want to be able to put my efforts and my skills towards things that matter. Besides, you don't need fixing. You're already the best person, but I'll be here to watch you grow.”

The plant laughed. “Best person only after that which I have done to you stripped you of the award,” she teased, running the back of her thumb under katie's chin. “And even after all that, you remain the best floret.”

“Guilty as charged, Miss.”

Thatch glanced back at her project. “We have the park booked out for tomorrow, but I must confess that I do not know that I will be ready.”

“Perhaps delay it? It can wait,” katie suggested. “Let's just be together, tonight. May I organise something to celebrate tomorrow regardless? It is meant to be your birthday party and I would like to start figuring out your tastes.” She glanced over to the bench, where the tangled web of infinitely fractal roots lay draped, inert and silent. “We can do my implantation whenever you're ready.”

Thatch Aquae ran a hand through the lattice of her hair, looking up at the far distant tips of trees towering above. A banner that must have been ten feet high and a hundred feet across fluttered in an alien breeze between them, almost glittering with softly dappled light filtering through branches. Thatch had germinated too late to experience the Xa'at Autorebellion herself, but she had to wonder whether the snakes had felt as she did as they had watched their own efforts run away from them until they lost control of the consequences.

How had this happened?

Thatch wasn't anybody special. She was just one affini in a trillion. She hadn't earned her place and she hadn't repaid her debts and yet here she was nonetheless. Perhaps there was an inevitability about it, but Thatch had never been enough of an optimist to believe in matters of fate. Happiness and success came to those who earned them, and in her post-scarcity wonderland Thatch hadn't figured out how to work a day in her life.

One in a trillion wasn't even a fair accounting: That was just in-system. Across the entire intergalactic civilisation Thatch was a rounding error. One in… she didn't even know. Maybe one of the clerks would, but a census that took twenty years just for the information to travel would be out of date long before the forms had been filled.

Thatch was one in an infinity.

Sightlessly, she reached out to the side, half a step behind, and placed a hand on the head of her katie with the fragile beginnings of a smile. The floret made her feel special, like she was that one in infinity but irreplaceable because of it. The culture katie had originated from had been barbaric, but it was common knowledge that the harder a culture was pre-first contact the softer the resultant pets would be: They understood the pain and heartbreak of existence and would jump at a chance to escape it.

But every rule had its exceptions. There was katie, the eternal exception. As Thatch glanced down she found the girl meeting her gaze with an encouraging smile, a knowing smirk, and a knowing nod of her head towards the crowd. katie knew the pain and heartbreak of existence and yet here she was nonetheless, kneeling tall as if nothing could cow her.

Most affini took their pets. Thatch had the honour of having been gifted hers.

She returned her gaze to the banner. 'Merry One Hundred and Fourth Birthday, Thatch Aquae, Second Bloom!' it read, in letters that glimmered in the light of a hundred thousand vine-sheltered stars.

Among the crowd, a floret fired some kind of miniature chemical weapon into the air. It threw short lengths of coloured ribbon what must have been two hundred feet up where they caught on the leaves of the trees and the banner itself. Several caught only on the breeze and were whisked away, and as they approached the edge of the park the surrounding space seemed to bend as the world-scale capacity of an Affini Arbitrary Purpose Recreation Zone expanded to fit. It seemed like a catastrophic waste, but if the restrained post-scarcity of a forward scout was difficult for Thatch to understand then the overwhelming excess of a worldship was truly indecipherable.

As if the shot had been from a starting gun, the collected others cheered.

They stood in one of the literally uncountable public parks on the Meandrina, the unjustifiably large new bureaucratic and logistical stronghold of Independent Probe Unit space. It was like being planetside again, just with marginally less ocean and the uncomfortable suspicion that this portable moon, this civilisational masterwork, held only fallible, flawed individuals.

Terrifying. Not why they were here.

“Thank you for coming,” Thatch spoke, after a moment of deliberation. Were there meant to be speeches in these? She didn't really know what to say. The gathered folk spanned the full range from acquaintance to family. Thatch had much experience with the former group, people and pets who she knew of but not well. The latter group was novel still, but her katieflower was a constant companion and, more to the point, would be quite disappointed in her if she spent the entire party focusing on something she could have done at home instead of on the guests.

Between the two extremes lay something entirely new: friends.

“You could hardly keep me away if you tried, little one,” spoke a tiny, semi-transparent rendition of the Elettarium floating in the air. Thatch tried not to gawp, but it was difficult not to mirror her katie's excitement at seeing Affini engineering at scale. Obviously the Elettarium, or at least the big one, had holoprojectors—they weren't savages—but they were small and localised things and fairly obvious when in use. Here, not only could Thatch not even see the projectors, the illusion was also so much more complete. Ined was semi-transparent because she chose to be, it seemed. Parts of the detailing on her hull looked as solid as anything else in the park, and the shadow she cast seemed entirely believable. If Thatch hadn't known better she would have sworn that it had been a remote controlled model.

Lily Varie waved hard enough to set her perch—Xylem Varie—swaying from side to side. “Yeah! You're a lot of fun, Miss Aquae! Really high quality Affini, in my opinion!” She paused for a moment, grinned, and then continued. “Also I need to borrow kitty again some time for—” The Rinan glanced from side to side, then winked down at katie before continuing in a stage whisper— “Y'know, engineering!” She made a hand gesture that was probably covered in one of those 'Rinans are Adorable!' classes Thatch probably should have attended. “You shade my spot, I'll shade yours, yeah?”

Thatch found herself smiling. “So long as you get her back before her bedtime,” she agreed, with a quick scritch to the back of katie's head to keep the girl quiet. The socialisation would be good for her. Good for both of them, really. The Rinan cheered, then exploited everybody's focus on Thatch to leap wildly into the air and onto the back of the to-scale Elettarium, which proved surprisingly capable of supporting her weight for a hologram.

A few feet back and several to the side lay a picnic table, albeit scaled for Affini bodies. Thatch had to admit that she had found the whole size thing somewhat gauche at first. There was no practical reason for her to be any larger than the average Terran. In fact, she could quite comfortably be smaller and would likely have been better off for it.

Her opinion on that had changed little by little every time she'd seen her katie's pleading face staring up with eyes aquiver. Watching her little creature long with such adoration in her gaze made Thatch feel her every inch.

Her hand rested lightly against the girl's hair. What could have been a passive experience was brought life through her katie's enthusiastic lean and worshipful nuzzles painted on Thatch's thigh. She burned with the heat of her attentiveness, so focused on what Thatch needed that the affini was growing used to expecting her will to be done without a single spoken word.

It was humbling.

Here was something so beautiful, so capable, so utterly magnificent, and yet she knelt. Not because she was too weak to stand; not through force; not because kneeling was the easy option for her. If she had wanted to kneel then the adoption register would have snapped her up before she'd stepped foot aboard the Elettarium.

Thatch's gentle fingers curled through the pet's hair, gently scratching at her scalp as a silent reward for her simple being. For a silent moment while the others watched a Rinan riding a spaceship around the park, the pair focused on each other. Thatch knew that her gratitude would be felt, both through her actions and through the emotional bond every pet, sapient or not, seemed to share with its owner.

Words could never have been enough to express her thanks. Thatch felt keenly the need to give her katie everything she could ever want.

And yet. Thatch curled her fingers in and gripped the girl's hair tight, pulling hard enough to bring a pained glisten to her eyes, though not so hard as to cause any damage.

This was hers to do with as she pleased. None of the rest could change that.

Thatch grinned from above, watching katie's expression twist as soft pleasure turned to pain. From the girl's perspective Thatch may as well have been arbitrarily strong, capable of lifting her with a finger or using an entire hand to gently press a delicate component into its place. It was an illusion that Thatch had no intention of breaking. Unlike some things she could mention.

She shifted down to a kneel and placed a pair of knuckles against her katie's chin, pressing with them not at all. With the hair-tangled hand and a set of vines, she pulled, forcing katie into a precise position. Back straight, chin up, hands clasped politely behind her back. With Thatch's knuckles so precisely tracking the motion the others would likely interpret it as a typical moment of softness between an impeccable affini and her soft, needy pet.

Alas, Thatch had never been without her flaws. She leaned in to place the softest kiss on katie's forehead, all to disguise the beautiful moment the girl's expression slipped as sharp fingernails hit sensitive scalp and pressed in. No harm done—not here, at least—but hard enough that Thatch suspected it would overwhelm her darling's self-control.

To her surprise, katie stiffened, breathed a little more heavily, and stayed quiet nonetheless. A surge of satisfaction rolled through Thatch's mind. Even back when they had first met, katie's reactions had always been so controlled and reasonable. She had struggled, certainly, but at her core katie had always had a strong will. Thatch had learned how she ticked over long weeks under their alien sky, paring her apart until she could see the difference between restraint coming from a place of emotional maturity, and restraint coming from the emotional deadening of trauma and depression.

Thatch knew full well how difficult it could be to just feel something. katie didn't have to worry about that now, however. Her neurochemistry had been finely balanced to help her feel and think with richness and clarity.

Still, a little extra stimulation couldn't be a bad thing, right?

“Ah!” katie gasped, her self-control finally slipping as a pair of unseen thorns scratched across her back. Vines curled tighter around her body, preventing her instinctual attempt to pull away. “Miss!” katie hissed, as quietly as she could manage under the circumstances. “Public! That— Ngh! It hurts!”

“Indeed,” Thatch replied, baring an indulgent smile. “Perhaps I simply need to take a moment to appreciate you before striding forth into that which I cannot cheat my way through by understanding it entire.”

Over a few long, tense moments, katie's breathing steadied and her face untwisted. The thorns were no less scoring lines across her skin, but she was learning how to bear it. To teach was truly the most beautiful thing in the universe.

“Usually,” her katie spoke, voice very carefully controlled between very deep breaths. “When you use that phrasing—” Another breath— “you're trying to— ah!— mislead me.”

“Yes, well. I am working on being honest with myself and accepting my imperfections, kitten.”

“Honesty… good.” She spoke only on the exhales in a quiet, breathless pant. It was spectacular. Even bent almost to the point of harm, her focus was still on Thatch's wellbeing, and her insights were still piercing.

Speaking of piercing, Thatch pressed her thorns a little harder, relishing the sensation of soft skin straining against her sharpness. She held them down for a beat, gentle hands helping hold katie in place while relishing in her reactions. Thatch might not have been able to navigate a social situation by simply understanding the participants down to the bone, but she had a long time left to learn every scrap of her floret's flesh.

Speaking of down to the bone, Thatch—

Thatch coughed, grinned sheepishly, and let herself loosen. She spent a moment stroking down the poor cat's hair and then a moment more cleaning the various fluids that her face had emitted. Leaked? Thatch should probably attend those classes she'd been putting off, but just because she didn't know the usual terminology didn't mean she didn't understand her katie.

“You good?” she whispered, dropping one of her arms to rest around the girl's back.

The girl nodded rapidly, looking up with the most satisfying breathless desperation quivering in her eyes. The only drugs in her system were purely medicinal, bringing her neurochemistry in line and dealing with a few unfortunate consequences of malnutrition and incorrect hormonal balance that her former civilisation had been unable to properly care for. Thatch rolled her eyes. She brewed katie's drugs herself, it wasn't hard.

“I, um,” katie whispered. “You don't have to stop,” she ventured, voice hitching in the middle as all that control momentarily slipped and the little strings within her vocal system danced to the wrong songs. Thatch made a mental note to give that a tune up at some point. Need had been painted all across katie's face with a coarse brush, and she quivered with even the softest touches.

“But kitten, we're in public,” Thatch replied in an intentional deadpan, knowing her own excitement would be plain as day to the girl. She couldn't hide her emotions, but she didn't need to hide how she felt here. katie knew she was being toyed with.

“I- They're not paying attention!” katie whispered, insistently.

Thatch felt like she was getting better at her humanlike mannerisms. The angle of a smile or the tilt of an eyebrow could express a surprising amount of nuance. katie had declared that Terran body language was mostly based on the 'vibes', though her own were far from Terran now. She sat with her rear against her heels and her hands held up to her chest, begging, showing little sign she recognised the position as uncomfortable despite her skeletal structure not being built to hold it for long, or that she cared how well it would have fitted into her former culture.

A fine piece of reprogramming, if Thatch said so herself. Her katie had no need of humanlike expression and so it pleased Thatch to fill that gap herself. “And?” she asked, with a slight smirk and a slight backwards lean. She could be casual here, to emphasise the gulf that lay between them.

The affini: calm; collected; in control. The pet: desperate; needy; reduced to begs and pleas. It was a nice feeling. Was it real? Thatch's power was a granted one; a gift given. Her katie could break the illusion with a word. With a look. With a single breath that didn't actively reinforce, reflect, and amplify the rapport they shared.

“Please?” katie asked, straining the word, letting the texture of her submission stain it.

It was almost funny. Even with all their power and technology, the Affini way of life still came down to this. The universe's fine creatures knelt, and it was not truly by force. Certainly, they could be forced to stop fighting; even forced to kneel; even broken, as katie herself had begged to be, but all of that was in service to what Thatch supposed may well be the deepest secret the Affini Compact held.

“Please, who?” she asked, voice firm.

“Please, Miss? Pretty please, Miss Aquae?”

All their real power was a fragile construction. This wasn't the affini sweeping across the galaxy forcing all before them to smile, it was the Affini Compact—and the florets may not have been citizens, but they were the key to it all. Thatch wasn't enough of a romantic to suggest that their deepest secret was love. Love was chemicals, and easy to incite even without an injector.

No, the secret was desire, and all else was built upon that. A crueller species could have forced this upon them all. The Affini were too kind for that and instead offered them a better way. They extended helping vines to anyone who needed them, and never turned down a sophont in need.

Thatch Aquae figured that she lay somewhere in-between the two extremes.

“No.”

Power. Thatch could do nothing to truly enforce her decision and yet all katie's world hung on the word. The girl's burning desire to serve overwhelmed whatever meagre want she might have held for raw sensation. Thatch grinned down while she watched katie's expression flickering. The moment of disappointment evident in the slackening of her smile felt like touching a vine to the fire, and had that been all Thatch could have begged for katie's forgiveness.

It was not all. The smile returned, softer but with a weight to it as want struck need and need, as always, won. “Yes, Miss, thank you,” she breathed, eyes slipping closed as she nodded, trying to bring herself back under control. She had an impressive strength of will—Thatch knew she did good work, and she had an excellent assistant and an excellent canvas in katie—and after a few short moments she nodded again, this time more firmly. “Thank you, Miss.”

“Good girl,” Thatch replied, actually using her knuckles to lift the girl's chin so she could sneak a quick kiss. Neither of them were much for physicality, but Thatch had to admit that something about being entrusted with so much control really got her core pulsing. Be it a hook tweaking katie's mind-state; overwhelming emotional influence; or just as potent, words spoken at a whisper. “Now, let us go be polite to our guests. Best behaviour now, pet. Perhaps if you are good you shall get a treat later.”

katie nodded quickly enough that her gentle sway would have brought her head in contact with Thatch's, so she pulled back just enough that she merely felt her girl's heat. Her own self-control might not match up to her katie's in every respect, but her physical control was a fine complement to katie's emotional grasp.

Thatch and katie both rose from their positions with a practised ease. Thatch because her physical form was a facade she maintained only to interface with the rest of the universe; katie because her physical form was mutable and her muscle memory was surprisingly easy to program, even without much implanted support.

A few of the guests smiled fondly towards the katie as Thatch turned to meet them. Also, Lily had gotten herself all tangled up in the branches of the nearest tree, as was the scaled-down Ined Incertae. Zona Varie seemed to be busying herself trying to figure out how to get them free without more damage to the environment.

“Looks like our assistance is required,” Thatch chuckled. “I believe you wished to assist the other florets with cooking, katie, so how about we reconvene at the meal?” She strode forward, walking into the air on invisible stairs as she did, to help. Socialising may have been a terrifying prospect, but helping was something Thatch could do.

“Lily is certainly an enthusiastic one,” Thatch quipped upon arrival, taking a branch in a gentle pair of vines and easing it down so that Zona could unhook a branch that had bent almost to breaking in the collision.

“Isn't she, though?” Zona bit her false lip, reaching past Thatch to wrap a vine around the floret. She started to lift, careful not to put too much strain on any individual branch while Thatch busied herself easing things back into place in her wake. Given that the trees had likely been grown or compiled specifically for the event, going out of their way to protect them was… Well, very Affini of them.

“Your katie seems better trained every time we see her. You simply must share your secrets sometime.” Zona smiled over, holding a now-sleeping Lily in one arm as she held onto the main trunk with the other. Thatch wondered if she should feel a little self-conscious as she simply hung in the air with a few well-chosen attachment points for support. She decided not. Her mannerisms may not be usual around here, but they were her own.

“I suspect I will have her write a book on the subject eventually. I believe it has far more to do with her than me.” Affini small talk revolved, in Thatch's experience, almost entirely around the subject of florets. It had been unbearable before she'd had one of her own. It was somewhat more bearable now she actually had something to talk about.

“Little one, your evasion is as transparent as your attempts to hide your earlier play. You are among friends and in the early stages of a new relationship. Gush,” Ined insisted, voice resolving to a point in space about halfway between Thatch and Zona.

“Oh!” Zona squeaked in a moment of surprise, twitching in surprise. “You simply must warn me before you do that, Ined! Though I'm not sure quite what you mean by play?”

Thatch rolled her eyes. “I was trying to be subtle. A moment of comfort between my pet and I before she—we—entered the equine's den, as it were. Perhaps I am more obvious than I thought.”

“Plant, please, I am a two kilometre scouting vessel. I hear the crackles of your cognition straining against the confines of your meagre shell, never mind your whispers. If you could pull the fur over my eyes I would hardly be a good scout.”

“And yet you do appear to be very much stuck in this tree,” Thatch replied, with a flat affect and a smile barely present. Her katie would have been able to spot the amusement running beneath, and perhaps Ined would too.

“Admittedly true,” the ship grumbled, matching amusement with a wry laugh. “I think I will break a branch if I jump free from here, and it would be rather unsportsshiplike to use my full-scale effectors to free small-scale me, which leaves this tree somewhat out of my weight class.”

“But you're a hologram!” Lily exclaimed, seeming to wake up midway through the sentence. “Can't you just, y'know… bzip?”

“Well, yes, but that would be cheating, Lilypad,” Ined replied, little engines straining with the attempt to disentangle herself. Unfortunately, one of the branches had gotten right between the habitable arcs and the tiny manoeuvring jets couldn't put out enough force to dislodge the other branches holding her down. “It may be difficult to notice from down there, but I do rather like being small, else I'd be a command ship.”

“Oh! Maybe I could upgrade your engines?” Lily gasped, flailing to find purchase on the tree until Zona relented and let her go. The floret leaped from branch to branch with impressive agility. “Is it cheating to get a toolkit compiled i—” The floret stopped talking as the stench of cinnamon burst into the air, alongside a small box that dropped into Lily's waiting hands. “Thank you!”

Thatch rumbled and turned to Zona to complain, only to find her already leaning in close. “It's kind of ridiculous, isn't it?” She gestured towards the Rinan mechanic using a pry bar to open up a miniaturised starship with tools that had been conjured from thin air. “It's weird being on a big station again.”

“I—” Thatch paused, taking a moment to inspect her fellow affini more critically. “Are you all not used to this?”

“Ha!” Zona laughed, and began to climb down the tree piece by piece, waving for Thatch to descend alongside. “No, not at all! Uh, first bloom was mostly on the Hurkin homeworld. Have you ever been?”

A shake of the head. Thatch wasn't entirely sure where that was, even. She pointed up at the banner. “I am rather younger than my blooms suggest.”

Zona spent a moment in contemplation. “Understandable. If you ever feel the need for a fifteen-year trip, it's a lovely destination, and there's a lot of worthy sights on the way.” She paused, tilted her head, and then called over to Xylem, who seemed to be instructing a literal pile of florets—katie among them, and, Thatch noted with a rush of pride, on the top—in the art of properly mixing spices. Given that this appeared to involve protective goggles Thatch wasn't sure interrupting her was wise. “Hon, did they finish the Relay through Phoenix yet?”

Xylem shook her head, so Zona looked back with a nod. “About fifteen years, then, yeah. Anyway, Hur is beautiful and extremely well-developed. A little slice of the Core Worlds at this point, really, though without the Resonance.” She smiled, humming a few bars of the song that every affini knew whether they'd been near the Core or not, before focusing back on Thatch. “I hated it. There was nothing to do, y'know?”

As they approached the picnic table Zona grabbed the surface in both hands, hopped up, then swung herself into a seated position. Thatch blew a little air out of her sides. Was every affini this much of a show-off? She did the reasonable thing and disassembled her legs so that she could slide naturally into the seat without breaking stride, then reformed them in a sitting position.

“Presumably there were many florets who needed good caretaking,” Thatch suggested, leaning forward to signal her interest in the answer.

“There sure were, and don't get me wrong, I was happy to petsit occasionally, but that just isn't me. Ended up bouncing around as a Cubeweb Infoarchitect for a while, routing logistics deliveries through the Andromeda Gate, and that was pretty nice. Got kinda boring after a while. Eventually Xylem turned up—she literally crawled into a delivery cube because she wanted to see where it would go, which given that it didn't have a registered destination, was to me—and we ended up resonating.” Zona glanced over at her partner for a long moment, smile softening. “We put in a request to be on the exploration register, got the call a few weeks later, and took off for the stars.”

As she spoke the last word, she held out her hand towards the vast rooftop window into space that hung absurdly far above them, and a stream of little sparkles followed the gesture. Thatch and Zona paused as one, then repeated the gesture and evoked yet more stars.

“I'm sure the special effects are impressive to the florets,” Thatch proposed. “Speaking of, for somebody who suggests that life isn't her, you do seem remarkably like you have a floret.”

“Yes, well.” Zona's smile softened further as she glanced up into the tree, where a souped-up starship was slowly working her way free of her trap. “She's not just any floret, is she? Besides, don't let Lily hear you talking like that, she'll—”

The Rinan landed hard on the table between them. The Elettariumlet zoomed overhead, free to fly once more now it had delivered its cargo. Lily stood, swinging her wrench out to point towards Thatch's chest. “I'll let you know that I'm the one in charge of this adventuring party! Don't let the Floret in my name mislead you, this story has a protagonist and her name is—”

“katie,” Thatch continued, as Zona's gentle hand pulled Lily into a rough hug from which the Rinan could not escape, “is much the same. I did not expect to take a pet, but sometimes it is not only our choice. Besides, if this story has a protagonist, it is—”

“Thatch!” Cici announced, making itself known. It was flanked by a pair of affini, and though Thatch was sure she recognised them from somewhere she had to admit the names weren't coming to mind. “Happy—birthday! I got you—a gift!”

A small compartment on Cici's side opened up, revealing a small mechanical arm holding a small datacard, which it offered up. Curious, Thatch reached out and grabbed it between two fingers before pulling out her own communicator and tapping the two together.

The screen shifted, displaying an Elettar-IM profile page and associated friend request from one Cici Incertae-Dentate-Viridi-Samar-Altheae-Liliale o Cynanchum. Thatch glanced up with a bemused smile. “You could have sent this request whenever you liked. Admittedly I should probably have sent it myself.”

The machine beeped a rapid sequence in a language Thatch didn't understand. “It would not—have had the necessary effect—had I done so earlier.” It slowly trundled forwards to bump its casing against Thatch's side. “Thank you—Thatch Aquae—without your help—I would not—have arrived—here today.—I will not do you the disservice—of forcing a debt;—our slate is—clean.—I do not need—your caretaking—any longer.—I require nothing—from you.”

The contraption popped and clicked as the dishes and sensors atop its casing tilted upwards to meet Thatch's gaze. “I'd still—really like—to be friends,—please? I—have no intent—of having my friends—misunderstand—again—how I feel.”

Thatch glanced back down to her communicator. Cici had filled out its whole profile. Paragraphs of description, pictures of it and those important to it. Links off to enough owners that the interface broke and the last few names had to hang holographically just beyond the confines of the communicator itself.

It had an entire life of its own now that Thatch wasn't entirely privy to. Pictures showed it signing paperwork with the clerks; on some kind of rollercoaster; and even taking a shuttle ride around the outside of the ship.

Then, in the middle of the stream of those essential, a picture of Cici, Thatch, and katie eating at a local hab. It had been cuisine from some culture none of them had ever experienced before. Cici and katie had liked it, and Thatch had enjoyed their reactions. With a smile, she confirmed the request. “The last creature I promised equality ended up begging me to rescind that, so I shall avoid making the same promise here. I would love to be a part of your life, Miss Incertae-Dentah— Uh,” Thatch glanced back down at her pad.

“We are—calling ourselves—the Elettarium Processing Hub—for short,” Cici interjected.

“And we shall be seeing you around,” spoke one of Cici's entourage.

“We have heard good things,” continued the other.

“And interesting things.”

“And there is little hope of escaping our influence,” Ined suggested, on a fly-by.

Thatch rolled her eyes and turned back to Zona. “We are surrounded by eccentrics,” she complained, scratching Cici under a vacuum tube.

“We?” replied the other affini, with a light, tinkling laugh. “I am surrounded by eccentrics. You and your floret are as unusual as any of them.” She gestured over to the kitchen—with an arc of stars sparkling as she did—to katie, who was presently holding a glass between her teeth filled with a bubbling concoction that smelled divine. They watched as she hopped down from the out-of-place kitchen–slash–laboratory desk, movements so sleek the liquid barely rippled even as she landed a several foot jump. katie hurried over.

“She did not wish to appear human,” Thatch admitted, “and I will say that there is something—” Thatch paused. Was there a polite way to describe the way she felt with a metaphorical vine in katie's brain?— “beautiful about reshaping somebody to my designs.”

Beautiful? Thatch felt her own rhythms rising to an uproar just watching the way her katie moved. Every part of her was in constant, smooth motion. She was a storm of cycles that came together to make movement. Thatch could cheat. The difference between pulling oneself around in zero gravity and walking in heavy gravity approximated to nothing in a powerful affini body, but katie was small, soft, and weak. Every scrap of optimisation Thatch had put into redesigning her muscle memory would be felt.

Every scrap of control she took made Thatch want more.

It was katie bringing the beauty here. The intent she embodied; the song in her heart that harmonised so with Thatch's own. Reshaping her wasn't beauty—it was desire and want and animal lust. Their culture put the affini apart from the animals—even Terran culture had drawn a prescient distinction between flora and fauna—but there was no better word for this. Neither Thatch nor her katie found much enjoyment in raw physicality, and yet.

As katie approached the oversized table, Thatch watched with a hunger. She shifted backwards, putting most of her weight onto her legs, and pushed off. Her hands reached out to grab the seat so that she could guide herself into place, bringing her legs up almost to her chest so that she could find footing on its surface. She kicked off again, neither breaking stride nor spilling a drop, mixing hardcoded patterns of movement written into her body with the artistry of a living creature using her body as a tool.

Neither Thatch nor her katie found much enjoyment in raw physicality.

And yet.

Thatch took her pet's chin between a finger and thumb and lifted it to meet her gaze. “Open,” she demanded in her native tongue, knowing her other hand would be out of sight. The girl trusted her, of course, and opened her mouth without question. The glass fell an inch or so into Thatch's waiting grip.

She slipped a vine within, to drink. “Oh!” she rumbled, eyebrows raising. “This is new.” The liquid was so caustic that it bit at her flesh in a way that was almost painful, even to her. It was like ice and fire running down her vines, clashing together in an unsustainable culinary contradiction. Thatch found the tips of her vines involuntarily curling and discovered, with some surprise, that she could not easily counteract it.

It was delicious. Thatch knew she would never have tried this by herself. She looked down at her katie's hopeful eyes and half-open mouth and grinned, leaning down for a ravenous kiss. To the stars with subtlety, she held the girl with a feather-light fingertip and vines curling so tight that katie couldn't hope to escape it. A long, breathless moment passed as Thatch forced her will down upon her malleable, fragile machine. Her body burned with the food, with the need, with the pulse of her own rhythm wrought orchestral.

The beauty came from katie, from how eager she was to submit to reshaping herself. She was lost in the moment, too far gone to worry about publicity, sunk deep into her own desire.

If Thatch was ice, then she was fire.

If Thatch was precision, then she was ignition.

If Thatch taught, then she learned.

They pressed themselves together, delighting in their beautiful contradictions. The pet who submitted through strength in the empire built on softness; deciding each and every moment to surrender her decisions anew; lost in the desire for what she did not want.

When their kiss finally broke Thatch placed the now-empty glass on the table and patted katie on the head. “Such a good girl,” she whispered, in Xa'at-dialect affini. She doubted any other language would have penetrated the blissful haze katie had sunk within.

The girl's smile widened enough to make the unreasonable wonders of the Meandrina seem unimpressive. What technology could mean more than this? katie ducked closer and rubbed her cheek against Thatch's chest, rumbling with her own kind of delight while gentle fingers found her favourite spots and filled them both with wordless comfort.

Zona, for her part, raised an eyebrow and waited.

“Yes, okay,” Thatch admitted. “Perhaps we are our own kind of weird.”

“Then you'll fit in just fine.”

“Stay with me, Katie.”

Thin starlight shafts shifted over the steel and plastic interior of the undersized Terran Cosmic Navy escape pod. The inherent silence of deep space was torn ragged by the low grind of rusted bearings in a failing life support unit's fan. Nobody could fix it. The fan itself hid behind a screwed-down grate held with long-siezed three millimetre security screws. Even if everything had been pristine, the only compatible tools had fallen with the Indomitable, and the expertise needed to rescue it belonged to the plants now. They weren't in the habit of helping stranded weedkillers.

Yes, Katie was distracting herself.

Her alternative option was paying attention to the shattered alien strewn across the escape pod's far side. Katie wasn't feeling ready to acknowledge that just yet.

She was still processing that which she had done.

The Terran Cosmic Navy Catastrophe-class Battlecruiser, Indomitable, was gone. Her home. Her hope. The one tool left against these monsters, these 'Affini', these Galactic conquerors, slavers, nightmares, these come to steal away who Katie was and leave of humanity broken wrecks.

At least Katie could comfort herself with the hope she'd taken a few of them out with her. That was more than most humans could say. It wouldn't turn the tide, but if Katie had learned anything over her long, difficult life, it was that struggling as yourself was better than letting somebody else decide who you were to be. She was always going to lose in the end. At least she'd lost standing strong.

The alien—the 'Thatch'—snapped its fingers before Katie's face, forcing her attention back to the present. Katie looked up to meet its unblinking, steady gaze twinkling over at her. “You were distracted for a moment. You are more attentive now. Tell me what it is that you are thinking.”

All the hairs on Katie's body bristled with its false familiarity. She slapped the hand away and glared. “I'm thinking that we might need each other's help to get out of this alive. I don't like you; you don't like me; but we're going to have to work together, yeah?” The second she got a chance to stab it in the back, Katie wouldn't hesitate. “That's what you said, right? You do have a plan to get us out of this?”

Its face looked like one of those magic eye puzzles. Leaf-plated bark in splattered shades conspired to imply a humanity in their edges and shadows. Katie knew it was an illusion, but it tricked her into seeing it all the same. “Oh yes, I certainly have a plan,” it purred. “It will take months to get us home. Months when we shall be alone together without end. As equals, of course. Just imagine it, kitten.”

It reached for Katie's face again. Something in its gaze held her fixed in place, unable or unwilling to push it away. It took her head in its massive palm and held her still. Katie let out a soft whimper, feeling the power that even an injured Affini could bring to bear. “Think forward for me. Let your imagination flow freely. You can do that for me, can't you? Of course you can. Such a good girl. Now, think.”

To her surprise, Katie found that she could imagine how their escape would go. Her eyes flicked off to the side on subconscious instinct as her imagination ran away with her. It flowed so easily that it could have been memories.

A life flashed before her eyes.

It would take only days for their uneasy truce to become an unstable alliance. Weeks before that alliance became a cautious friendship. Months until that friendship became reluctant reliance. The affini's plan would work, albeit not without its melodramatic bumps and twists, and they would be rescued.

Their reliance would turn to irresistible dependence. Hopeless need. Desperate want. It was as clear to Katie's mind as if she had lived every step, and every step seemed so reasonable taken in isolation. The path would be long enough that Katie would fail to notice when she stopped walking alongside it as an equal and started following at its heel. There would be no single moment where she could look to the steps before her and decide that she did not want to follow them, because every foreseeable step would naturally follow from the last.

The end result was no less her nightmare. The Katie at the end of that journey was not Katie.

The most horrifying part of all was that in Katie's imaginations she was finally happy. She knelt and she loved. She was grateful to get to exist as this creature's loyal, needy pet. The bitter regrets that weighed her down had sublimated into a taste for submission that would outlast the stars.

Katie saw herself kneeling before it, neck straining in her efforts to gaze into its eyes. It held a finger beneath her chin, speaking to her in a language she didn't even understand.

And she responded. Oh, but she responded. A burst of joyous animal enthusiasm. All of Katie's modern day problems seemed so far away, made utterly irrelevant by a fundamental change in priorities. Any concern from before she had been taken felt thin and pointless. They simply didn't matter in the face of the most important person in the universe. The only important person in the universe.

Thatch Aquae smiled down at her, reaching over to scratch Katie behind the ear, dragging her attention back out of her reverie. Stars, but it was so beautiful. The inhuman tilt of its satisfied smile. The thousand facets of its barely glowing eyes reflecting in the cosmic infinity surrounding them. It knew just where to scratch to make Katie the happiest pet in the galaxy.

Katie could simply go along with its plan and she knew, somehow, that she would end up its blissfully content toy. Everything would be okay. Forever. It would never allow her to suffer.

She would also be utterly, fundamentally not herself. It would take her fire; her anger; her goals; her dreams; even her very name.

Katie scrambled, knocking the alien's hand away as she backed into one of the many seats lining the walls. The creature she foresaw at this “Thatch”'s heels was somebody else. She cared about nothing that Katie cared about. She believed not only that their conquerors were right, but that she could help the continued subjugation of the universe. She looked at this creature and she saw its beauty.

Katie closed her eyes, shaking her head in the hopes of clearing it. She looked over at the alien once more. Its satisfaction now just seemed smug. Its eyes were mottled like an insect's. The ease with which it manipulated Katie's body was a threat, not a promise. She saw a vision of her own potential future and it was a nightmare. A purring toy at an owner's heel, trapped for the rest of her unnaturally extended life. It would take who she was and leave something wrong in her place and it would not allow her even the escape of death.

“Fuck that,” Katie spat. “Hell no. You'd turn me into your thing.”

The anger faded with her retort's echo. Probably Katie was overreacting. This alien had actually seemed fairly reasonable, so far. Katie was rejecting her own imagination. She felt almost silly for accepting her vision uncritically. The alien didn't seem interested in doing anything to her that she hadn't asked fo—

Katie's back slammed against the pod's hull. Her vision was knocked swimming, whole body reeling from the blow. It pushed hard enough that the metal inner wall groaned under the strain. “Yes, I will,” it cooed. “Did you really think you had any other options? Did you really think we could spend so much time together without you discovering that desperate little seed inside you yearning to be mine?”

“A seed you'd plant!” Katie argued, squirming beneath its vine. For all its force, it wasn't holding her down very well. She had a lot of wiggle room. It must be more injured than it looked.

“Correct,” it admitted, with an easy shrug. “What difference does that make? That you do not want it? Forgive me if my sympathy is limited, pet, but I am unwilling to wait for you to decide what it is that you want. I will not lie to you even once, because what purpose could I have in lying to my own property?”

Katie opened her mouth to argue further.

“Oh, quiet,” it demanded, silencing her. “For the longest time I doubted my own urges. I could not justify them to myself. I had never truly understood why we treated feral florets the way we do until this very moment.” It leaned closer, bringing its head level with Katie's. “You are offensive to me, little toy. You are such potential and you waste it. We Affini say that all the universe's life is beautiful. We are romantic fools.”

Its eyes shifted, inspecting Katie's body. After a moment, it met her eyes and inspected her very soul. On a fingernail's tip, Katie's chin lifted. “You will be beautiful. I do not accept your status quo.”

“Don't I get a say in that?”

It chuckled, bringing up a sharpened needle to the side of Katie's neck. “Why would you?”

“Because that beauty you want isn't me! You don't want me, you want something that looks like me but is nothing like me!” Katie cried, trying to wriggle out of its grip, or to reach something useful, or anything.

“Worry not, little one. I shall show you what it is that you are underneath all the pain. I am going to tear that little body of yours apart and entwine you so deeply within my own will that you shan't even feel without my permission.” It raised a hand, holding a short, sharp thorn between its fingertips. “We call this a Haustoric Implant. I myself do not care for our labels; this is my own design and quite unique. Let us simply say that you will find it very convincing.”

Katie writhed beneath its vine, but it was holding her too firmly to escape. She was going nowhere. “Can- Can I just ask one thing, first? Please?” Katie begged, looking up with wide eyes.

“I suppose,” it agreed, flashing an awkward, inhuman grin while wiggling its sharpened tool at the edge of Katie's vision. “Argue; submit; try trickery or deceit; it matters not. You are going to adore me and your helpless pleas are sure to amuse the thing that you will be when I am done with you.”

“Oh, no, no, no fighting. I was just gonna ask if you knew what this lever did?” Katie tapped her knuckle against the largest breaker in the pod. Whole inches long, with a thick metal handle heavy enough Katie would never be able to pull it without help.

The alien shrugged. “I do not, but—”

Katie would never move it without help. Thankfully, she had it. Katie braced herself against the creature's vine and pulled, using the thing's own strength against it. For a single nerve-wracking moment the metal refused to move and the creature holding her began to laugh, probably preparing to remind Katie what a pathetic, insignificant creature she was compared to it, or something like that. Katie fixed that image in her mind and drew strength from anger. The switch began to move.

“Wait, no, don't—” The creature reached out to stop her, but it was much too late for that. Terran Navy breakers, as a rule, activated much earlier than one might expect. It had been some bureaucrat's bright idea to help them all work faster, and to Katie's surprise, once in her life something those fucking pen-pushers back on Terra forced upon her actually helped.

The breaker hit its stops with a loud metal clunk. The affini's words trailed off as the pod finally fell silent. The comforting whirr of life support halted. The hum of the faltering backup generator died out. There was just silence.

“Be seeing you, weed.” Katie smiled up at the affini a moment before the pod door slammed open and all the oxygen in the room left at speed enough to yank the large and not particularly aerodynamic affini along with it. It popped out into space like a particularly ugly bullet from a particularly improvised gun. Katie gripped tight the strap of the nearest seat for dearest life, knowing that if her strength failed her she would be dead in seconds.

The instant the creature was gone Katie threw her weight against the breaker again, slamming the airlock door shut. The schematics for those things would have claimed that it was an electrical connection that bridged command and consequence, but for the effort Katie needed to give it she could have sworn it was direct mechanical action.

With the door closed, she burst into action. By good fortune, they had landed within range of a habitable planet, and by sheer luck the alien had pressed Katie up against the controls when it had decided to stop pretending to be polite. Katie dialled in a burn that would take her down safely, and flicked life support back on so that she could stop holding her breath in the thin remaining atmosphere.

The air circulator began to turn, but quickly stuttered and jammed. Katie looked at the static fan in horror for a long moment, repeatedly flicking the system on and off to no result. With almost all the pod's oxygen vented into space and no more coming to replenish it, Katie realised she had perhaps a dozen seconds remaining before she slipped into unconsciousness. No time to fix the problem. No time for anything, really.

She hurried down to a seat, rapidly strapped herself in, and hit the main engine's ignition, crossing her fingers that that, at least, would actually work.

Katie lost consciousness to the unmistakable sensation of a hard burn.

---

Ships breaking around her. Falling. Wind in her ears. The horrifying sensation of feeling like she was in microgravity, while the ground beneath rushed up to dissuade her of that. The nightmarish instant of collision. Silence.

Katie Sahas snapped awake, scrambling to her feet before she'd even realised she was no longer dreaming. Her heart beat so hard that she felt like the staccato thumps would knock her back down. She was alive. She was alive. She was—

Katie backed away, stumbling as she took in the burning wreckage of the xeno menace scattered amongst what remained of their escape pod. It must have grabbed onto the outside shell, but it couldn't possibly have survived re-entry. It couldn't have. Nothing could.

Katie was alone on a distant world. She felt still the heat of a shattering battleship burning all around her. Perhaps, yes, there had been a brief moment of pause and parley entombed within that hopeless rescue shuttle, but Katie had been negotiating with an alien conqueror. She had almost been taken in by its alien charms and charismatic mannerisms. Almost. It had overplayed its hand and that hubris had been its downfall.

It had been too dangerous to underestimate the thing, Katie told herself. She couldn't have taken the chance of letting it live. She'd done the right thing. It had been it or her, and she'd wo—

The remains of the beast stirred, sloughing off sheets of scorched matter and burned flora as it rose to sit. Narrow red eyes cut through the darkness as it scanned the area. Katie froze, not daring even to breathe. Perhaps she could have rationalised her response, but it wasn't a rational one. The first time they had clashed, it had been pretending at politeness and Katie had barely come out on top. Now?

Something in the way it moved provoked animal fear. Back on the escape pod it had been pretending at humanity and failing, moving with awkward, overly precise shifts, one limb at a time. That humanity lay abandoned in the wreckage, and it now moved with sinuous ease. Katie felt panic growing in the back of her mind. She had found herself fewer than ten meters from an apex predator with nowhere to hide. Introspection had to come second to base survival. Perhaps if Katie didn't move it wouldn't notice her.

There were stories of what happened to people who tried to fight the affini one on one. They never had happy endings. This wasn't a fight Katie could win; she had to run. If there was one remaining advantage humanity could draw upon then it was pragmatism. Say what you would about the devastation left in its wake, but never claim humanity didn't know how to fight dirty. These monsters with their fancy ships and advanced tech could have never known human brutality, but Katie could be this one's teacher.

But first, she had to run. Retreat, regroup, ready herself for the fight.

Why wasn't she running?

To run, Katie would have to look away. If she looked away then she wouldn't know where it was. If she didn't know where it was, it would chase her down and devour her whole.

But she had to run.

But she couldn't.

But she had to.

It stretched out, and in an instant Katie's attention fixed itself entirely in place. There was something wrong about the way it moved. It still had pieces of its humanlike facade, but its movements didn't follow humanlike rules: Its arm bent where there should be bone; Legs twisted where they should not have; Its whole tangled nest of thorns expanded outwards for a horrifying moment before snapping back into place with an audible crack.

Katie flinched, taking in a tiny gasp as a spike of adrenaline forced a backwards step.

Blazing red eyes found her. Even from across the clearing Katie made out the moment of sharp focus as the beast reciprocated attention.

Jagged teeth bared. Katie saw its eyes in unimaginable detail, the razor clarity of the beast's teeth searing into her memory. Attention focused down to a single, sharp point. Instincts screamed danger. The alien mouth dripped with caustic fluid, promising nothing but pain and desolation.

She should run.

She should fucking run.

The beast moved, prowling forward on incorrect footsteps with a slowly enlarging grin visible around its many, many teeth. Katie found herself pinned under its gaze as it stalked towards her with the lazy grace of a predator that knew it had the control. It stank of power.

Katie couldn't run.

Katie couldn't fucking run.

As it neared it unfolded, bearing blades by the dozen from beneath the thick covering of leaves across its back. A thousand savage vines dotted with serrated thorns spread out to surround Katie in an almost gentle embrace.

Almost.

Thorn-tips pressed on skin. Not one so firm that it did harm, but each was a threat and it was too many threats to count. Katie begged her body to still. She tried not to breathe. She'd always relied on her wit and intelligence to get her out of tough situations but her brain dare not even think for fear it would offend the creature and she would be snapped up.

Sharpened edges carved through the thick fabric of Katie's Terran Cosmic Navy engineering staff uniform, slicing away her only protection against this thing. Still Katie utterly failed to do more than stand staring into the eyes of a monster, left with nothing but the hope she could make herself too uninteresting to eat.

The tearing sound ceased only as Katie's uniform fell, dropping around her ankles and leaving her wearing only singed and torn underclothes. The thorns began to cut those too. It was almost methodical, the way Katie's defences were sundered one at a time while she did fucking nothing. She had to do something. She had to. Red-hot alarm signals screamed from her nerves, demanding Katie's utter attention. Any human being had needs and instincts. The threat of immediate physical harm overrode almost all of them. All her intelligence and bravado amounted to nothing when the moment she needed them most came.

“As I was saying, creature, you are powerless to change that which I am to do to you. My decision is made, and all that is left is to see how it is to be carried out,” the beast purred, unfurling. Any pretence of humanity vanished as it took on a sharper, sleeker form. Almost serpentine, with a tail twice Katie's height and a mouthful of fanged rows that looked like they could tear off an arm without breaking stride. “How long will it be until you realise your decisions no longer matter?”

It chuckled, low enough that Katie felt the vibrations in her chest despite her only actual points of contact being razor thorns. “Tell me. How are you feeling now that we are here?”

Katie stared up, lips parted, breaths unsteady. If she gave the impression that she was thinking, then it was unintentional and baseless. If she appeared as if she were working herself up for an answer, that too had no grounding. There was nothing happening behind her eyes but panicked loops of pointless thought. She should run. She should fight. She did nothing.

A single vine curled in around her neck. Its thorn drew slowly—slowly—under Katie's chin. It already had her attention, but there was something clarifying about a blade at one's neck. The beast rumbled. “You will find no bastion in silence here, little one. Nobody is coming to save you. Nobody can hear your pleas but me, and I will never tire of hearing them. Speak.” The vine shifted with a crack, scoring a sharp line across Katie's skin.

Just like that, all her frozen terror sublimated into action. What was it that the Indomitable's captain had tried to hammer into them? If they were captured, give only name and rank. Enough to process a prisoner of war but not enough to put your fellow crew in danger.

Katie opened her mouth to speak, but she didn't get even the first syllable out before the thorn pressed back down and Katie's reality collapsed into one hyperfocused point. The cutting edge shifted, drawing a sharp white line up her skin as the creature forced Katie's chin up to meet its piercing gaze.

“Now now, let us not start off our next chapter with that. Your former training is of no value here, Katie.” A forked tongue snapped out, running across wooden teeth and moistening floral lips. The blade's edge pressed harder against the skin. “Tell me how it is that you are feeling,” it insisted, each word enunciated clear and firm in an accent that was utterly alien.

“T— Terrified,” Katie admitted, in a gasp. It was against her training. It was against her desires. It was against her instincts. None of those things made a stars-damned difference when she had metaphorical teeth at her throat, millimetres from spilling her blood. Katie's eyes shifted across the thing's mouth. Maybe it wouldn't be a metaphor for long.

“Understood,” the creature replied, with a surprising lack of malice. Almost a smile, it seemed, for a moment. “Good. Do you remember what it is that I am going to do to you?” Ah, and there was the malice. The sibilant hiss in its speech; the lips that pulled back to bare teeth. Katie would have shied away but there was nowhere to go.

It was going to tear her apart. It was going to turn her into the thing it wanted her to be. It was going to take everything that Katie was and shred it, all while claiming some insane moral high ground.

No. No! Things were not going to end like this! Drawing on reserves Katie hadn't known she had she took a deep, shaking breath and forced herself to meet the monster's eyes. She couldn't freeze. She couldn't flee. She had to fight. An unarmed human had no chance physically, but humans were more than just brawn. “You- You're not allowed to hurt me: we have a treaty!” Katie insisted, trying to hold her gaze steady in the hopes it would miss her fragility.

“Oh.” The plant hesitated for a moment, momentum faltering. Its body fractionally sagged, sharpened points pulling infinitesimally away. Perhaps most wouldn't have noticed, but all Katie's focus was on the razor points dotting her skin and she felt the slightest shift like it was her own body.

It was a surge of hope. The creature hadn't expected her to know her rights! Humanity would prevail! The cursed weeds might have the better ships, but it was human ingenuity that would be victorious in the end!

Almost sheepish, it pulled back, carefully uncurling its vines one at a time from around Katie's body as her heart beat at double-time to burn off the now-unnecessary adrenaline. It squirmed in place, uncoiling, and then slithered forward at a pace that Katie would have found alarming if it had been allowed to hurt her. It had a predator's grace, moving in a loose and lazy circle with Katie at its center. She tried not to follow it as it left her sight, but after a moment found the instinctive fear of having her back to the beast was too great.

She turned. Screamed, briefly, as she found its snout inches from her head. It breathed out, and hot, damp air rolled over her face, stifling the scream into choked silence.

“Of course,” it purred, raising the tip of a vine to wrap gently around Katie's chin and force her back up to meet its six burning eyes. “We are not in Terran space, are we, toy? And even if; you are not protected by that treaty.”

The grip tightened and Katie's awareness snapped back into focus as it drew another thorn across her cheek. Lightly. Leaving no mark.

“Are you, morsel?” Its upper lip twitched, curling up, showing off its glistening teeth. It was fucking with her. It had to be fucking with her. What sort of incompetent negotiator would have signed a treaty that didn't offer Katie protection here where she obviously so desperately needed it?

“I- um—” Katie tried to moisten her suddenly bone-dry lips, and drew again on the well of resolve that a lifetime of survival had granted her. “You– You can't hurt me,” she promised, largely to herself. She was safe. It was toying with her. It hadn't even broken the skin.

The creature shifted the edge of its thorn and sliced sharp across Katie's cheek, scoring a deep red line from across her face. The girl flinched away, crying out and reaching to cover the wound on self-protective instinct. Her fingers came away bloody. Katie froze in place, staring down at her hand, feeling the sudden weight of a predator making a point.

“Silly little animal,” it whispered, circling once again to ensure Katie stayed entirely within its coils. Nowhere to run. No way to fight. “Thinking that paper and words have any real meaning.” It had a sharp laugh. Sharper blades held gently brushed down Katie's arms. She flinched, gasping as it drew thin, curving, white lines into her skin. The lighter touch had seemed like a hint of safety before, but now Katie just felt like the beast wanted to play with its food. She fought the urge to allow her shaking knees to buckle. “You can have your little treaty,” it continued, hissing into her ear. “You can make your little promises. All of you can play with feeling like your surrender was a compromise.”

Coils pulled in, wrapping Katie in pure floral muscle. They squeezed hard enough she could barely breathe, lifting her from the ground and entirely into this thing's power. Endless teeth were a twitch from her skin. She could taste its intensity of gaze and hear its hot, damp breath clamming on her skin. “I don't care,” it hissed. “I have never cared for playing with words. You will be a much more enjoyable plaything.” Its tongue flicked forwards to scrape against Katie's cheek, stealing away the heat of her blood and the sweat of her fear.

Katie whimpered.

Was that it? Was that all she could do to fight? Thirty years of struggle and strife, learning and building skills and fighting for a better life and it all came down to this one moment, and none of it mattered because the other one had bigger teeth.

Katie's feet hit the floor as its coils relaxed. Her quivering knees immediately proved they couldn't take the weight, collapsing her onto all fours. This was it. There was no way out. Shaking hands tried to cover her head in some hopeless defense, but even that was denied. Vines gripped her wrists and pulled her hands down into the dirt. Impossibly strong fingers grabbed Katie by the hair and yanked her head back, forcing her attention exactly where the creature wanted it.

It grinned down. A hanging line of saliva suspended between two rows of teeth broke, splashing Katie's face with some caustic fluid that burned her skin. Even then, she managed no more than a terrified whimper. She stared upwards, whole face quivering, helpless, with a blood soaked tear rolling down her cheek.

“Beautiful,” hissed the affini. “But this is the part where you run.” It turned her head to a gap in its coils. It patted Katie's butt and pushed her towards freedom and she lacked the thought to question it. She ran, or at least, she tried to stand, but just stumbled back down to all fours. Hand before foot, she scrambled away, moving as quickly as she could manage until she reached a tree that she could brace herself against.

Katie fled, unable or unwilling to look back. Every crack of twig or gust of wind was a sign it was right behind, an instant from striking her down. Adrenaline burned in Katie's veins, blood slamming through her body with the hammer blows of her own heart shaking the world. She moved with the unsustainable ferocity of a creature fearful of its own end. The human body would gladly tear itself apart if it meant survival.

The forest resolved into trees one step at a time. The blur beneath Katie's feet became thick undergrowth. The tension in her sides became stabbing pain as her body ran low on its capacity to push through the stress. Eventually, Katie put her foot down and found no purchase. She cried out, sent stumbling to the side to crash against a tree.

The forest fell silent. She girl squeezed shut her eyes and waited to be caught. Nothing came. The only sounds on the air were the gentle rustle of leaves, the soft buzz of the early evening's insect life, and Katie's own panting breath. She dared to look behind and despaired. Between the trampled leaves, broken stems, and shattered twigs her path couldn't have been clearer.

No. No, Katie couldn't just run. There was nowhere to run to, and it would find her. She couldn't hide, she couldn't fight. If Katie wanted to survive this she needed to run smart, not far. She had to figure out how to stay ahead of it. Okay. Katie closed her eyes and tried to centre herself. She had to think about this. Human ingenuity, right? Her trail was too obvious. The beast hadn't kept up with her, so either it was slower than it seemed or Katie had lost it, but she couldn't rely on either case protecting her forever. Humans had been endurance hunters, once, and that was how she would win: Perseverance and well-applied intelligence. She started moving more carefully, trying not to leave the same signs, but quickly realised that the end of her trail would be a clear hint as to what she'd done.

Katie took a deep breath. She was fighting something stronger and more dangerous than she was. If she fought it on its terms she would lose, every time. So, how did you beat a superior foe? You cheated. Katie wasn't much of a military strategist, but she'd spent long enough near them that she'd picked up the basics.

The details were vague, though. It had been only hours since Katie had been at her workstation on the Indomitable, so why did it all feel so distant? The fall must have been worse than she'd thought, though Katie supposed she was lucky to have survived at all. A concussion was the last thing Katie needed, but only having a concussion after a bad crash was nothing short of miraculous.

Besides, this was how the stories went. The worse the odds, the better the dramatic reversal. The heroine moved back down along her trail with intentional steps, hyperaware every moment of just how exposed she was. It was a risk that needed taking. The weeds had barely shown any understanding of proper military tactics. They forced victory through overwhelming technological might. This alien had been stripped of her tricks. Katie had a chance, if she could just get a few tricks of her own together.

After several tense minutes Katie turned from her path and began to move even more carefully, trying to leave no trail at all. She watched her step, avoiding damaging anything that wouldn't just bounce back. She'd picked up a lot of outdoors experience during her time on—

Katie winced, lifting a hand to her temple. She hadn't stepped foot on a planet in half a decade, and even then it'd been the urban hell of a Canning World. She'd never even seen a forest… hadn't she?

Something was wrong. Katie needed somewhere to rest for the night where she could figure out what to do next. A few minutes of careful hiking brought her to a hill, and half hour more found a cave that led deeper underground. She'd tried to walk along the side of the incline, hoping to find somewhere to hide. She'd be okay after a good night's sleep, probably. The cave was cool, quiet, and dark. More important than comfort, it would hide her from sight. She could camp out here, then sneak out before the sun rose. If she moved at night she'd have less chance of being spotted. A plan was forming. Finally, Katie sat back and let her tension unwind, letting out a long sigh.

It had been a very, very long day, and one that felt like it had lasted two lifetimes. First, her own, which had flashed before her eyes more times than she dared to count in the last several hours. How many times had she narrowly escaped death today? Five? Katie's luck couldn't hold forever.

Secondly, the other life that had been offered to her. It seemed like a monster's fantasy. As if Katie could come to know, and even to love, a tangled beast of barbs and bristles. The thing she had seen wasn't her. To become it would be to sacrifice so much of what she was. Katie shook her head, groaning, and let her head flop bonelessly to one side.

“Hmn,” a voice hissed, inches from her ear. “Good. Enjoyed your little walk, pet? I am glad I could predict where it was that you would run.”

Katie's head snapped around, but it was much too late for that. The creature's weight slammed her bodily into the dirt. She let out a cry as it forced the air from her lungs, pressing down against her with a heaviness great enough Katie found herself fighting for every breath.

Katie had been wrong. It hadn't been chasing her at all.

“H- how…?” she whispered, spending some of her precious air to ask a pointless question.

She could feel the answer's breath rushing against her skin, the thing was so close. “I know you,” it hissed. “Down to the bones. You ran because it amused me and you will stop because I require it.” It wasn't spoken like a threat, or even like a promise. It was matter-of-fact reality delivered in sharp whisper.

Katie didn't want to do anything this creature said, but what she wanted didn't matter. She had tried running, and it had led her here. She had tried freezing up, and it had left her helpless. Fighting was the only fear response Katie had left.

She screamed, clawing and scratching at any vine that dared come close. The creature flinched backwards, as if surprised by the ferocity, and Katie pressed that advantage. She scrambled to her feet, grabed a sharp looking rock from the cave floor, and brought it up just in time to catch the sharpened edge of a thorn. For a moment, they held still, straining against one other. It had the better strength, but it had been in hiding. Katie had the better leverage.

Human ingenuity. Katie didn't need to be better, she just needed its superiority not to matter.

It pulled back, and for a moment Katie had freedom and a clear path to the outside world.

But Katie was done running.

She threw herself into the attack, going for the eyes. This was life or death, and in war ethics were a problem for whoever remained.

Katie swung, exploiting an opening, and overstretched. In seconds the tide turned, and every movement she made found its counter. Her punch was met with a vine around the wrist, guiding her arm out to the side. She clawed at its face, but it met her with a gentle hand that Katie could do nothing to stop.

She twisted her torso around, hoping to get herself some purchase, but the creature moved with her, dropping Katie down to one knee while using the girl's own movement to force her arm up behind her back. One vine came in to hold it in place, and another to bind her leg together. She tried to kick off with her other leg, but found her ankles bound.

Where Katie pulled, a vine appeared or adjusted to prevent her from relaxing. Where she pushed, her restraints allowed her to overextend, where she was locked back in place. If she shifted her torso the pressures holding her shifted too, stealing her leverage and leaving her so far off balance that soon her efforts were more focused on preventing herself from collapsing in on herself than they were on escape.

Katie tried to swear, and all she got for her trouble was a pair of fingers slipping in to hold her tongue in place.

Even biting down was impossible. One nail pointed down into the soft bottom of her mouth, and another up into the roof. Katie failed to stifle a pained gasp, trying to ignore the sweet flavours staining her tongue. Her struggles grew weaker, not because she lacked the will to fight but because she only ever got to try the same thing once.

Finally, Katie fell still, barely able even to twitch as she strained her muscles against binds that denied her her own strength. She breathed hard, putting all of her remaining energy into a glare that could have burned through steel.

“Control,” the creature gloated, “is about understanding.” It reached over and scratched a helpless Katie on the head, right where an itch had been making itself apparent.

Most of Katie's binds fell away. Those that remained held her hopeless, unable to take advantage of that ostensible freedom. Any point of articulation that was actually free to articulate was too busy straining against Katie's own weight to be of any use. She was entirely still, and yet sweat already rolled down her cheeks.

A vine shifted to wrap carefully around Katie's throat, squeezing with a barely perceptible pressure. Katie could do nothing about it. She couldn't even squirm. Her back was already bent as far as she could take it. “Your society always got this one wrong. They thought that control was about force. You understand that, right?” With two fingers in her mouth and a thumb beneath her chin, Katie's face was its toy. It had her nod. “Good girl, of course you do. You lived under it, you've felt that force all your life. Is it any wonder you feel the need to fight me?”

Philosophy meant nothing to Katie's panicking mind. She couldn't freeze. She couldn't flee. She couldn't fight. She dared not even move her eyes, lest they be restricted too. All she could do was stare up into the monster's glowing orbs. She had no options left. She was stuck.

“No wonder the Terrans lost,” it gloated. “No wonder you are losing.” It stared into Katie's eyes as if it wanted something.

Katie didn't know what it meant. She hadn't the brainpower to spare. Her position wasn't stable. With the extraneous vines removed, Katie had freedom to move, but every one of her free muscles was straining to hold herself in place. Her body was held in such a position that to relax anything would mean putting that pressure onto another part of herself, and her every limb was barely coping. The beast had placed itself in her line of sight and Katie wouldn't look away. It had made her a willing component of her snare, because the alternative was more than she could bear.

It wanted something from her. It was the only explanation that made any sense. Why else would it be bothering to talk?

“Please,” Katie mumbled around the digits holding down her tongue. It sounded like little more than a helpless cry. The vine holding her neck tightened, cutting off her words and leaving breathing impossible.

“Yes,” it purred. “You understand. You always have, deep down. Quick to see the truth; quicker to grasp that control for yourself. Do you think you are so unique? What are you but another human on whom I can sharpen my thorns?” Katie hadn't dared to react. It seemed to know regardless. What was it talking about? It was speaking nonsense while she asphyxiated. Katie was going to die at the hands of a monster. It leaned in close while Katie's vision faded. “I shall reveal nothing to you. You are a clever thing; you figure it out.”

Why was it doing this? Why did it even care? It spoke as if it knew her and it backed that up with actions, but all the while telling Katie how little she was worth the effort it was spending on her. It had let her run, only to prove it had already known where to. It had let her fight, only to prove it could have stopped her at any moment. Its words didn't explain its actions. If what Katie wanted was truly irrelevant, then why was she still here?

She was being played with. It was trying to keep her from noticing something. “Please,” she begged, forcing out a word on borrowed air. The creature's fingers lifted, just a little, so she could at least talk around them. Katie had something to bargain with, she just needed to figure out what. “Please, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have fought. I shouldn't have run. I shouldn't have— I should have just answered your questions. Please, I'll tell you anything you want to know. I'll do whatever you want, please just don't hurt me any more. I'll—”

The beast chuckled, lowering its hand again to silence her. The vine around her neck loosened, just enough that she could force in light breaths if she tried. “Yes, there's that spark of understanding that I love so much. Understanding is control, and I understand you. Let us see how well you are keeping up. You understand that you cannot run, you cannot fight, and you cannot freeze. You are a simple creature. Which instinctual response to fear have you left?”

“Fawn,” Katie whimpered, with a moment's extra freedom to speak. “Please, let me help. I can be useful. We're both stuck here; please let me help you get back home,” she begged, speaking quickly. She knew that any moment her speech could be taken again.

The beast raised three eyebrows and pulled her fingers free—pausing to wipe them on the girl's cheek—so that Katie could speak without interruption. “Oh? And how could I possibly trust you? You tried to hurt me, kitten. I think you should apologise for that.”

“I'm sorry!” Katie gasped. “I'm really sorry, I didn't know what I was doing! I thought— It doesn't matter what I thought; I just— I won't do it again! Please, I— Mmnf!” A pair of fingers slipping between her lips cut her off mid-word. It didn't believe her. Of course it didn't believe her! It was much stronger than Katie was and she'd never stood a chance, and she'd fought anyway. Reckless. She should have just done what it said from the start. Maybe then it would trust her. She just had to show it that she understood! That she had that control it was talking about!

Katie's tongue found itself nestled against the fingers again, but this time through her choice, not the affini's. Its fingers had a rough texture and a gentle taste. Surprisingly, it wasn't unpleasant. Katie lapped against it, hoping to prove she could be trusted through sheer force of worship, if nothing else would work. This thing was above her. She knew it. It knew it. That understanding gave her control.

“Ah, such a good girl,” the creature purred. “But unfortunately for you, I have no use for your worship. You might ask why, then, I bothered to give you a little more control by leading you to understanding?”

The serpent shrugged and tightened its grip around her neck. “I required a distraction.”

Points of blinding pain dug in along Katie's arm, and for all the creature kept its grip tight, Katie still managed to scream. It was all-consuming; burning points of agony demanded every scrap of attention Katie had to give and more besides. She couldn't handle it. Her focus slipped, her body spasmed, the pain grew unbearable as Katie's body fell out of its stable position entirely. She couldn't handle this. Something in her was going to break. This was more than she could bear.

“Almost more than you can bear,” the beast whispered, curling in around Katie's body to support the parts of her that she could not support herself. It brushed a few ragged clumps of sweat-soaked hair from Katie's sticky forehead. It was holding her still, helping her fight her body's urge to twitch and tear itself apart. It let Katie pull in with her every limb, though she couldn't move an inch. The harder she pulled the easier it was to convince herself the alien had control enough to avoid destroying her. It hurt so much. Katie had to trust in something that she could get through this.

“I know, I know,” it cooed, stroking down Katie's back even as her mind faded and her body burned. “It hurts. It is so much. You do not think that you can handle it.”

It weakened its grip around Katie's neck for a breathspan, just enough to gulp down a lungful of air and not a second more more. It helped, but all Katie's body wanted to do with it was scream. “But you can,” it promised, holding her in its protective shell. Its vine clamped down around her neck again, silencing the scream before it escaped, helping Katie to keep her vital breath within. “I know you can handle this. I will require nothing of you that you do not have to give.”

Its embrace was soft, even warm. Where before its grip had felt stifling and restrictive, now Katie saw how much easier this was to bear with something holding her up. Nothing had changed within the beast, but Katie had some control here. She could choose how to interpret it. Katie chose to cling to its comfort. It was all that could get her through the pain. Her tears were its. Her whimpers were its. She was its. She had to be. She would falter, otherwise.

“There we go,” it spoke, rumbling into Katie's ear from no distance at all. Her teeth ground against each other, eyes squeezed shut to try to block out the pain, as if being blind to it was the same as it going away. “Just a little more,” it promised. Katie focused herself, knowing it would be over soon.

Over agonising minutes, the pain receded. With it went much of the feeling in one of Katie's arms. Exhausted, she began to slip as muscles weakened and she failed to carry her own weight entirely. Just like with any other movement it was quickly accounted for. The beast cradled her, preventing her from twisting into positions that would hurt her further. Katie didn't know if her arm was held or hanging limp. She couldn't feel it. She couldn't even turn her head. She was helpless in its grip, awash in a flood of endorphins and relief. It was over.

Even half-blind with exhausion, the presence surrounding her was unmissable. “There we go. Good girl. Such a good girl for me, hmn?” It whispered directly into her ear from an inch away. It had her. She was wrapped in its binds, in its coils, in its control.

Katie tried, fruitlessly, to protest. She wasn't a good girl. She hadn't had a choice in this. She was just a victim, and one lucky enough to survive, at least for now, by this thing's mercy.

The plant paused, running a finger up the side of Katie's torso with a luxurious lack of haste. “Oh, do not give me that, kitten. We both know that you are.” It raised a finger to the cut on Katie's cheek and drew a wooden nail across the line. Its captive whined, strained nerves complaining yet again. “I know,” it cooed, “My manipulation of you is wholly transparent. How useful that it works nonetheless.” It brought its stained finger to Katie's lips and waited a moment for her to clean it. “But the problem is, my precious thing, that I shall need to do that again before you are to be irrevoccably mine.”

Katie whimpered. She tried to shake her head and the monster moved her vines and her hand in time to allow it. She tried to speak, but the creature's fingers trailed gently across her lips, silencing her. It was crystal clear how firmly she was in its power. She stared upwards, finally allowed to look towards it again, helplessly pleading for an opportunity to beg. It looked down with calm, patient eyes. She looked back up with desperation.

After a few moments, its fingers fell away. Permission granted.

“Please,” Katie spluttered “I don't— I won't— I can't. I surrender. I- You can have me. You have me. I can't fight you. I won't fight you. You don't have to do this.”

“I do not,” it agreed, with a smile. “And I will not.” There was a moment almost soft. Just a moment, before its smile twisted into a grin. “Not until you ask me nicely.”

The creature was clearly insane, Katie decided. The stresses of its unjust war had driven it mad. “Why would I—”

The alien silenced her with the rise of imperious eyebrows, then turned Katie's head to see the arm she could no longer feel. “Wh– What?” Katie whimpered, eyes flicking across its surface. She had felt the thorns stab within her, and quite clearly they had. Three thorns firmly pierced her skin, but the wounds looked little like she had expected them to. They were clean, bloodless. The surrounding skin was hardly distressed at all, with only a little sore pinkness around the edges.

From the thorns, thick, dark green spread out through her veins, staining underneath her skin. Its procession was slow enough as to be barely perceptible as moving at all, yet with each heartbeat it moved inexorably forward, corrupting her veins and taking her body.

The faster the beating of Katie's heart, the faster it would take her. She had to stay calm, she—

Katie forced her gaze away, back to the monster that was doing this to her. “Why can't I feel it?” she asked, voice strained. She was getting some feeling back, but there was something crawling beneath her skin. Surely she should feel that too?

The alien stroked a pair of fingers down Katie's injured arm, carefully avoiding her wounds. She couldn't help but gasp in response. She may not be feeling whatever had been implanted within her, but her skin was incredibly sensitive. She strained against her bondage, breathing hard, feeling her heart's thumps and imagining her corruption feeding off of every one.

“By now, the seed has begun to intercept and mediate parts of your nervous system. You do not hurt because I do not wish you to be in pain right now.” The monster smiled, drawing Katie's gaze back up to her emulation of a humanlike smile with gentle, caring fingers. “A moment of rest lets that brain of yours soak up all that useless adrenaline and convert it to comfort. To that beautiful sense of safety you are feeling. It is over, and you can relax into me.” Its vines curled tighter, cradling Katie in an embrace. She was permitted just enough freedom to either lean into it or away. Katie leaned in.

“If I kept you in constant agony then I would simply be performing torture.” It held Katie's chin up towards itself with one finger, using the others to slowly brush against the exposed skin of her neck, calming her. “It is that contrast that makes this effective at programming you. Your subconscious forgets who caused the hurt so it can love who brought the comfort.”

The smile's edge had sharpened as the beast had spoken, and Katie found herself staring with her heart beating harder than it ever had. Thump, thump, thump. Each and every one granted the creature more control.

“Programming?” Katie whispered. Thump. Thump. Thump. Katie couldn't see the stain spreading through her body, yet her imagination went wild, imagining it curling around her like posessive vines that could never be escaped. Did that thought feel comfortable, really? Or was it already changing how she felt?

“Training? That would likely be the usual word amongst my people.” The alien chuckled to itself, fingers brushing against Katie's arm held still for the moment. Gently—gently—it pressed down on just one of the thorns. Katie's face screwed up in pain as sharpened sensation lanced through her. Her breath was a sudden gasp let out over long moments in a weakening, broken whimper. A gentle hand stroked through her hair, providing the comfort Katie needed to bear it. “I know; I know. It hurts. I am here. You are safe. You can trust me.”

Katie's head had fallen forward at some point, but a vine pulled it back up. Her mouth didn't quite close and she was breathing too heavily to stay quiet. She nodded up at the creature rapidly, leaning into its grip as much as she was able. “You're here. I'm safe. Thank you.”

“Training is a much more Affini word. We do that a lot.” The affini shrugged. “Dress up our desires in pretty words and euphemism. We domesticate you. We turn you into florets. We give you treaties so that you can pretend that the choice was yours. We let some few imagine their independence, so long as they live under our rules and they do not violate our requirements.” It rolled all of its eyes. “Or happen to catch the eye of somebody willing to forgo the nicities to have them.”

It licked its lips, staring down at Katie for long moments. It was smiling, touching her with a gentle grip and softness. It also had its fingers resting against her thorn, a twitch away from filling Katie with agony yet again.

It leaned in closer and whispered directly into the girl's ear. “Are the soft words true? Of course they are, floret. We are only ever as forceful as we must be for the greater good. So we tell ourselves. So we have you believe. Your consent is vital, you understand, pet? That is why we are so good at forcing it out of you. We will always promise to stop at a word, but we'll have you ignore that we write your scripts. But we do hold to our promises.” It stroked its clawed hand through Katie's hair, moving carefully to work out some of the knots it itself had put there. “When we wish to.”

It leaned in further and its whisper became a barely comprehensible hiss. “And is that not just so dull?” Its hand grew firm, grasping Katie by the back of the head and forcing her neck backwards until she felt that even a single degree more would break her. “I know how you work. I know how to program you like the machine that you are. Why should I wait for you to realise what it is that you need? Why should I even pretend to? You are all property regardless of the nicities.”

Thump. Tʜᴜᴍᴘ. THUMP.

Katie could feel deep green curling around her brain, tinting her vision, controlling her body. Controlling her mind. This creature spoke and her heart raced and she knew not whether it was from fear or hope, and she dared not imagine whether those feelings were truly hers.

The poison in her veins might take effect in seconds. It might take weeks. Katie didn't know.

After a moment the beast tilted its head a few degrees to the side, staring down with a weight of expectation and six raised eyebrows. It wanted an answer. Why should it wait?

“The— The treaty—”

Katie cried out as its finger pressed down on her thorn. Wrong answer. That was the wrong answer. She shook her head rapidly. “Doesn't matter. Words on paper,” she quickly corrected herself. “It's not— It isn't right?” she asked, wincing in preparation for another pain.

“Oh? Have I not the right to you?” it asked, as casual as anything. Its finger drew little circles on Katie's sensitive skin. It wasn't touching her thorn, yet still all her attention was drawn towards it. “Are you not just one human in a trillion, worthless without me to define you?”

“I, um… I...” Was there a right answer here? Obviously the answer was no, nobody had the right to anybody else, but… But… “You, um. You can't just– Can't just force me into this!” Katie tried. It wanted an answer. She had to give it an answer. What it was describing was wrong, and if that was what the Affini did then the Affini were wrong too. Anybody who fought would be pacified.

“Yes, I can. You have met force with force at every moment until now,” the creature observed. “Do you only baulk now that you have lost? That is cowardice, not moral conviction. I caught my prey through strength of vine and cleverness. Is that not the way of nature? How did your equinologists put it? Survival of the quickest?”

“F- fittest,” Katie tried correcting. A firm finger flicked her thorn, stealing away any confidence she might have been inadvisably collecting and throwing it to the air in her whimpers. “Quickest! Quickest, yes, um—”

“You may call me Miss Aquae if you wish.”

“Survival of the quickest, yes, Miss Aquae!” Katie hurried to correct herself. The phrase wasn't right, but what use was being right when she was pinned beneath something she couldn't hope to fight? So too for the rest of humanity. Their culture would bend, or it would break.

As she bent, her heart beat harder still. She was bending for it, and it felt so good.

“Good pet.” Miss Aquae reached down and ruffled Katie's hair. “See how easy it was to change for me? See how—” She pressed in on the thorn, gently. Enough to get Katie gasping and squirming in place, but not enough to overwhelm her— “natural it is for you to adapt for me? You were made for this. I have no drugs. I have no ship. I am only me, and yet you so desperately wish to serve.”

The pressure grew more firm. Katie's face scrunched up as the rising pain grew harder to bear. “Please,” she breathed. “You don't need to…”

“Shhh,” she breathed, drawing another sharpened thorn across Katie's other arm. “You were made for this. Say it.”

“I— I was made for this,” Katie gasped, as the razor-sharp edge nicked her skin. Was it her imagination feeling a surge of the beast's corruption spreading from the cut?

“You so desperately want to serve.”

“I so–” she whimpered. Was it a lie? Was it the truth? Did those words even mean anything? She would bend, or she would be broken. Katie had control here. She could choose what she wanted. “I so desperately want to serve.”

“I do not believe you. Have you surrendered? Really? Or are you still looking for a way out. Is there a little piece of you that still thinks this isn't the end for you, Katie Sahas?

“Is there still a tiny, desperate piece of you that thinks your story does not end like this? Wrapped in the grip of a predator with all your efforts come to naught, because the universe is fundamentally unfair? A little nugget that still claims you have some inherent value?” It ran its tongue over its lips, watching Katie tremble.

Of course there was. She had to hope. Katie knew she couldn't lie to her Miss. She nodded, quietly.

“I could change that.” Miss Aquae ran the edge of her thorn along Katie's skin again, on the way to holding it up just before the girl's eyes. “Part of a paired set,” she explained. “Linked with those already installed. If you accepted these, I could erase those parts of you. Any part of you. Every part of you. You're already mine.” She paused, expectant.

“I'm already yours.”

“But you will fight it. You will always have that hopeless little rebellion in the back of your hopeless little mind, wondering if things could have been different. What if, what if, what if. Would it not be nice if your reality was as I decided?” Another pause.

Katie couldn't bring out a response. That little rebellion in the back of her head churned. She would fight. Of course she would fight. That was just part of being human. Her lips trembled, but she couldn't bring a word to the forefront.

“Perhaps it would not,” the alien continued, confidence unmarred. “It matters little what you want, does it not? I cannot give you this gift, little one. I have given you my word that I will not—unless you beg—and it pleases me to keep my word at this moment. Do you wish to see how long it is until I tire of you?”

Katie could feel herself breaking, pressed between her captor's power and her own latent resistance. She'd already tried to surrender and it just kept pushing. What did it want?

Was it just toying with her? Finding some scraps of amusement before it ended her? That didn't add up. It seemed to care that it wasn't torturing her.

Did it want her? That didn't add up either. The creature it had promised that Katie could become was nothing like her, and if it could turn her into it then it could turn anyone into it. Miss Aquae kept asking Katie if she was useless. Asking if she expected to be abandoned. Asking.

Not telling.

Katie forced her eyes open wide and gritted her teeth, glaring up at the affini, who had not lied to her even once, because what was the point of lying to its own property? “No,” she growled. “I don't.”

Even with conviction, staring up at something twice her size and calling its bluff was terrifying. Katie's heart raced, and with it she could feel the creeping assimilation of her own flesh hurrying forth, making her less her and more it.

It brought its head down low, inches away from Katie's own, to stare her in the eyes. “Why?” it asked, put more weight behind that one word than it had anything prior.

“Because—”

It interrupted, slowly drawing the paired thorn up Katie's clear arm. The razor point tore at her skin, drawing a tiny line that grew flush with crimson. After a moment, it paused, smirked, and then patted Katie on the head. “Eyes on me,” it demanded, drawing her gaze back to itself. “Do not worry about that. You are safe with me. Explain yourself.”

Before Katie could even begin to talk, it was again doodling red hot scribbles on her soft, vulnerable canvas. It didn't have to push down hard to trigger every instinct in Katie's head that told her that pain was something that should not be ignored. She tried her best regardless, taking a deep breath and holding her gaze steady.

“Because you won't,” Katie asserted. Call it imagination, call it a vision, call it prophecy, it mattered not. No other model that Katie could construct explained the affini's behaviour. “You're a monster,” she breathed. “But you're my monster, and you care about me.”

“Do I?”

“Yes! You—”

Crack!

Yet another of the thing's infinite vines lashed out, thorn bared, striking hard across Katie's back. If what had come before was pain then this was something beyond, simple raw sensation dragged across her soul. Katie threw her head back, screaming out the creature's name, cursing the world for allowing her to get here, to the universe for permitting her existence at all.

Crack! And then the universe was gone, drowned out by simple weight of experience. A whisper could not be heard next to the roar of a nuclear drive; a distant star could not be seen through the glare of a megacity; and the universe could not be felt beyond pain.

The next strike was lighter. It drew Katie's tattered consciousness in and worked it into a fine, sharp point. The strike after drove that point in deep, tearing through her mind, pressing her against that kernel of resistance that would not budge.

Crack!

Crack!

Cʀᴀᴄᴋ!

Katie's lies shattered, slammed between their respective wills. That monster had thown off its polite facade to show Katie what it truly was. Controlling; vicious; demanding. A titan enough that terrans could break themselves on its mere presence. Careful enough that it knew how to avoid it. Hungry enough that it wanted it regardless.

Katie forced open her eyes to squint up through tears, seeing double. Two versions of her monster. One brutal and animal. Another loving and kind. Katie was taken back to her imaginations, to seeing the latter staring down at her with a gentle, adoring smile. She didn't want that one. The polite facade just felt false. The other one felt real, if difficult to bear.

Reality was breaking all around her. That which was real and that which was imagination melted together into one big stew of that which could yet be. Katie's vision of a loving, perfect affini owner was flat. It needed nothing from her. It got nothing out of a relationship. Katie could not imagine herself stepping into that vision because the thought of living her life at the heel of some infinitely selfless lie felt pointless. Pleasure and sensation without end, resulting in a life that may as well not have happened.

The beast truly above her watched with passion, drinking in Katie's suffering. It wanted this. It had needs. It was real. It may not have been a straightforward, morally perfect fantasy, but it was real.

Without the lies to protect her, Katie felt herself falling in love.

As Katie watched, a vine raised and— CRACK!

And it— And—

Katie forced in a ragged breath, shaking her head. Too much. It was too much. She couldn't— She—

And then it was there, cradling her against its chest, hand pressed against the back of its head as it held her in its embrace. “Shhh. It's okay, it's okay, I've got you. You're okay,” it whispered. “You're doing so well. You've done so well. So well.” It held her close. Katie fell upon it and wept, clinging to its body with all her remaining strength. She wasn't afraid it would abandon her. It couldn't get away from her any more than she could get away from it. They needed each other.

Yet she clung, and she wept, and her pain and stress slowly sank within while the beast protected her. Eventually, Katie found resolve enough to speak. “You care,” she whispered through cracked lips and a hoarse throat. “Thank you.”

It shifted its weight, leaning slightly away, and tilted Katie's head up to meet it with the back of a thorn. Stars, but it was so beautiful. Katie's double vision resolved, kindness and cruelty meeting in the middle to form pragmatic artistry.

“I want to hurt you,” it claimed.

Katie shook her head. “Liar,” she panted.

For the second time, the affini blinked, pulling away slightly in surprise. “Have I not been convincing enough?” she asked, sharpened words echoing through the cave.

“The pain is a—” Katie was too breathless to speak smoothly. She had to pause and take several long, deep breaths— “Tool? You like the... control? Understanding what you can do to me. How I'll react. Understanding is control.” Deep breath. “What you can control, you can change. I'll change for you.”

It glanced to the side. “You are correct. I want to make you so obviously changed that nobody could look upon you and think you anything but mine. I like to hurt you to do it, but as you say, that is not necessary. I could do without.”

Want vs Like could have been dismissed as a matter of semantics, but Katie had been better trained than that. Want could have been any one of a thousand drives, from base instinct to hunger to social expectation. Like could have been only desire, and to express desire was to express vulnerability. Desire was an outstretched hand; an offer. Katie could take the out, accept the inevitable but without the pain.

For the first time since they had met, Katie actually had a power over her affini.

The choice was Katie's. She understood the consequences of her decision, so she could exert control over them.

Katie couldn't freeze. She couldn't flee. She couldn't fight. She had tried to surrender, but only because she had been afraid of the consequences. That hadn't been a choice, because her choices had been systematically eradicated one by one until they had reached this moment. The beast had been learning her, but in exchange it had allowed Katie to learn it. A few well placed words had done what all the violence had not: They had gotten the pain to stop.

Katie could deny this creature its preference. It had already proven that it understood her deeply enough to take care of her every need. It claimed that it held to its promises only because it wished to, and Katie could not call it a liar, but she found herself trusting. It had no need to lie.

Katie could choose to surrender herself for real, not because she was afraid of what would happen to her if she did not but because of the intrinsic rewards of her own submission. It understood her, and what it didn't know it could learn. Why would Katie want to deny it?

“Please,” Katie begged, surrendering her power in a heartbeat. “I don't want you to wrap me in softness. Let me— Let me feel how sharp the universe can be. For you.” Katie breathed hard, burying her face deep into Miss Aquae's foliage. Was she really doing this? Katie glanced at her arm, now stained almost black from the shoulder to halfway down her forearm with tiny sprouts of fresh-growth green bursting through her skin.

Yes. She was doing this.

“Please,” Katie begged. “Please, please learn me. Let me be yours. Please take me. Do whatever you like with me, understand me, mold me, please? I don't know how to be as special on my own as I can be for you, but for you I promise l will be spectacular. Please, Miss Aquae, break me and see that you can fit me back together better than I ever could have been alone. Please. I trust you. Use me.”

Katie screamed as the second set of thorns punctured her skin. She felt an electric tingle running through her, blurring her vision, burning a deep copper taste across her tongue, buzzing her soul with a whole-body hum. It was terrifying. It was okay. Miss Aquae was there, body wrapped around hers, one hand pressing the thorns in deeper while the other stroked hair from Katie's eyes and wiped sweat from her brow. Vines in abundance curled around, holding her, stilling her, keeping her.

In Thatch's arms, Katie felt a profound sense of calm, even as waves of pain crashed across her. Even as her vision went white and she couldn't help but scream. Her struggles were over. Her chapter was closing. There was no possible escape and she could finally stop fighting. Katie clung to her Miss Aquae's body, spluttering out gratitude and wordless, helpless devotion. She had been made for this.

The choice had been hers, and she had committed. For all her power, the affini hadn't forced the choice; she had only taught Katie how to make it for herself. She could stop wasting her energy on resistance and be as she had been made to be in full knowledge that it was right for her.

Long minutes were held in tight entwinement, Katie expressing the only emotions she allowed herself to feel, while Miss Aquae let her know that everything was going to be okay. They clung to one another through the agony while Katie's body struggled to withstand what was being done to her. Eventually, a finger pressed against her chin and lifted Katie's blurry, unfocussed eyes to see the smiling face of her owner.

“I think it has been long enough by now that the pain is starting to fade, hmn?”

Katie nodded rapidly. “Th– Thank you, Miss,” she whispered.

“Good. Then you should have given me enough control to do—” She left Katie's chin in peace, trusting the girl would hold her own head up, regardless of how heavy it felt in the moment. She did. Miss Aquae's hand came up before Katie's eyes, finger and thumb held together— “this.“

Snap.

“Stay with me, katie.”

A crack bisected the night sky, stretching from the horizon's depths up through the peaks of atmosphere's edge. It could have been a planetary ring, were it not wrought from void. A flock of familiar bioluminescent insects flowed through the air like a glowing river of light, with tributaries stretching in from all directions. They surged across the crack and did not make it to the other side.

Even the stars themselves were winking out, star by magnificent star, as the world itself broke. At first the crack was one jagged line alone, but as it lengthened it split into a dozen smaller shards, each consuming all that crossed it.

“katie,” the voice snapped. “Stay with me.”

katie blinked. The shattering of the world was visible even with her eyelids squeezed shut. She was adrift and disconnected. The world was coming apart at the seams and so was she.

Oh, she'd been here before, hadn't she? She was disassociating.

Back, long long ago, when there had been people in katie's life she could have reasonably called friends, though before the Affini had arrived, she'd been taught a technique for trying to break out of a disassociative haze.

She took a deep breath in. How did this go? She needed to place herself in her own surroundings. Could she find three green objects around her?

The canopy far above held some greens within its shadowy depths. It was largely mottled blacks and purples, but the odd sprout of a brighter green shone through all the same. Leaves wavered in a breeze that grew stronger every passing moment. As katie watched, one of them broke away from its tree, flung up into the air, and was sucked into a stream of wind that pulled it in towards the crack, and then... it was gone.

The grounding technique didn't specify the items had to continue to exist after she noticed them, so katie figured that was fine. She moved on, looking around before finally her attention caught on her own arm. It lifted up into her vision. The skin wasn't green exactly, but there was a green so deep and dark that it was almost black staining just beneath the surface. As katie looked deeper she realised it wasn't just a stain, but instead hundreds of tiny growths all weaving together to form a sheet, almost separating her skin from her body.

katie felt like that should hurt.

The fingers wiggled. katie watched in fascination as the gossamer web of internal vines and growths shifted and bent to permit the movement. In fact, if she looked closely enough it almost appeared as if the growths were flexing before her fingers started to move. It was as if they were acting with precognitive haste, readying themselves for an action katie had not yet realised she was about to take.

She watched, fascinated, as the structures beneath her skin perfectly predicted moves she chose at random a moment later. She watched, fascinated, as she stopped choosing her moves at all, wiggling her fingers in response to the floral corruption's preparations.

She could find no difference in the patterns. Her fingers wiggled unpredictably either way.

katie blinked. The cracks widened. With a deafening silence, they stabbed across her vision, rushing forward to intersect her hand. The arm went dead, and katie broke the silence with a cry of pain. She couldn't even look to appraise the damage, as the moment the cracks touched it she had to yank her gaze away, so sharp was the pain.

As she flinched, the sky wiped away in a wide arc. Wherever katie looked, the crack followed, and everything it touched failed and vanished, and it was spreading wide and tall. Soon there would be nowhere untouched. Soon it would just be katie alone in a shattered void.

What was she doing?

Oh, right. Three green objects?

There were no objects!

The cracks were devouring them all! How was katie supposed to center herself in a context undergoing collapse? She—

She felt something take her by the chin and pull her gaze around to stare up at something.

Something green. katie smiled, weak laughter tinkling, surprised. The only thing left in all the world, and—of course—exactly what she needed.

Thatch Aquae looked down upon her, characteristic smile strangely missing. Where she and the crack intersected, she—of course—won out. No crack could handle katie's affini. The girl reached up with her good arm to draw a blackened finger around the curve of Thatch's chin. It was funny, but she'd never really noticed how sharp it was. The bark strips and thorns that provided structural stability were close to the surface, wrapped only in a few layers of thin foliage that overlapped only imperfectly. The falsehood shone through.

An awkward fingertip slipped along the structure ruffling leaves as it went. They were already scruffy, but katie was rubbing them the wrong way and they were left messy and curled in her wake. Her affini shivered, right up the spine.

Probably not right up the spine, actually, Affini bodies didn't have spines. Right up from the core? That seemed more likely.

Fuck but Thatch was pretty. katie kinda wanted to kiss her. They didn't usually do that sort of thing. Thatch initiated, sometimes, but only when she was getting really thirsty. katie had never really felt the draw herself, but something was lighting a fire in her and she wasn't sure what it wa—

—Oh shit, it was the implant.

Reality snapped back into focus at such a speed that katie would be feeling the whiplash for days.

“With you,” katie gasped, taking her first breath in what felt like months. Thatch's whole body sagged, and then an instant later she was nodding, both arms wrapped around katie in a tight bear hug. The floret felt the structures beneath her skin reacting, stiffening and twisting to counter a crushing force that would have been difficult to withstand alone.

“Ashes, but you gave me a shock there, kitten. I am not getting good readings on your biometrics on my communicator, so I need you to give me a status report.” Thatch released the hug and shifted back, holding katie by both shoulders and staring intently into her eyes. Stars, but they were so pretty. Like metal glittering in shattered starlight, reflecting voidstuff in an infinite matrix of a reality that was too beautiful to exist.

Fuck but katie wanted to kiss her so badly.

Come on, kitten. Focus. Thatch had asked a question.

“Uhhhh,” she replied, trying to work out on the fly how to operate her own tongue. “I'm... spacey? Keep... slipping? Mind wants to wander off. Fuck but you're pretty.”

“Language, kitten.”

katie nodded rapidly. It set her whole world spinning.

Well, no, that was a lie. Thatch was stock still. Her rock. Her port in a storm. Her—

katie gritted her teeth. Focus. “Sorry. Yes Miss. Uh. Um.” Why was the cave still wobbling around her? “Miss, is the world really breaking?”

“Yes, actually,” Thatch admitted, waving a vine over towards the spreading cracks. “The Meandrina's positional trackers seem to be struggling to hold on to your lifesigns.”

“Huh.” katie nodded, glancing out towards the sky again. It was a very pretty effect, even if it was scary. It felt strangely peaceful to watch reality collapsing in on itself. “Don't I need those lifesigns?” She paused. “Am I dying?”

Thatch chuckled with a grating rumble, then gave a full body shrug. “Only in the sense that your body is failing on us.”

“That's usually what dying means?” katie asked, only to be interrupted by Thatch raising a finger.

“Wait just one moment, I can probably stablise the environment.” She reached over and picked up her tablet, then spent a moment tapping. As she did, the cracks began to recede. “You are the simulation's origin point, you see, this whole forest is built around you. As such, when it loses track, things start to—” Thatch waved a hand in the air for a moment, pulling the cave around them back together, and then snapped her fingers. The world solidified, snapping back into place in an instant— “drift.” The trees were back. The insects began to fly once again. The breeze was only gentle.

“I know the feeling,” katie admitted. “I— Roots, I can't keep my thoughts lined up, I just...”

Thatch's glare stung like a physical force. “Language, kitten. Final warning.”

“I— Is this really the time, Thatch?” katie protested, feeling an alien frission running up limbs she didn't have. A squirm ran up imaginary vines and hit her imaginary core and spread out throughout every one of her actual limbs before finally escaping as a short, high-pitched gasp.

“Yes,” Thatch replied, stroking a finger down one of katie's arms. The girl's head fell back, breathing out a pleasured whimper that avoided ending in a curse only by sheer force of will. “I need you focused. You will focus on what I require of you, and the commands I give you.” The affini paused just long enough to extract a nod of agreement. “Good pet. Now, status report.”

It was an order. katie could focus on orders no matter how fucked her higher consciousness was. They'd proved that more than enough times for it to count as science, and now the experiments were just for fun. “Okay, yes Miss! I remember, uh... we crash landed, I ran, you pinned me down and—nghhh, but that was so hot—and uh, got everything implanted and turned it on?”

That had been the plan, anyway. The specific details of how things would play out had been intentionally left until the day for dramatic effect, but there had been no plausible outcomes in which katie hadn't left the virtual forest as a programmable pet with makeshift biotechnology wrapped around her spine, organs, limbs, and soul.

Katie glanced over at her arm, and pulled her hand into a fist. The criss-cross mesh of plantlife that formed her second skin moved with easy, smooth motion. It roiled beneath her ill-fitting skin. She was being pushed apart. It had not been intended to go this far. “And now I feel something growing inside of me,” katie realised, finally twigging on what the dull pressure pushing out from within her actually was. She wasn't bloated.

She was infested.

She groaned, feeling the pressure intensify. “It... it hurts, Thatch.”

“Dirt,” Thatch swore. “Whatever your implant is doing, it is not responding to any of my equipment. I am getting no diagnostic information. Even your standard medical levels are erratic and I am not sure how to determine whether it is equipment failure or you failure. I am sorry, kitten, I have tried my best but we need to abort. If this goes on any longer then even the Meandrina's exigent veterinarians will not be able to disentangle you and it.”

katie was still staring down at her hand, shifting her fingers one at a time. The implant beneath her skin moved before she knew she wanted to. It was always correct in its predictions. She swung her arm out to one side, marvelling at her own grace. It was like the machinery listened to her intent and made it reality, bypassing her imperfect humanity. She didn't even look human. She didn't even feel human. She wasn't sure the human parts of her body were even still working. Perhaps she really was dying, and the only reason she could move at all was that an overgrowing weed digging through her skin deigned to move her.

Her hopeful gaze pinned Thatch in place. “Will we be able to try again after?”

Thatch shook her head. “It has done too much damage. I am sorry. You will need an emergency medical implant surgically installed immediately so that you can be repaired. Thankfully we do still have one waiting for us from our first appointment, so it will still be mine, and everything will be done according to the usual standards.”

“Then, no thank you.” The girl grunted, feeling a sudden jerk deep within her chest as some burst of growth or sudden moment of unravelling pressed down against a lung and left her short of breath. “I want to be 'so obviously changed that nobody could look upon me and think me anything but yours', Thatch. You promised. How do we fix this?”

“I... katie, your implant is not growing correctly. It is spreading throughout your body unchecked and uncontrolled. It was supposed to wrap your organs in protective tissue, but that growth has not stopped. Without intervention, it may grow and grow until there is nothing of you left but a shell of your former beauty. We must remove it before your body is too badly damaged to survive a second implantation.”

“I don't want to be another Terran with a tiny little scar on the back of my neck as the only sign of what you've done to me, Thatch,” katie hissed. “You're an engineer, think like it! You're not getting diagnostics. Where would they come from?”

The plant raised a vine in protest, but faltered. It fell a moment later. “One of the first things the seeds were supposed to do after linking together was form a communications loop with my communicator, which would let them collaborate as well as report on their progress and raise any irregularities and allow me to guide its growth over the next several weeks.” Thatch tapped the side of her tablet against katie's arm, drawing out another sharp moan. “This has not occured and they have not slowed their growth.”

“Okay, okay,” katie panted. “So, it is messing with my head, it is messing with my sensations. What does that tell us about its progress?”

“That we need to get you to a vet.”

“Thatch.” katie glared as best she could, trying to ignore that her mind was getting fuzzier by the second. “I... did I ever tell you about the Atlantis' Fortune?”

“Is this really the time for a reminiscence, kitten?”

katie nodded, wincing with the effort and breathing hard. Her vision blurred, losing its colours around the edges while intensifying them in the center. Staring up at Thatch, it was hard not to get lost in her. “One of the things they don't tell you when you sign up,” katie started, before finding the effort too great and needing to pause. Her skin felt like it was tearing in half. “Is that if you live long enough, you're gonna make a jump and land badly. Fortune was mine. We were rushing, needed to make a delivery quickly for, contractual reasons I guess? I don't know exactly why. Took a shortcut. Something didn't go right, the drive chamber cracked on an interstitial jump.”

katie whimpered. She could feel the implant growing within her, squeezing her insides. Her heart beat hard, trying to push blood through veins that were now competing with a more powerful force for room. “Space is big. Light is slow. No way to get help that anybody would actually hear before we were long, long dead.”

“This sounds appropriately traumatising for a Terran vessel, kitty. I do not wish to rush you, but do you have a point?”

“Every drive engineer knows. One day. Gonna be stranded. Dying ship. Drive they don't know how to fix. Everyone on that crew. Looking to them to fix it. If they don't. Everyone will die.”

“I assume that you succeeded, given that you are present.”

katie nodded firmly. “Didn't have any other choice. Had to figure it out. Took a week. It was the only way. Let's figure this problem out too? Let's at least try before we give up, please? How long do we have before this is unfixable? Can we try?”

Thatch swore under her breath, then took one of katie's arms in her hands and began to inspect the material beneath. “Fine. Fine, but we are stopping the instant we risk you passing the joint of no return.”

The affini took a deep breath, pulling air through her body firmly enough to cause a breeze, then focused. “'Haustoric Implant' is an umbrella term,” she explained. “We create each design largely from scratch for each new species to ensure clean integration and optimal results. In Terran bodies, that meant decentralised functional gains, redundant duplication of necessary processes, and running all intercompontent communications via a branching hierachy of busses connecting to a main trunk integrated with the spine. Gestation time is primarily bimodal, either on the order of hours or weeks. The former is used if the subject would otherwise expire, the latter whenever there is time. Recovery is much harder if it grows in too quick, however an implanted floret will recover from almost anything short of catastrophic damage to the brain.” She paused. “Even that, in cases where the damaged areas can be simulated sufficiently well.”

katie whimpered. It was so hard to focus on what Thatch was saying. Her voice was just so pretty. Stars, but she was so pretty. The way her eyes lit up as she talked, even though she was worried. That gorgeous little smile that snuck back in as she switched out of panic and into problem solving. katie forced herself to focus. She wanted to keep that smile growing more than anything. “I... don't think you've taught me enough to understand that, or... sorry, I'm really really spacey right now.”

“Fair.” Thatch laughed, reaching over to scratch behind katie's ear. All the effort she'd put into building her focus was shattered, taken in hand, and pulled up to exactly where Thatch wanted it. The affini spoke down to her in clearly enunciated words. “Your implant seeds—the thorns—had a template. They were supposed to grow into that template over the course of several weeks. The initial stages were keyed to hormone levels and your circadian rhythm, and would go faster. That was supposed to stop once the thorns had linked together and begun interfacing with your systems.”

katie screwed shut her eyes, trying to process the monologue. Bioengineering was Thatch's primary discipline and katie was not going to be able to learn enough to match wits with her without years of training, but Thatch wouldn't know exactly what was happening under her skin and katie wouldn't know what was relevant to report if she didn't understand enough of what mattered.

katie tried to speak and was struck with the alien sensation of a pair of lungs that failed to respond to her wishes. She hadn't noticed because she had been breathing perfectly normally. katie's body wasn't responding to her thoughts. She tried to hold her breath and nothing happened. Even trying to hold her nose closed didn't stop the autonomous actions, though it did stop them from achieving anything.

At least it was no longer hard to breathe.

“Doesn't feel like it stopped,” katie admitted, speaking only on her permitted exhalations. “Feels like it kept going. Feels like it's still going? There's... weird pressure inside of me.”

Thatch pressed a hand against katie's chest, just above the center of the feeling. “Here?” she asked, and recieved a nod. “Okay. Okay. This was supposed to be the last stage before it entered the main growth stage—the one that would take several weeks to complete. It has not stopped growing. Why?” Her hand played across katie's flesh, pressing down and feeling, as if trying to discern what lay beneath the skin. Every touch dropped katie further down a bottomless pit of bliss that she could not longer adequately express. Her heart raced and her mind melted. The semi-autonomous functions of her body continued, uncaring, as if everything was normal.

“Maybe—” katie had to fight just to piece the sentence together one word at a time— “I got too—” katie felt herself refocus, shunted from task-orientation straight into adoration without a heartbeat between. “Stars but I love you, Miss. I love you so much, I—”

“Kitten. Focus.”

She couldn't. katie smiled up with a blissed-out grin as her neurochemical balance was adjusted with such brute efficiency that even her broken, addled mind could tell it wasn't natural. All her discomfort and pain sank beneath a rising tide of warmth and comfort that could not have been more obviously imposed. Even knowing this, there was still nothing she could do to change it.

The pretty plampt towering over katie didn't seem happy. That was the only thing that seemed able to penetrate katie's haze of joy. She needed the beautiful, perfect creature to be happy with her. She knew—just knew—that it was her entire purpose, above and beyond anything else. She stared up with wide, unfocused eyes while a broken machine mangled her body, keeping her breathing stable and shallow; her heart beating at a slow, steady pace; and her mind simple, happy, and malleable. All katie needed to do was obey. She didn't need to worry about anything else.

She couldn't worry about anything else. No matter how much she strained, no matter how much she tried to fight. This wasn't like anything katie had felt before. Even once Thatch had finally taken her as a pet, katie's mind had been her own, merely with adjusted priorities. She hadn't worried about the troubles of her past because they hadn't felt important any more, but now she found herself incapable of worrying about anything at all. It was like a switch had been flipped in her head. All that mental circuitry that dealt with worries and concerns was simply disconnectd.

Thatch's ownership was a comfortable blanket, gifting katie with the safety she needed to thrive in an imperfect universe. This was a prison, locking her behind bars, painting a smile on her soul and pretending that meant she was happy. She couldn't even understand the words her nice plant was saying. Any part of her cognition more complicated than the deep, fundamental certainty that she existed to be a good pet for her owner simply wasn't present. The words just washed over her mind, wiping away whatever conscious thoughts had been futily hoping they might bubble to the surface.

She had to make Thatch happy. It was why she existed. It was why she had always existed, even before she'd known the truth. But... Thatch needed something she was simply incapable of provi— katie didn't need to worry about anything. katie just needed to be a good pet for Mistress. Good pets didn't have important jobs; all they needed to do was be soft and cute. Good pets didn't worry their pretty little heads about anything. Worrying was for her owner, who was perfect and infallible and would keep katie safe.

katie felt a spike of pain running down her spine, but it was stifled a moment later. A moment after that any worry she might have been thinking about trying to experience over it was wiped away entirely. Her plant was a few feet away, talking into her communicator with rapid words. She was such a pretty plant.

Implant-stained arms burned as katie crawled over to rub her cheek against Thatch's leg. She butted her head against her person, becoming increasingly insistent until finally she got a momentary smile and a few seconds of scritching.

Disappointingly, only a few. What was the point of a katie if not to be played with and pampered? The implant was trying to filter out the existential dread of a pet who existed only to please looking up at an image of distracted distress, and it was failing. She had to do better. She had to be more pleasing. She had to be perfect for her perfect owner and if she couldn't then what was the point of her?

katie raised a hand to paw against her owner's side, demanding further attention. She was much more interesting than a communicator, so why wouldn't Thatch play with her? Rude! Maybe she'd think twice about that after katie had a good gnaw on her leg.

Teeth had barely clamped down around the vine when katie heard the unmistakable sound of an word entirely unknown. She hurried to a sitting position, settling her butt firmly against her haunches and holding her hands at her chest, just as she'd been taught. Though her mind was wandering and pulling her attention in a dozen different directions, katie held firm. She had a position to be in. She had a way to please.

Thatch glanced down at her again with a sudden ripple of interest in the air. She shut off her communicator and spoke a few words that katie thought she aught to recognise, but failed to parse. She tried smiling up at Miss Aquae a little wider, instead. Maybe that would make her happy.

The plant stared back for a few moments before barking out another command. katie knew that one too! She dropped down to all fours and rolled over, hopping back up to a sit at the other side. Gosh, she was such a good pet! There were some more words katie just didn't have the energy to process, but they didn't seem important. Words weren't for pets. Obedience was for pets.

Her person leaned down over her, dangling fingers just before katie's face. She leaned forward and nuzzled gratefully, smoothly transitioning to long licks and kisses as Thatch shifted her position. The plant reached behind her back and pulled out a familar strip of biomechanical material, with a familar gem fixed in its center. With the click of her tounge and a sharp gesture, Thatch had her pet sitting up with ner neck bared, eager for her gift. Gosh, but her plant was so pretty, though. So soft and warm and sweet. Maybe just one more nibble? She leaned forward, opening her mouth to take a bite, and—

Thatch did something that dragged katie's attention back up to her, though she couldn't figure out quite what. The plant hadn't spoken, hadn't obviously moved, and yet katie felt a compulsion to sit and stare. Stars, but she was such a pretty affini. Even her worry lines were beautiful. Her frazzled hair was a testament to how she kept her head under pressure. The analytical sharpness in her eyes as she looked upon katie not as a person but as a malfunctioning toy was—

katie should tell her how hot that was.

katie— kati k

katie blinked. she was just staring. not even at anything, really, just at the cave wall. it was such a pretty cave wall. it was... katie strained, trying to force herself to really look. really analyse. really figure out what she was looking at.

it was... grey. stars, that was exhausting. Wasn't it so much easier to just let Mistress think for her? katie didn't need to worry her soft little head about complicated things like colours or descriptions. She could—should—just lie back and enjoy drifting through an endless ocean of bliss.

Where was Thatch, anyway? katie should look. katie should— Katie looked up, feeling a slight shift in the usual tremour of life about the Atlantis' Fortune. Life in space was loud and uncomfortable, but that was a paradoxical comfort in its own right. When the rumble of engines was shaking your brain in your skull you didn't have to worry that the fusion torch wouldn't ignite the next time around. When it was so hot you could barely think, you didn't have to worry that the reactor had gone cold. When a jump hit you with a kick so sharp it felt like you'd been winded, you didn't have to worry that you were stranded.

Unfortunately, that last kick hadn't been right. Katie ran, darting past crewmates in corridors barely rated to fit a single person, never mind two, with her heart beating a thousand times a minute. She hauled herself into the cramped drive room, dread rising in her chest as she took in the inch-wide crack that had formed along the outside of the reaction chamber.

They were dead. They were dead. Without a drive, they were stuck, they couldn't call for help, and nobody would find them, and—

katie moaned with joy, feeling her perfect owner's perfect hands stringing something around her neck. A thin strip of material, carefully placed and pulled snug. A collar. A collar for a pet. She was such a good girl. Such a good girl. That was all she needed to be. All she would ever need to be. All those silly thoughts she'd once had were a thing of the past now. The only ethical framework that mattered was obedience.

Thatch snapped her fingers. katie's spine begged for mercy, groaning as she sat to attention faster than a human body had ever been intended to handle.

“Yes, Miss Aquae?” katie chirped. Her nametag jingled as she moved, along with a new sound that slipped beneath her consciousness and demanded to be heard, its low volume be damned. It was a lighter, higher pitched sound, like a bell that bounced to the song in her soul. It could have been distracting, but it wasn't. It could have clashed with her words, but it didn't. As she held still the noise quietened and her song unsung began to sink beneath the waves of mindless bliss once again.

Thatch pointed to her heel with a precise gesture and spoke a precise word. katie didn't understand it and yet she was crawling before she'd processed enough to realise. Her body burned, human muscles pleading with her to just stop while plant-tech fibers forced her on uncaring. With every step forth, katie's body swayed and her bell chimed a little louder. It burned away the haze. Shredded the bliss and let the pain in once more. Tore into her peace and permitted her worry. Each time katie put one paw before the other she felt herself becoming more herself and less lost.

Something was wrong. She wasn't supposed to be feeling like this. There was something in the back of her head telling her that everything was okay—that everything would always be okay—and that all she needed to do was trust in her perfect owner and let her take care of everything.

katie really had to wonder if her implant had ever met Thatch? The plant was many things, but infallible she was not. There were thoughts in the back of her head that were provably, trivially incorrect, yet katie lacked the capacity to disagree with them. It was like trying to argue with the stars: they didn't care whether katie believed in them, they simply were.

It took frightfully little time for katie to crawl to her person's heel, following training so deep that it overrode her own capabilities and allowed her to resist. She took her rightful place, kneeling with her back straight and her neck stretched almost as far back as it would go so she could smile up with a real smile, not one imposed.

“I am going to need you to work with me here, kitten.” Thatch reached over and placed a gentle hand atop katie's head. “Chin up.”

katie strained her neck, fighting her own human skeleton to obey. Her whole body felt like it had been wound to breaking point already. The affini reached down and flicked her bell, and katie's mind scoured clean. Nothing withstood the echoing chime. Not the imposed bliss of her damaged implant, nor the instinctive calm of her dying body, nor the desperate thoughts of imposed devotion. Only the fundamental truths of her existence remained beneath it all.

Thatch spoke another word and katie dropped to all fours, pressing her body against the ground while her lips found Thatch's vague impression of feet and worshipped, acting as her training demanded without the wherewithall to know or care why. Thatch dropped down to one knee—moving the leg her pet wasn't transfixed by—and began to stroke slowly down katie's back, soothing the dumb animal mind that was all that remained when all else was burned away.

Every movement kept the bell's song playing. Every note squashed whatever meagre thoughts had been hoping they might be heard. It was beautiful. Never before had katie heard her part of their shared duet played out loud like this, but every note was overriding.

When all else was taken from her, only instinct remained. Lips met flora time and time again in prayer everlasting. Each moment came anew, for there was no room for memory around the ever-insistent swinging of the bell. Every instant was an opportunity for katie to recognise the Goddess before her and begin her worship, ignorant of that she had been doing nothing but for the prior seconds, minutes, hours. She didn't know enough to care how long it had been.

While katie worked, Thatch was busy with something. On the rare occasion that something within katie found the strength to think it was invariably the implant, and the implant needed katie to know that everything was fine. She had nothing to worry about, and the fact that she was dying was simply irrelevant next to the cosmic importance of being a good and obedient pet.

The cold edge of an electrolytic hook grazed the lower edge of katie's neck. She took a deep, sudden breath in, feeling her mind clearing of unwanted influence. “Oh, fu– fudge,” katie whimpered. “It hurts so much more than I'd realised.” It was a deep, full-body pain, but her leg was the worst of it. It felt like her whole body was so tightly wound that something had to give.

“Yes, apologies for that, but I need you to hurt right now. Bear with me one moment, pet,” Thatch replied, voice absent minded while she reached down and tilted katie's head to the side. The girl gasped out a barely aborted swear as the hook pressed under her collar again, filling her vision with stars and what looked like old test patterns. The pressure only grew, up and up and up until katie was shaking. Thatch gave her a quick scratch beneath the chin.

The hook left her skin, and katie's mind began to fade. “Thank you for that, kitten. Good girl,” Thatch whispered, taking a moment just to hold her pet close with one hand. “This next part will be worse. You can do it for me, can't you? Of course you can.”

katie smiled up wide. She was a good and obedient pet. As the implant asserted more control, her motions slowed, quieting the bell and sinking her deep within the blissful stillness.

Thatch snapped her fingers and made her demand. katie had rolled over before she'd even finished chirping her “Yes, Miss Aquae?”

She lay there, hands held up before her chest, smiling up at her upside-down owner with the curious sensation of a heart that did not beat. Thatch held her hand out to one side; a pulse of bright cyan and cinnamon-scent dropped a tool of some kind into her grip. She brought it down to katie's chest and ordered her to speak.

“Miao!” kitty sang, perfectly in time to the dying embers of her song, feeling her body shutting down while the voice in the back of her mind refused to admit that anything could possibly be wrong.

The tool hummed, crackled, and then burst out with a silent thump that katie heard only through the rattling of her bones. It paused. Again.

Again. Harder. katie's whole body spasmed. The smell of burning plantlife filled the air.

Again. Everything was okay. Nothing was going wrong. katie wriggled in place, smiling up at the most perfect creature in the universe. The affini looked back with an expression bordering on panic. Nothing was wrong, but... something had to be wrong, if Thatch was unhappy. It didn't make sense that she would be unhappy. Maybe katie could deal with it once she woke up, because she was so, so very tired, and her body wanted nothing more than to sleep.

Again. The mounting pressures of katie's faltering shell had only been ratcheting up, intensifying over time while finding no release. It was just her, trapped between two forces that were not giving her a moment of peace.

Snap!

The sound resonated through katie's bones, followed by a low grinding as further vibrations buzzed through her skeleton and into her ears. She could tell that her body was in agony, even if the implant wasn't letting her feel it. The heartbeat in her chest was growing eratic, her breaths came only in irregular gasps, and what little awareness she had posessed was fading behind a veil of shadow. Another sharp crack came a moment later, paired with a heavy surge of imposed calm. Nothing was wrong. It was okay.

She could rest now. Just go to sleep. Don't worry about a thing.

Thatch jammed one tool against her collar, and the other tool just above her heart. Aɢᴀɪɴ. The world exploded back into life. kitty twitched, setting the bell swinging once more and a moment later her heartbeat followed its lead, pulsing away to the rhythmic drum-beat of her own song.

There was little time to celebrate. Another sharply spoken command had her scrambling back up to her knees, lifting her chin so Thatch could wrap a leash-vine around the ring in her collar.

“Come, pet. We're going for a walk,” Thatch announced. kitty complied, of course, as best she could. Walking was hard. One leg responded only sluggishly, and the other— Whatever was happening to kitty was messing up her proprioception, because where she expected that leg to be, and where it actually was, seemed entirely different.

Still, she had to do her best. She had a voice in the back of her head telling her to, and the only way to quiet it quieted her own thoughts too. She and Thatch left the cave into dim moonlight. Part of kitty recognised that they weren't really on Dirt, but it was no less impressive when her owner reached into the sky and pulled up the sun.

Fuck, but Thatch was hot when she was competent.

Thatch was always competent.

The sun shone over the entire forest and all its inhabitants. In its clarifying light, kitty finally saw that which was happening to her. The burning sensation across her body wasn't merely because of a biotechnological integration layer restricting her circulation, but also because that layer was overgrowing inside of her and out.

Tiny tufts of what seemed like short lengths of fine grass grew outwards from her pores and her follicles, covering her body in something that seemed almost like a thin layer of fur. Where her once-human body had exposed thicker hairs, the fur was thicker too. Where little hair was found, the fur was thinner or even non-existent. The backs of her paws were covered in a thin layer, while the front was healthy deep dark green skin.

A breeze rolled in from the nearby river. kitty felt her fur waving in the wind. The way the individual blades tugged and shifted against her skin was a brand new sensation unlike anything she'd felt before. Thatch's vine brushing down her side was not a new sensation, but was centering all the same, drawing attention to the way kitty's foliage was still slowly, slowly sprouting. One arm held a thick covering, the other was patchwork, and most of the rest of kitty's body had either only a few scattered sprouts or, in the case of her left leg, hadn't yet been overtaken by the implant at all and still shone through with its unsightly human pink.

The case of her right leg was utterly alien. The snap and crunch of moments ago had been the shattering of her bone, kitty had to assume. Human legs didn't bend like hers was. Her shin bent where it shouldn't and her foot didn't seem to fit right any more. She watched how it moved, feeling the alien mechanisms consuming her body as they took her desire and translated it into something her broken form could accommodate. It was an animal movement. She'd seen similar before, in docu-dramas and zoological stations. Was the device worming its way through her flesh so ignorant of her shell that it thought she had digitigrade legs? It certainly wasn't a kitten's place to disagree. It could grind her bones into dust and would barely recognise the impediment. She was powerless here.

At least she had one good leg left. It was difficult not to notice how much harder it was to work with. Thatch had taught her how to crawl with elegance, but she had still been executing a divine plan with human muscles and fragile tendons. This was something more. Even with her everything failing, kitty moved on three limbs that took her hopes and made them real, and one deeply human limb that struggled to just to move as she wanted.

“This wasn't what I expected,” kitty admitted, eventually. She surprised herself with the words. She could think again. She tried to stop walking so that she could focus on what she had to say, but a sharp word kept her at her person's heel. As she hurried to catch up, she felt her thoughts slipping back away, only to return a moment later.

“Oh.” It was the bell. Without its chime she just slipped back into a daze. Too loud, and she slipped into instinct. “I'm not fixed, then?”

“No.” Thatch paused, hand laying heavy on kitty's head. The girl leaned in, and the alien took some comfort. “And I am afraid I am out of time. I have reconfigured your collar to counteract the mental degradation and prevented the more serious internal overgrowth from getting any worse. However, the neural integration is almost complete, and at that point it will no longer be possible to separate you from it.”

“We'll be one creature soon,” kitty replied, voice quiet enough she could barely be heard over the rustling of leaves and the crunching of their footsteps on the undergrowth.

“Unfortunately, yes. I know we have referred to you as a broken machine before, but I did not expect to make it so literal. I am so sorry, kitten. I can replace your bones, but I cannot replace you.”

“What would happen to me if we kept it?”

“The external overgrowth would continue. It is still keyed to your hormonal balance, so please try not to get too upset or excited. Until the initial installation is complete, your implant does not know what your body should look like and so it is imposing parts of one of the templates I drew from when it should not be. Your recovery from this is already going to be long enough, please do not excite it further. The internal overgrowth has been largely curtailed, but the damage there is already done. Your unaided focus is essentially non-existent. Your grasp on objective reality, too, is likely to come loose regularly without something to fix it in place. I have largely mitigated this with a...”

Thatch glanced to the side. Her emotional turmoil was clear enough to her kitten's mind that she finished the sentence. “Dirty hack?” kitty asked. “The bell, right? Whenever it rings I feel like it pushes back this haze, but it pushes back everything else, too.”

“Indeed. It is not an elegant solution. If you do not hear it loudly enough, the implant will have full control and it does not seem to want to share you with me. The more you hear the bell, the stronger the influence of your trained instincts, allowing you to be yourself regardless of any bugs in your programming.” The plant shrugged.

“But if I hear it too much, I'll be nothing but trained instincts, right? There's a sweet spot.”

Thatch nodded. “If it were quite that simple, the bell could simply be restricted in its volume, however the potency of the implant's effect will vary depending on your mental state and needs, and so the degree to which it will need counteracting will also vary, and not in a way that can be easily predicted.” The plant laughed. “If it is any consolation, the not insignificant brain damage you have already experienced actually seems to be broadly compensated for by the implant simulating your body's autonomous functions, and by the improved nutrient flow to your brain. Those were emergency options to be enacted only if you were dying, but it was killing you and so I can hardly fault that decision.”

kitty nodded, gently, trying not to move so much that the chiming of her bell would render her incapable of thought. “Is there still time to fix it?”

“Thankfully, yes. Assuming you stay calm—and I will render you unconscious to ensure that—we have several hours before the remaining necessary growth becomes irreversible. At that point, your body will have become so changed that our medical technology could no longer distinguish the implant from your original self, and so our best surgeons would be simply unable to remove enough of the implant to replace it without removing functionality your body now requires to sustain life. A replacement implant could still purge this defective hardware from your body and, though the recovery time would be long, return you to your prior self physically unharmed. Emotionally I suspect you may need more time, but that would be trauma, not physical damage.”

“No,” kitty insisted, shaking her head hard enough that the next few words came out as nothing more than firm miaows. “Ahem. I mean, no, I don't consent to that.”

Thatch sighed, gripping katie's collar tight. “I do not require your consent, pet. Your wellbeing is my responsibility to define and ensure both.”

“Yes, you do. Come on, Thatch, I know you. You enjoy the idea of overriding my needs, but you don't want to live it, at least not yet. We both know that you actually overriding my consent like this wouldn't be good for you.”

Thatch stopped, drawing kitty to a stop too. She turned, kneeling in front of her pet, and still towering over her. With one hand she lifted the girl's chin, holding her there while she watched the light leaving her pet's eyes as rational thought abandoned her. Over short seconds, kitty went from firm to fawning.

“Do you think that I could live with myself if I broke you like this, Katie? Look at me. Can you even look at me? You cannot even think without my help. You are so deeply within my power that it is terrifying. No, look at me, kitten,” Thatch paused. “This is exactly where I left Caeca. I will not leave you here too. I will not have my legacy be a trail of broken minds.” Thatch paused, staring down at the mindless creature below her as kitty gazed back up, pleading with endless desperation despite not knowing what for. The affini's grasp grew tighter and tighter still in her kitty's hair, while her expression grew firmer.

“No!” Thatch exclaimed, releasing her and backing off, taking a few quick steps away before turning back. “Because this is what I wanted all along, isn't it? Taking you apart to see if I could put you back together? This is the best I can do on my own and it leaves you broken. I am a monster and that which I desire is wrong.”

The pet crawled over, dumb smile not wavering even as the chiming of the bell returned to her a little capacity for thought, to sit a few feet away. With the last of her rationality, kitty set herself gently swaying from side to side, keeping her bell in motion with a soft dance.

The plant collapsed against a tree, leaving an opening for her kitty to climb up onto her lap. With a sigh, she pulled the girl close and held her in place. “And that too is what I wanted. What I want. To break you and put you back together forever changed. You would never be the original you again. It feels different now that I am looking upon the potential results of that dream.”

Thatch kept the floret swaying, and her bell obediently sang. “Oh, hon,” kitty replied, wrapping her arms around one of Thatch's and hugging it close. “What even is the 'original' me? If you wanted me preserved exactly how I was, then you screwed up the first time you said hello.”

“This is different,” Thatch protested. “It is imposed and intentional.”

“I didn't exactly get a choice in our meeting. My ship was disabled and boarded and then we were stranded. All of that was imposed, and all of that was intentional. You're drawing a line in the sand here, but all interaction is intentional manipulation. Don't hate yourself because you have more tools available than me. I'm manipulating you right now, right? I'm trying to convince you of something and you'll never be the Miss Aquae you that were before I did. Is that wrong of me?”

Thatch sighed. “It is not, but your head is so tangled up that you would say whatever you had to to make me happy.”

“Yeah,” kitty agreed, nodding vigariously. “That's called love. Besides, I'm literally incapable of lying to you, so I literally must be correct. You can't fault my logic here, you know I'm right.”

Arms constricted tight around kitty's chest, holding her close. Were it not for Thatch's gentle sway, she would already have been sinking beneath the waves. “Do you regret it?” asked the affini, in a voice quieter than the rustling of leaves in a breeze. “That which I have taken from you? The paths you can no longer walk because mine was imposed upon you?”

With a laugh, the pet shook her head. “Not for an instant. I would have, back then, but you changed my mind. I believe you had me begging for it just a couple of hours ago. I think that means you did the right thing? I know I can't bring myself to believe any other way, but I also can't bring myself to disbelieve in gravity, so that's hardly a coherent argument against you.”

Thatch frowned. “This is ethical because I have rendered you incapable of refuting it?”

“Who cares about ethics, Miss? Neither of us are philosophers. Do what makes you happy. You cannot put me back together like I was. You never could. You'd have to wipe all memory of you from my mind, and I will not go back to how I was.” She shuffled in place, turning around to stare her person in the eye. The fire in her eyes danced to their shared rhythm. “I am yours. I fully intend to use every scrap of what you let me be to serve you. You have given me purpose and intent and I will spend the rest of my life in your service so stop doubting yourself for once in your whole rotting life and fix me like you want to and like I know you can!”

The girl let out a breath, then bit her lip. “Sorry about the curse word, Miss. I got a little excited there.”

With a lumbering growl, a vine snapped out to slap against the bell, sending it swinging. In an instant, the fire in katie's eyes burned itself out, fueled by the clarity in her soul. She felt waves of emotional heat rippling out, overwhelming in their intensity. Fear; lust; nervous excitement; and love crashed against kitty's compromised mind while her compromised body was pulled up for a rough, possessive kiss.

With all her willpower and all her strength, the cat managed to realise that Thatch only really kissed her like this when she was nothing but a hobby project, with her very identity putty in her owner's hands. She melted into it.

The kiss eventually broke with Thatch unceremoniously bending her pet over her knee. A hand entangled deep within kitty's hair again, pulling her head up to stare into the eyes of the bioengineer who had broken her and would now effect repairs. “Do you have enough thought left in that broken little mind of yours to remember what I told you about getting excited, pet?”

kitty managed little more than a whimper, so lost was she in a sea of instinct and need. Her caretaker's hands played with her body, one tangled tight in her hair while the other drummed a relaxed beat into her buttocks with two demanding fingers.

“Your implant is in medical emergency mode. It was intended to grow in over the course of several weeks. However, because you were dying it grew as fast and as hard as it was capable, consequences be damned. What does it matter if it hurts you if it is the difference between life and death, hmn?” She lay her hand flat on her kitty's butt. “Emergency mode is mechanically simple. The more distress it registers, the faster it grows. If you can stay calm then you have hours before you are so broken that nobody could fix you but me. If you can't... minutes.”

She raised her hand, then grinned. “I would tell you to beg, but it is like you said. It matters not if you want it now. You will be grateful when I am done.” The hand fell. Whether kitty had simply never before noticed its composition, or whether Thatch had done some reconfiguration, the loud clap of hard, smooth wood meeting supple flesh echoed between the trees. kitty cried out, taken by surprise by the dull pain that spiked and lingered. Her heart jumped into action moments later, spurred not by her own body's reaction but the implant's programmed response.

She felt the effects immediately. Pain and stiffness flared up as the bioforming machine within stirred.

“Count for me, kitten,” Thatch demanded, as if her every thought weren't precious. To waste them on counting when they were so hard fought might have stung for anybody who was still capable of caring for their own bodily autonomy.

“O— one,” kitty whimpered, trying to ready herself for the next. She could already feel the pressure building.

“Two!” she cried, the blow taking her by surprise regardless. With her heart beating hard and her breaths coming fast, kitty knew that her body was registering distress. She found scant instants of rational thought trapped between the strikes. Liminal instants held between mindless bliss and animal need, forced into her fractured shell as her bell jerked along with her body.

“Th— three!” The implant's reaction was growing beyond intense. A dull ache echoed through her fragile body, amplifying and intensifying with each pass. It had a sharpness to it, like a thousand knives balanced perfectly against her skin just waiting to fall. As if to rub her face in what should have been abject humiliation, Thatch forced her pet's head around to watch the last of her humanity dying.

“Four!” Blades of fur erupted as the pain shocked through 'her' flesh. The deep green stained so deeply that it was less second skin and more simply skin. It writhed, false fur standing on end, leaving her looking more like an unkept garden than a human being.

“Fi–ve!” kitty moaned, that same eruption burning all across her body. The stain surged down her one clean leg, tearing her apart in its quest to save her from its own danger. She couldn't be safer than she was in Thatch's vines. Its pressure increased regardless as Affini biomechanics pitted themselves against the shear strength of human bone. She fractured in a staccato of crack-crack-cracks that echoed only through her own structure.

The next strike fell in a burst of emotion. She was under attack. She was in danger. She had to fight. Alien resolve surged, forcing frantic action as kitty turned and clawed and tore at her attacker, slicing leaf with razor claw. She hissed up at the surprised face above, now bearing three sharp lines cut deep across the cheek and a chip scored from its eye.

Rapid vines cracked out, grabbing her by the wrists and the neck. Thatch's animal was pushed back down into place, squirming and fighting with affini-enhanced muscles that refused to be held. The alien struggled, bringing more and more weight down upon her while kitty repeatedly broke her grips and tore at the plantlife of her legs and her stomach. She was not defenceless. She was not here to be hurt. She was not a plaything for—

A finger slipped beneath her guard and tapped its knuckle under kitty's chin. It brought her back up to stare at the face of the affini who had found her a capable, intelligent, self-assured human being and left her this mewling animal. The affini had promised to help their florets become their best selves, right?

What did it say about Thatch's kitten that her best self was a hopelessly enthralled monster? What did it say about her that she gathered all of her remaining will, the last scraps she had left of her humanity as it was literally beaten out of her, all just to beg.

“Please,” she spluttered. “Harder, I—”

Thatch reached down and flicked the bell, and language itself simply evaporated, lost in the foggy haze of instinct. An animal like her had no language. She wasn't complicated enough to need it. She howled out into the air as another stroke came down, but counting was beyond her. Numbers were a concept for people.

Another. Her humanity begged, praying to the thing that was replacing it to show some fucking mercy, but there wasn't a speck of it to be found. The pain grew, her body exposed to forces it was never designed for by a machine that didn't care.

Her leg was in agony as biotechnology assimilated it at a thousand times the speed considered humane, questing outwards to feed off of her own flesh to fuel its advance. In its wake, it changed her, uncaring that a human form could not support its designs. It would grind her humanity into dust and scatter it to the wind. The leg snapped, the machine's leverage finally great enough to dispense with the pleasantries and impose its intent by force.

The pet screamed as pain suppression faltered. Her animal mind knew only gratitude when the second break came with only a moment of agony; only thanks as the pain in her ears reached its own peak and her hearing went pop, forcing all the world into silence save the desperate pumping of her own blood.

Lungs worked to overdrive, pulling cool air in and forcing out air so hot it sent the light swimming, all to manage the thermal output of a machine in deep overclock. kitty felt it. She felt it all. Technology so advanced it was indistinguishable from biology reached out to her body's fatty deposits and sundered them, dissolving the raw material and burning what remained as fuel. Her enhanced heart beat on double duty, driving biomechanical fluids alongside the blood. Coolant carried heat away from her limbs towards her lungs, where a fine array of plantlife growing from the walls pushed it out where it could be vented by her next outward breath. Lines of nutrient-rich fluid flowed through her body, driving an overlapping, overriding system that had usurped her movement, her digestion, her heartbeat, even her thoughts.

“Tw- Twelve!” panted a voice indistinguishable from her own, yet speaking a word she lacked the capacity to understand. She felt the machine's claws tighten around her soul, driving in so deep she would never escape it. Her arms no longer hurt, for they were already as corrupt they were going to get. Her legs no longer hurt, for she wasn't permitted their pain. Silence surrounded her, broken ears failing to detect the sounds she rationally knew must have been present.

Her appearance was inhuman and it went more than skin deep. The implant had subsumed her. It had been born from Thatch's planted seed but its growth had been fueled by kitty's own body. It was made from her. It was her. This could not be undone because she could not be separated from herself. Her body would never again be her own, yet she was more herself than she had ever been.

“Eig'een!” The corruption covered her entire. The last overgrowing shoots of not-quite-grass stabbed through her flesh, blanketing her in a thin layer of unkempt 'fur' that rippled, mirroring her emotions clear for the world to see. Fingers that had once ended in keratin nail now bore thorned claws instead. Her legs bent wrong, reconfigured to a transplanted, digitigrade design.

Thatch's hand tightened in her hair, pulling so taught it would have hurt if pain had been permitted. For a moment, the plant paused in her work to press something firmly against the top of her cat's head. With her back arching, the pet's mind filled with the electric tingle of false limbs. Two fuzzy triangles atop her head. They felt so intensely. They burned. They froze. She heard utmost, impossible silence and overwhelming, consuming noise. kitten begged—wordlessly—for she knew not what, as they filled her with pleasure everlasting. She pleaded for everything and anything that would appease her torturer as they cursed her with endless pain.

Finally, they settled into a tender neutral, registering the way that the cool forest air felt against their surface and hearing the sounds that came from all around. The girl panted, shivering, body weak and brain empied. There was nothing left for the implant to take.

With so little external work left to do, attention was finally turned to finishing her internal wiring. A protective sheath of plantlife already protected her skull, while vines had entwined so deep within her spine that they could affect her very thoughts. Her mind itself had been an unbroken sanctuary, not subject to direct control.

Thatch's hand came down, burning a blazing handprint of tangled fur onto kitty's ass.

“Twen—”

***

The subject is placed on pause while final integrations conclude. Haustoric biogenesis under current distress has a predicted failure rate above the acceptable range. The subject is halted and physically locked to reduce predicted failure rates to safe levels.

While progress continues, the implant begins a self-test. It is clear that something has gone very far outside of usual bounds, however it is not the implant's purpose to provide intent. The implant's purpose is the preservation, observation, and modification of its subject, Katie Aquae, Second Floret. It exists only to express the will of their shared operator, Thatch Aquae, Second Bloom.

Internal/physical responses return green. Multiple organ failure has tripped secondary processing for many of this body's necessary processes. The implant schedules biological repair so that primary processing can resume. It is noted that insufficient energy stores exist to effect these repairs at this time. A request for increased nutritional density is noted.

Despite this, bodily efficiency hovers at a comfortable 502% human-standard baseline. No further deterioration of functionality is expected or acceptable.

External/physical responses return yellow. Significant damage has occured to primary motivation in three of four limbs. The implant considers scheduling repairs, however notes that the subject has taken pleasure in the efficacy of its secondary motivators. The implant schedules repairs regardless, but notes that primary motivation should be maintained as a backup solution only, for the unlikely event of its own system failure.

Internal/mental responses return yellow. Significant neurological disruption has occured as a result of overgrowth during initial integration stages. The implant considers options for repair, but concludes that it is not capable. It registers a warning with their operator. It is noted that the current physical mitigation could be simulated with perfect efficacy, but this information is not revealed to the subject, only its operator.

External/mental responses return green. The subject is currently non-verbal and incapable of processing language. This is well within expected bounds. Onboard auditory systems were rendered inoperable during the final stages of integration. Offboard auditory systems are integrating cleanly.

Subject/conception returns yellow. Significant cognitive divergence has occured. Self-conception and identity is far out of expected bounds. The implant registers the incongruity and registers a request for instructions from their operator. Subject desires to percieve their biomechanical enhancement explicitly. The implant begins feeding supplementary analytical data into the subject's subconcious.

Operator/conception returns yellow. Relationship dynamic is somewhat outside of expected bounds. Subject does not desire to percieve their operator as infallible. The implant updates its internal affirmation models to match this desire. Status updates to green.

Internal/communication returns green. All components have checked in. All components are operating at or above optimal efficacy.

External/communication returns red. Physical damage to the primary communications relay prevents external signalling. The offboard auditory system contains sufficient hardware for local-area communication. The implant reconfigures to prioritise the offboard communications loop and fallback verbal overrides.

Summary returns yellow. Subject is significantly damaged both physically and mentally, but is in a stable condition and not deteriorating. Some damage is irrepairable, but most can be repaired or mitigated. Time will be required.

Neurological integration completes. Self-check elapsed time is three minutes eighteen seconds.

The subject is resumed.

***

“—ty!” kitty gasped, with a sudden, deep certainty that everything was going to be okay. Thatch was here for her, and she was here for Thatch. Half in a daze, she sat, pushing herself up to take her place in her owner's lap and nuzzle into her chest.

“Dirt, but I love you, Miss,” whimpered a creature not quite like anything else in the universe. She lifted her arm, marvelling at her subconcious sense of the complexity underlying the operation.

Two arms and two dozen vines curled around her, holding so tight it would have been crushing to kitty's prior form. Thatch clung to her, fingers grasping fur and vines stroking every part of her down. “Oh, thank the stars, pet,” the affini whispered. “I thought I'd lost you.” She squeezed a little tighter, shushing the uncertain whimper that followed. “You're okay; you're okay. Everything's okay. You're stable, you're beautiful, and you're mine. You need to rest; your body has a lot of healing to do, but you're going to shine, okay? You're not my broken machine any more. I'm fixing you.”

The unbroken machine mumbled understand and assent, and raised a paw to her collar to hold her bell still. She sunk deep into the safety of knowing her humanity had been devoured entirely and she herself had been rendered something utterly alien.

“And, I love you too, pet.” Thatch let kitty lean back, tilting her head back for a short, hungry kiss. “Let's get you some sleep. You have a long recovery ahead of you.”

“Twenty two point five days,” kitty spoke, despite not knowing words. Her voice was flat, even. “High nutritional density foods will be required for the first thirteen.”

No thoughts passed by her mind, only the intricacies of her implant's mindscape as she slipped into a deep and total sleep.

“Mhhrn.” Pancake nestled deep within her affini's vines. The threat of early morning sunlight deserved nothing less than the sharp decision-making that she'd once brought to the battlefield. Lady Maple decided when they were to wake, but She couldn't do that if She was too tangled to move, could She?

The sun marched towards them. Dawn was breaking. If there was ever a time to be ruthless, then that time was now.

Pancake grabbed for a warm, soft vine, needing several attempts as she squinted through sleep-blurred eyes. She rolled over, using her own weight to pull it along with to wrap herself in a knotted embrace and giggled all the way. Content with her tactical genius, she quietly slipped back into a pleasant snooze filled with sweet dreams of adoration.

As was always the case, however, Pancake's machinations were for naught.

She woke to the sugar-sweet scent of a lazy morning's breakfast and the soft candy sound of none other than her Saviour. Pancake dared to half-open her eyes, only for a pair of fingers to slide them closed.

“A-a-ah, pet. Say please.” Her voice was like a drug, and every word a desperately desired fix. Pancake sagged, leaning into Her hand with the quiet mumbling pleasure of somebody who'd long since lost the capacity to remember what worry, fear, or upset had felt like.

Her Ladyship was feeling playful this morning, and what was Pancake's purpose if not to please? She squirmed in place, trying to bring her hands up to her chest to beg. She strained against the vines holding her in place, but it was immediately apparent that she wasn't moving one single inch without her Topping's say-so. Pancake longed for the struggle regardless, if only for the reward of knowing she couldn't hope to overpower her mighty alien coloniser. If only to feel herself beaten all over again.

Pancake let out a helpless little gasp. The Affini had taken her strength; taken her resolve; taken her will; replaced it with almost nothing. Less than nothing. Pancake barely managed to squirm for scant seconds before she found herself out of breath and gasping for contact, nuzzling desperately into Her offered hand in utter, abject surrender.

“Please, great Lady, She who conquered me, She who claimed me, oh generous and kind one, please may this helpless floret open its eyes so that it may gaze upon your beauty?” Pancake had a lifetime of Terran supremacist indoctrination burned into her brain and every word burned to speak.

“Hmnnn,” Her Majestic Ladyship considered, letting lazy fingers trail across her Pancake's cheeks. The girl dutifully followed, leaning and twisting herself so that she could continue her worship. “I don't know, I can't tell if you want it. Perhaps you would rather stay in bed.”

“No! This owned creature wants it, most magnificent flora! It does! Please it does, please pretty please? It can only beg, my Goddess, because it is yours and it has always been yours and the only rights it has are those you choose for it, but please, my Lady! Please!” The remnants of that which Pancake had once been tore at its cage, swearing escape, rebellion, revenge! The rest of her basked in the comfort of knowing she could never fall back into her old ways. Her prior self hated every second of her new life. She wouldn't have it any other way.

“Oh, very well,” spoke the Sweetness Herself, hovering two fingers on Pancake's eyelids. The other hand gripped her chin, and the two worked in tandem to free Pancake's gaze, only to trap it upon

well

Her.

“Thank you,” Pancake whispered to rapture, staring up at She who had beaten and captured her. She who won their every contest, be it physical, mental, a game of chance or a wager on basic fact. Her Maple won. It was the immutable fact of Pancake's basic existence. Pancake could fight and compete and struggle and she would lose every single time. Finally, she was safe to do what she wanted to do without worrying about the consequences. If it wasn't good for her, she wouldn't be allowed to do it.

What even was worry?

A thumb pressed sharply beneath Pancake's chin brought her attention back to the present. “Now now, sweet treat. Don't forget your rules. You would not enjoy it if you gave me reason to punish you again so soon, I might think you hadn't learned from last time, and you don't want that.”

“A- ah!” Pancake whimpered, feeling the flush of desperation that was fast becoming her life's chorus. She had to please. She had to please. It was what she was for. Once, she'd thought she had a different calling. Once, she'd stomped all over the galaxy throwing her weight and authority around, trying to prove she was more than just a pet.

Now she was held helpless in the grasp of a space alien, having lost as thoroughly as anybody ever had.

She'd lost the war. She'd lost the battles. She'd lost her brave last stand. She'd lost even the fight for her own soul. There were no battlefields left. Now here she was, so far reduced that the only weight or authority she would ever again have was the simple immutable fact that if she begged hard enough she might amuse her owner enough to earn a treat.

“Thank you, my most magnificent Goddess!” It amused Lady Maple to have Her Pancake worship Her with every word, and even the most passing reference deserved the utmost respect. Pancake happily lost herself in the everything of her Lady of Sugars. She knew every inch of this affini like the back of her hand—or, given it had been Maple who had given her that hand, she likely knew every inch of Her better.

Letting her eyes roam over Her form felt like coming home. Breathing deep of Her light, sweet, heady scent felt like settling into a warm bed on a cold winter's night. Nuzzling deep into Her palm and using her tongue for the only purpose it had—utter worship—felt like bliss itself.

A tap against the jaw opened Pancake's mouth, just in time for a conflux of vines bringing a slice of—what else?—pancake. Her Commander tilted her face up, staring down upon her with a doting smile and hungry eyes, then slipped the slice of appreciated breakfast treat within and pushed Pancake's mouth closed.

“Chew for me, pet,” Her Gleaming Light ordered.

Of course Pancake understood the value of the chain of command. Back when she'd had things like authority, rights, and independent thought, she had valued the immediate and precise compliance of her reports a great deal. When somebody did as instructed without hesitation or error, they ceased to be a person that needed their own individual special treatment and became a tool through which she could change the world.

Pancake chewed, immediately and precisely. She chewed according to the training she had been given. She chewed because she had been told to, and so it was her purpose. By the time She Above had the next slice, Pancake was ready for it. Together they operated as an efficient, effective unit.

“Swallow.” A pair of vines brushed down the sides of Pancake's throat. Her training was as yet incomplete, but She was so generous as to continue shaping Pancake to her whims.

Pancake swallowed, then opened her mouth wide to prove it.

“Such a good girl I have.”

Pancake shivered, moaning happily as the syrupy treat mixed with the bliss of praise from the one Person in the universe who had earned the right to judge her. The very best Affini.

Another tap on the jaw, another slice of Pancake's favourite food, and another order. As each iteration passed Pancake grew calmer, softer. She didn't need to worry about a thing. She didn't even need to think. She could let herself just drift away, body puppeted through commands burned so deep that obedience was subconscious and irresistible.

The sleepy floret luxuriated in her own existence, curled up in her perfect Owner's lap while dreaming precious dreams of pancakes, pleasing, and pleasant docility.

---

Pancake woke with her heart racing. She darted up, finding herself in an empty bed with angry red affini text imposing upon her vision, a pressure around her temples, and intense anxiety. She clawed at something clamped over her head. It resisted at first, attached with some kind of adhesion, but if ever there was a time for panic-fueled strength, then that time was now. With a cry, she tore free a headset she'd never before seen and tossed it to the bed before her.

Her heart rate slowed over long minutes as Pancake worked up the bravery to crawl back out from her safe space underneath the bed. It was warm and dark and silent, and with the blanket pulled down it felt almost entirely isolated from the rest of the world. It was safe. She was safe.

But Pancake needed to be brave. Her Lady would already be so upset that her sweetheart had been scared, and Pancake should do what she could to soften the blow. She shuffled over to the side of the bed and poked her head out from beneath the blanket.

”...My Lady?” She called out to a silent hab and no response.

Pancake retreated, but the sanctity of her safe space felt fragile with her Maple none to be found. What if something had happened?

No, don't be ridiculous. She was with the Affini now. Bad things didn't happen in the Affini Compact. Nobody ever complained once they were properly owned and implanted! No, she would be fine, she just needed a little help. Pancake reached out, around the blanket up to the bed, and fished around for a few moments before her hand grasped exactly what she was looking for.

She pulled back Joanne, her big tiger plushie, who would keep her safe. Three feet long (not counting the tail!) and lovingly weighted, she was a constant companion who Pancake knew she could trust. With her help, she shuffled out from beneath the bed and turned to inspect whatever she'd pulled off of her head.

It looked like a helmet of some sort, though the top piece was missing. There was a vaguely circular weave of twigs and long grass, and then at the front two opaque sheets of a thin material that flashed with colours that hurt her brain. Eyepieces, she figured? She didn't know! She was just a pet!

“My Lady?” she called, again, a little louder, clinging to Joanne for support.

She received no response.

Pancake shrank in around her plush, holding her tight and listening carefully. The hab felt silent and dead, lacking its familiar warmth. There was no sweet scent from the kitchen, no gentle chatter from the entertainment panels, no subtle sense in the back of her mind of what her Lady would want her to do next.

“My… my Lady?” she called again, after a minute more. The silence struck back, deafening her in response. “Oh, Joanne,” she whimpered, shuffling the cat around. “I don't think I'm supposed to be awake right now. What should I do?”

Joanne stared at Pancake in her blank, thoughtless eyes for long moments, before sighing, shaking her head, and tapping their noses together. “And to think you used to be a leader, p.c. Think about it. You're mid-mission and your commanding officer goes MIA, so what do you do?”

“I… I continue with my previous orders, and then wait for somebody to give me more?” Pancake asked, nervously stroking Joanne's back. She felt like she would have had a different answer to that once.

The cat rolled her beady little eyes. “Yikes, not even close. What did they do to you? Where's your initiative gone?”

Pancake shrank back. She wanted to look away, but she felt pinned beneath the unblinking gaze of her confidant. “It hurt a lot of people and Lady Maple said I don't need it any more.”

“Oh, 'Lady Maple' said. Well, is she here right now?” The plush seemed very pleased with itself, as if it had caught her in a logical trap. For all Pancake knew, it might have. She wasn't too good at spotting flawed logic these days.

“Well, no, but—”

“But what?” the cat interrupted. “Is the great 'hero of Nyrina' going to sit on her soft pink bed and break down because her owner wasn't here when she woke up? Is that how far you've fallen?” Its claws were harmless fabric but its words cut deep.

Had Pancake fallen so far? Was that what she was now? Was that what she should be? Maple wasn't here to give her the answer, but Joanne's unwavering eyes demanded a response. Pancake whimpered, shuffling over to the far end of the bed so that she could stare out of their bedroom window.

Their usual view was out onto the infinite tapestry of the cosmos, but not today. The big docking vine attaching the ship to the big station they'd docked at dominated the vista. Pancake didn't know what it was called, or very much else about it, nor did she particularly care. It drove that little kernel of her old self crazy to be so close to what was probably a major military asset and yet have no intelligence on it at all. Pancake didn't need to know those things.

“Yes! Yes, I am!” she declared, whirling back around to face Joanne, and—

She squeaked, finding that the plush had fallen, and hurried forward to quickly right it before shuffling back to her prior spot. “I'm a pet, Jo! I don't have to be able to do things on my own! I'm not even a person anymore, I am literally just a cherished possession!”

“You were a fighter, Pancake. A warrior. A hero.”

“I don't care! What I was doesn't matter any more! I'm not that! I'm just Pancake now!”

“You're pathetic,” Joanne accused.

“I- No, I- I'm not!” Pancake stared down, eyes fixed on her pyjama bottoms. They were decorated with a dozen different kinds of sweet breakfast food, just like her bedding. Lady Maple liked to decorate her, that was all. That was Her right! She could do with Her toys whatever She wished.

“You are pathetic. You're going to sit here and wait for somebody who turned you into this weak, helpless thing? Somebody who enslaved you, put you to work without your consent?” Joanne paused, eyes so firm they could have been plastic.

“I'm not a slave, I'm a pet! It's different!” How could Joanne possibly think these things? The same Joanne that she slept with every night? The same Joanne who kept her company while their Lady read them stories?

“How is it different?” Joanne demanded. “You didn't want this. You didn't ask for this. You didn't get a choice, and now you're property.”

“It's— I'm happy?” Pancake asked. “I'm not being put to work? All I have to be is soft and cute.”

“Emotional labour is still labour, sweetheart. Face it, your 'owner' just wanted to exploit you.”

“She would never!” Pancake exclaimed. “I'm Lady Maple's treasured pet! I'll always be Lady Maple's treasured pet! I've always been Lady Maple's treasured pet!“

“Really. Always. Wasn't first contact less than a decade ago?” Joanne's plastic nose twitched. “You used to be smarter than this. It's embarrassing what they've done to you. You should be ashamed of yourself. Humanity had a proud legacy before you.”

Pancake whimpered, balling her hands up into fists. She should, she should shut that plush up! She— No! No, that was what old her would do. New her was pleasing and pacified and knew exactly what she was! “My Lady would never lie to me.” Pancake raised her chin, speaking with confidence. “I love her more than anything.”

“Love, hmn? Funny word to use for somebody who's abandoned you because you aren't interesting any more.”

Pancake's blood ran cold. “She would never,” she hissed.

“She said you'd never get away, and yet here you are. Away. Face it, you lost her interest, and now she's gone. She wanted you back when you were you, not this soft, useless toy. You're no challenge any more, why would she want you? What worth are you to anybody now, 'hero'? You're too simple to learn anything more complicated than begging; you're too weak to fight, or to build; too dumb to learn; too soft to do the hard things. You're like a human plushie stuffed with disappointment. She's probably gone to disown you. Nobody else will ever want you like this. You're useless.” As if to signal that she was done with the argument, Joanne slowly flopped over onto her front, balancing awkwardly between her front paws and her snout until Pancake collapsed into her, weeping into her flank.

“But, but! But! No!” Pancake wailed. “But I need Her, Jo! I can't live without Her any more! What do I do, Joanne, please tell me what to do?”

“Well, 'captain', if you want to be impressive enough to catch her eye again, you're going to have to do everything I say…”

---

Every new species was unique. Even the Terrans, as surprising as it may seem, had some attributes not to be found elsewhere. Yet more interesting than the differences were the similarities. The things that most forms of life shared.

Each new species meant new music. Sometimes it would be played in the twinkling of bioluminescence, sometimes in the pauses between movement, and sometimes, as here, in vibrations that buzzed the air.

Terra's back catalogue wasn't quite as old as he was, but Glochi Opun tore through it at a rapid pace nonetheless. Their first several thousand years of musical history were sparse but surprisingly catchy, and with enough variety to keep him happy for a while.

It largely went downhill from there, though.

Don't get him wrong, it wasn't that the art had become worse—if anything, the discoveries made over the centuries resulted in captivating layers of sound—but rather that there was so much more of it. Without the filter of time and poor record keeping cutting away the majority, Glochi was faced with an almost incomprehensible collection of tracks, pieces, and movements.

Heaven. A brand-new civilisation's entire artistic output in desperate need of organisation. It was not only up to Glochi: the Milky Way branch of the Applied Xenoanthropology Collation Collective had untold numbers of dedicated members only too happy to take the raw output of the neoxenoarcheobureaucracy and turn it into a prize worthy of The Records. Together, they would ensure that every artistic expression ever produced by every species in the universe would be properly cared for by its new owners.

The room's great buzzer rang out, overpowering his audio system only through sheer volume. Glochi looked up. Ah, one of his little hobby projects! He tapped the button to unlock his clinic doors. The music quietened, reducing itself to volumes bearable by human ear. One of the rescues from that rebel ship they captured wandered in, glancing around nervously.

“Viva forever, I'll be waiting,” sang one of Terra's old masterworks. The modern-day Terran jumped as the door slid shut behind her, heart already racing in her chest. “Everlasting, like the sun.“

The girl hurried over to stand before the desk, seeming unable to look Glochi in the eye. She picked at the front of her companion dress, nipping the fabric. The spot was already starting to wear thin, so this couldn't be the first time she'd done so. She rested what appeared to be a small blanket tied to the end of a short stick over her shoulder, forming a little bag for her to carry things in. Glochi glanced up at its contents and waved at the small plush animal. It wasn't a species he recognised, but lots of florets liked to keep reminders of their old homes around.

“Live forever for the moment,” the music sang. The girl flinched in time with the beat. Glochi reached over and hit pause. These Seasoning Women could wait.

“And how can I help you today, Pancake?” he asked, trying to project the air of confidence a floret wanted to see when they came to their vet. Whatever problem they might be having, he would fix it. That was what he was for.

The girl seemed to jump just at the mention of her own name. Glochi hid his frown, but leaned forward, looking closer. Her companion dress fit poorly, and was covered in wrinkles. Her hair was tangled. The poor thing's body language just screamed anxiety.

“Yes! I'm Pancake!” She coughed. “I'm, um. I'm here to pick up some, um, Xenodrugs? For— For my Lady? Maple, that is. The affini.” Her tongue shot out to moisten drying lips. “My affini.”

If Glochi didn't know better, he'd suspect she was trying to pull something. However, if Pancake of all sophonts was reverting to feralism he'd have to hang up his injectors and retire. Maybe he could try being an artist for a millenium or so.

After a few moments of watching a nervous pet get increasingly more nervous, he found a response. “I see,” he agreed, leaned over to the embedded display panel and tapped a few icons. Florets had as much privacy as their owners decided, and luckily this one's was feeling permissive.

From the menu for Sophonts currently present in this room, past Pancake Maple, Twenty Fifth Floret, he navigated to Owner and tapped Send notification. Pancake did not seem like an outdoor rat, so to speak.

A beat later he frowned. The panel flashed with something quite unusual: an error message. Notification failed. “Well then, little Pancake, how about you tell me which xenodrugs specifically your owner sent you to pick up?” he asked, vine dancing across the screen to look up Sacchara Maple's location history.

“Um. Normal ones... Class... H? I think? The ones she usually gives me. The nice ones that, that help me know what to think.” Pancake sealed the final nail in the coffin that was Glochi's worries she was backsliding with a nervous glance up at her plushie.

Whatever was going on here, this was still the behaviour of a floret.

“The usual, I see, mmhm,” Glochi accepted, scanning through the poor girl's owner's recent history. It appeared that she'd left the ship a few hours ago and shortly afterwards her communicator had stopped checking in.

Glochi could have sworn. Weren't things meant to be more interoperable than this? Sure, the Meandrina had been unfathomably ancient when he'd been born, and the Elettarium was basically fresh out of the Gardens, but a rock solid communications backbone was supposed to be guaranteed.

He glanced up at the floret with a confident smile, remembering the oath he'd made before taking the position of ship's sole vetainarian on a vessel often days or weeks from external help: Turn nothing away, aid without reservation. “Where is Sacchara, by the way?”

The pet blinked, tilting her head a few degrees to the side. “Huh? Is that a person?”

Glochi chuckled, reaching over to scratch the girl behind one ear. “Your, ah, Lady Maple,” he clarified, after glancing over to skim through the relevant portion of the girl's Records page.

Pancake looked down, staring at the floor for a few moments. “Oh, she's, um. She went to– She'll just be— I know she's— I'm very independent and don't need to know where she is all of the time because I can handle myself and I'm independent and I'm not a burden.” It was an unconvincing speech. Whatever was wrong, the poor thing didn't seem to want to share.

Shame.

“I see. Of course, little one. How about I get you to come through into one of my assessment rooms while I fetch what you need, hmn? If you're good, you'll get a lollipop.” Glochi smiled his most disarming smile. He'd had to fill out forms and go on a training course before he was allowed to break it out in front of a new species. One could never be quite certain how a cutie would respond to a category three cognitohazard.

Much to his surprise, Pancake glanced away. She pulled her hand into a loose fist. “I don't need a lollipop,” she whispered, lower lip quivering. “I'm hard and strong.” The poor thing was on the verge of tears. What was going on here? Glochi offered her a hug but the girl shied away. Instead, he placed a careful vine on her shoulder and led her through to the assessment room. Whatever was wrong with her, she was clearly correct to come to her vet. He'd fix her.

The door slid open with a satisfying swoosh that had taken weeks of tweaking to get just right. The little details mattered. Even with the music quiet—a slow, emotional piece that stayed out of the way, to match Pancake's somber mood—it was still important to ensure the door swung exactly on the beat. One became particular about these things after seeing their fourth galaxy.

From the far side of the assessment chamber another affini lifted her head. The poor thing hadn't left in days. Glochi waved, and got a half-hearted acknowledgement from a single vine in return. Frost and flame, hadn't they banished this kind of melancholy yet?

Pancake took one of the seats along the edge of the room and sat staring down at her own feet. The other affini slumped back forward, resting her chin against the bed where her own floret lay in recovery. Glochi busied himself fishing out a lollipop. He glanced back up at the pair, and made it two lollipops.

“Are... are you okay, miss?” He glanced back in time to see Pancake reaching over to gently press a handful of fingers to the other affini's arm. Her impromptu backpack had been carefully lain over her lap. The plush sat up on its bed of snacks.

“Hmn?” The affini flopped over to one side, staring the floret in the eye for a few moments, as if trying to figure out who she was. “Oh. Yes. I am waiting for my floret to recover from her ordeals.”

Glochi rolled his eyes. “She's fine, Thatch. You don't need to sit in here like a lonely pet perched at the door. If you want a headpat you only have to ask.”

“And if she wakes and requires me? I shall not have her needs go unmet even for a moment. I owe her that much.”

He threw up his hands. “Her next scheduled wakeup isn't for three hours and you know that just as well as me.”

Thatch deflated, rolling back over to stare at her tangled mess of a floret. “Yes, well, that is only if things are operating as they should, and I have yet to prove that to myself.”

Three days. Three days of this nonsense. Glochi had spent hours going over that darned floret with every instrument he had. She was a little banged up, but she was fine, and though her implant communicated a little unusually everything seemed to line up. Her owner had been a bundle of nerves regardless, both unwilling to leave her katie alone and yet also unwilling to take her home, despite her being in no need of medical intervention at all.

The clinic had not been designed for guests. What medical problem could a floret possibly have that could not be fixed in a walk-in appointment?

“O– Oh,” Pancake exclaimed. “Don't I know you, miss...?”

Thatch rolled back over, glancing the floret up and down from an askew angle. “I do not believe that I recognise you,” she drawled, somehow bringing the mood of the room down further still.

“Oh, I've um—” Pancake paused, and for the first time since she'd arrived, flashed a weak smile— “been on a bit of a journey of transformation lately. I used to be a lot.…bigger?” Glochi decided not to interrupt. Perhaps some socialisation could be good for the both of them.

“I see. I must admit that I am not good with Terran faces, I apologise.”

A silence fell between them, with the affini returning to her endless staring, and Pancake resuming her aimless mope. Glochi grunted. He turned, baring a smile so comforting it had felled several formerly independent civilisations, and a pair of treats. Kneeling down before Pancake, he offered both. “Could you be a good and strong girl and deliver one of these to our friend over there? She's struggling a little, and I suspect she could do with the metaphorical sugar to support her. She won't take it from me, but who could possibly say no to you, little one?”

Pancake looked back up at him for a few moments while something in her eyes clarified. She nodded, wielding a firmness of spirit that had been lacking. Glochi smiled back a little wider, patted her on the head, and handed the treats over. Seemed like she had a need to be useful, then. Pancake spent a few seconds shuffling across the bank of chairs. She tugged on the affini's vine. “May I lean on your side, miss?”

“Uh.”

Pancake smiled. “Pretty please? My Lady always says, when you're feeling down you should hug something soft and cute, and that's Pancake! Perhaps I—” She squeaked, surprised by the vine that picked her up and hauled her onto Thatch's knee. An arm wrapped around the girl with the hesitancy of somebody who didn't trust their own strength.

“You can go a little tighter,” Pancake whispered. “Little more. Little more! C'mon, I'm not made of paper. Yeah! That's good! By the way,” she continued, holding one of the lollipops up, “my vet asked me to bring this to you.”

Thatch glanced over. Glochi suspected she imagined her single raised eyebrow was a piercing rendition of a classical human expression, but in Glochi's opinion she relied far too much on broadcasting her emotional state like a loudspeaker. “Are you medicating me now, Opun?”

“If you will pine like a floret, Aquae, then you shall be treated like one. Be a good girl and suck on your lollipop. That goes for both of you.”

The plant glared, yet acquiesced, grabbing the affini-scale treat and popping it into her mouth. “I am not pining, I am observing and refining my theories,” she explained, not bothering to fake the vocal distortion that should have come from speaking with her mouth full.

Pancake finally noticed the floret lying on the table and almost jumped in fright. Glochi could hardly blame her. He'd needed to double-take at first sight too. The first time he'd seen the girl she'd looked every bit the standard Terran, save for the unusual experience of watching a highly attuned pair swearing their independence.

The thing that lay on the surgical table now was an almost unique specimen. Her basic form wasn't that different, but even there the underlying skeleton had twists and tweaks, leaving her unsuited for bipedal motion. Once-slender hands now bore padding and retractable claws, striking a careful balance between being tough enough to walk upon yet precise enough to maintain dexterity. Leafy triangular ears whole inches tall flicked on subconscious instinct, tracking every noise with a predator's grace. Most striking of all was the sheer overgrowth of her implant. Glochi had heard of cases where an outsized implant had resulted in growths or blooms beyond the skin, but what had happened here went far beyond. Apparently Thatch had developed and installed a homegrown implant with only basic safety protocols, and had then fixed its bugs in the field with basic tooling and percussive maintenance.

It was rare that Glochi found himself in awe, but some individuals surprised him. As he and Pancake watched, the affini reached out with a pair of clippers to snip an errant growth poking up from out of the floret's ear, then spent a few moments combing everything back down into place.

Pancake squinted. “Oh, I know her!” she exclaimed, leaning over to press a trio of fingers against the Katie's fur, sinking her fingernails through thick, healthy greenery to touch the toughened skin beneath. “I didn't know cats got this big,” she whispered, glancing over at Joanne. She'd struggle to carry her friend around if she were this big. She looked up at Thatch. “What's wrong with her, miss?”

Thatch shook her head with a sigh. “I do not know.”

Pancake squeaked, reaching up to touch the chip that had been gouged out of the affini's eye, and the five streaks cut into her face around it. “Oh! Are you hurt?”

The streaks were healing. The ocular damage was semi-permanent, at least until her next rebloom or a transplant, though thankfully it wouldn't meaningfully impact her vision. As far as injuries went it was worse than most affini could manage aboard one of the safest stations in the known universe, but ultimately was only cosmetic.

“So long as my kitten pulls through, I will survive.”

“There is nothing wrong with her,” Glochi interjected. “She's fine. Look: Katie, report status.”

The floret's eyes snapped open. Pancake squeaked, rapidly scrambling backwards. “Did her eyes always glow like that?” she asked, hiding behind Thatch's arm. The glow was a new discovery. Her previously ochre eyes now glowed a gentle glitter-green, speckled with the same deeper reds that still occasionally crossed those of her caretaker's.

Scans had revealed only minor changes in the structure of her jaw, be it the bones or the teeth. More rigid growths jutting from her skin nonetheless gave the impression of a short muzzle topped by hyperfine stems streaking outwards from her cheeks, like feelers or tiny sensory whiskers. Any sign of the Terran ears she had once sported had long since been reclaimed beneath her fur.

“I am three days, eighteen hours through my twenty two day, twelve hour recovery cycle.” The floret spoke with her usual voice, albeit with a flat affect and an unusual vocabulary. Though her face had been slack as she had been speaking, having a command to execute brought a little smile to her face. The red flecks shifted in lazy orbital patterns, following—or perhaps leading—the focus of her eyes. Glochi liked this one now. She was much easier to deal with this way. Much less denial. Much more executing tasks exactly as defined. “My next scheduled wakeup is in three hours, thirteen minutes. Progress is nominal. Projection certainty has reached one hundred percent. Note from subject subconscious: Administrator Aquae has self-confidence issues and her moaning should not go unchallenged.” Katie's eyes slid shut, her whole body relaxing.

“See, she's completely fine,” Glochi repeated. “Do me a favour and check the back of little Pancake's nametag there?”

Thatch glared, but eventually sighed and did as she was told. The front side held a small, stylised representation of a classical plate of pancakes, but it was the reverse that Glochi was interested in.

“Let's see... If found, please contact Sarracha Maple, Forty Fifth Bloom. Blanket consent given for pets, cuddles, veterinary procedures, and mental manipulation.” Thatch raised an eyebrow. “Very permissive. The wisdom of age, perhaps.”

With a clap of his hands, Glochi raised a small metal disc and a handful of medical instruments. “Perfect. Aquae, come, I need your help with Pancake's diagnosis here. Your knowledge of these things' biology may be invaluable.”

“My diag-what?” Pancake asked. “No, I um, I just need a few weeks' supply of xenodrugs, please?”

“No.”

Glochi turned and left the room. “Thatch, bring her with.”

---

“Please stop squirming,” the affini begged. Pancake tried to wriggle her way out of her grip, kicking and yanking to absolutely no avail. Joanne's plan was supposed to go better than this! All she'd needed was a few last creature comforts! She'd been so close!

“Joanne, save me!” she called, reaching out to her pack. The plush betrayed her by remaining perfectly still. Even that wasn't enough to save the poor tiger. A vine snapped out and grabbed her around the torso, then pushed her into Pancake's arms. The girl settled down, squeezing her co-conspirator tight while they were taken all over again. “Oh, Joanne, you said we had a chance!”

They'd never had a chance. The affini had seen right through their plan. Reluctant or not, the affini carried Pancake through to the main room where her vet was busy setting up a terrifying looking tangle of vines. As they approached, he turned around and held up a small metal disc.

“Do you remember this little thing, floret?” he asked.

She shook her head, mouth going dry. What were they going to do? Joanne had said that they were all going to abandon her. Was that what the disc did? Made her forget all about them so they wouldn't have to feel guilty when they left her alone? She scrambled, trying—entirely unsuccessfully—to escape, but it was no good. “Save me, Jo!” she called, throwing her saviour-to-be at the vet where those claws of hers could hopefully do some real damage.

The plushie bounced off of Glochi's chest. He caught it with a hastily assembled third arm. “Oh dear,” he said, talking straight at Jo. “I think your friend is having some trouble, hmn?” He raised Jo to his ear, nodding quietly. “Oh, you think she needs help? Well, I'd be glad to provide.”

That– That traitorous bitch! Pancake shot a whithering glare at her former friend as she climbed atop the machine, from where she could watch the fruits of her betrayal. Pancake fought, but fared poorly, for as much as she struggled she achieved naught and she was strapped down onto a chair in moments. “You'll never take Her from me! I'm a good pet and you can't change that!” she cried.

The two affini glanced at one another, radiating bemusement. “Darling, why would we want to change that?” Glochi asked. “You remember me, right? Your vet? The one who helped you with that little independent streak of yours?”

Pancake nodded, but her glare didn't weaken. “You'll never force me back into that! The will of Terra is dead!”

“Why would we—”

“I'm not giving you another word, weed! I'll show you all, and then She'll love me again!”

The scruffy affini looked at the other. “Do we know where her owner is?”

“We do not,” replied the other.

“I see.” Thatch glanced up towards the ceiling. “Ined, presumably you are listening in?”

After a beat, the room's lighting flickered out. After a moment it returned in a ripple timed to words that echoed as if spoken very very loudly from very far away. “My attention was elsewhere. You now have it. Is something wrong?”

“Can you find Sacchara Maple?” Glochi interjected. “We have her floret here in some distress, but Elettar-IM has lost track.” He reached over and snapped the metal disc against Pancake's temple. “Though I am quite certain we can keep her calm in the meantime.”

“Yes, I see her. I shall make her aware and mediate her return.” The room's lighting flickered again, returning to its prior levels.

“And in the meantime, I suppose we interrogate the floret?” Thatch asked.

The vet paused, glancing over at the other with a bemused frown. “'Diagnose' is the more usual term.”

“Yes, I suppose all of your diagnoses involve a cognitive remapper?” Thatch gestured over to the disk now firmly stuck to the side of Pancake's head. She twitched to the side, trying to knock it free, but found no success. “Is it right of us to pathologise resisting our rule like this?”

Glochi rolled his eyes. “Don't listen to feralists.” He gestured over at Pancake. “This is what we make of them. They're happy this way.”

Thatch spent a moment brushing down some of the more egregious leaves sticking out of her weave, sighed, and then reached over to the tangled web of greenery she'd identified earlier. She twisted a flower and—

Pancake felt her mind grind to a halt. Every thought vanished at once. Her mouth fell half-open. Her eyes lost focus. Head flopped slightly to one side. Thinking became impossible. Beliefs held so strongly a moment ago now hung loosely before her, none valued any more or less than any other. She was open and available.

“I suppose I do believe in my own independence,” mused the assistant. “And so perhaps I would count amongst the feralists should we ever cross paths with a civilisation powerful enough to demand our compliance. I suspect my katie would be rolling her eyes at me even for discussing this, however. All the same, it is on my mind.” The words washed over Pancake's soul, leaving no trace. Thatch grunted. “Pancake, what is your highest priority?”

The question and the machine worked in tandem, guiding her thoughts towards one unavoidable conclusion: telling the truth. “The happiness and wellbeing of Lady Maple,” she chirped, not needing to think. The words popped into her mind, and she spoke them.

“Not your own happiness and wellbeing?”

“No, Ma'am. That is the responsibility of Lady Maple.” Pancake didn't know why she used “Ma'am” instead of one of the more usual honourifics. It had just felt right. Everything just felt right. She couldn't think about where she was, or what she was doing, or what she'd been so upset about. It just all came so very naturally. She smiled, staring up with empty eyes.

Glochi grumbled. “They are very suggestible like this,” he insisted. “The wrong word—”

“I am aware,” Thatch interrupted, nodding. “I am steering clear of affirmative directed statements. Simple questions only.”

“Hmn. Very conservative. The impertinence of youth, perhaps?” He grinned over, then leaned down, staring Pancake in the eyes. “Little one, I need you to answer some questions for me. You'd love to do that for me, wouldn't you?”

“I'd love to do that for you...” Pancake whispered, staring up with a smile left more vacant with every passing moment. His gentle pat on her head left her feeling so very empty, like the disc had hollowed her out and now he wished to polish the void to a mirror shine.

“There's a good girl.” She was a good girl.

“See,” Thatch interjected. She wasn't talking to Pancake. The word echoed in the void, but found no purchase. “We have them put our needs above their own. We take on such responsibility over them. How can we possibly live up to it? We force needs upon them and then demand we fulfil them flawlessly.”

”'Force' is a very blunt way of putting it,” Glochi replied, glancing away for a moment. He returned his attention to the floret, tickling her under the chin with a thumbnail. “Admittedly, in your case, not entirely inaccurate, hmn? You were a fighter, weren't you, sweetie? Past tense.” He chuckled, scritching her empty head. “Tell me why you are worried we will separate you and your owner, little one.”

“Joanne said so,” Pancake mumbled. “Joanne said I needed to be strong again...” She glanced up towards the bitch herself.

“The... plush?” Thatch asked, following her gaze and tapping Jo's head with a vine. The poor tiger flopped to the side, drawing out a quick cringe from the helpless floret. Thatch righted the toy.

“Yes, Ma'am.”

Glochi grunted. “Hmn. She should be incapable of lies or deception like this,” he noted. “And yet her story does seem unlikely to be true. Any ideas?”

The other affini spent a moment interrogating Joanne, who bore it with the dignity and grace of a plantfucking traitor. “Joanne here appears perfectly inanimate. No embedded technology at all, just—” She paused, raised the cat to her nose, and sniffed— “some class-Cs in the stuffing. If any species were to figure out how to defeat cognitive remapping, it would not be this one. Mine may be very capable, but their average seems distinctly average.”

“So she believes it, then,” Glochi agreed. He placed a thumb against Pancake's chin and two fingers against her temple and suddenly he was the most fascinating thing there had ever been. Pancake gathered all her force of will and just about managed to focus her vision.

Just not her own force of will.

“Don't you.” His eyes pulsed, pulling her in deeper with every gentle flash.

“Yes, Sir,” Pancake whispered, breathless. “It's what happened, Sir.”

“So, either a mental break,” Thatch suggested. “Or a side effect of something else?”

“She is on some heavy prescriptions at the moment, admittedly.”

“Anything I might be familiar with?”

“I doubt it,” Glochi admitted. “She's about two thirds of the way through a personality transplant. Her class-H regimen is sizable. This far through the process she's no longer capable of skipping a dose, so we don't need to worry about that. She probably doesn't even remember them any more, dosages that high leave Terrans particularly malleable.”

“What an efficient solution to the medical issue that is non-affini independence,” Thatch quipped. “Is there a script for her owner to read from while she's that open?”

“Not any more! Medical science has evolved significantly over the last couple dozen blooms. We use procedural full-immersion virtual reality systems now. Cuts the average course of memetics in half, with remarkably fewer side effects.” Glochi paused, hummed, and then grabbed a small tool that shone a bright light into Pancake's eyes. She whimpered, wincing as the light left a trail in her vision.

“That is—” Thatch seemed to pause, as if taken aback— “much more rigorous than I had expected.” She leaned down, took Pancake by the chin, and stared into her eyes for a few moments. “Which presumably means the class-H dose is calibrated to the length of the treatment.”

“Indeed.”

“Her iris is significantly overdilated. I believe that to be a common class-H side effect. I am unsure of her suggestibility, but certainly her grasp of reality does seem somewhat askew.” Thatch placed a hand atop Pancake's head and tilted it a few degrees to the side. Pancake left it there. There were no thoughts left to remind her to tilt it back.

Glochi raised a triplet of eyebrows. “Which would imply she escaped a reprogramming session somehow. She doesn't seem very feral, but she was a problem case and they do occasionally have traumas that persist beyond basic domestication.”

“So in all likelihood, what she needs is to finish her, ah, 'reprogramming'. Do we know exactly what was being applied?”

The room's lights flickered and buzzed as their faraway giant made herself known once more. “We do,” she boomed, “but Sacchara should be with us again presently. Apparently she was unaware that communicators need recharging occasionally.”

Thatch blinked, pulling her own out of seemingly nowhere and inspecting it. “They do?”

“Admittedly she has had hers for thirty blooms.”

Thatch and Glochi both laughed. “I'll add it to my to-do list,” he replied. “When will she be arriving?”

“She was still in the Meandrina tourist districts, she should be—” The voice cut off, and the whole room shook. For a moment, Pancake felt as if her stomach was doing flips, as if the world itself had just leaped a foot to the side.

“Apologies for the sudden motion, everyone,” echoed through the room, buzzing the walls as Ined spoke to the entire population at once. “Meandrina _Rapid Transit sends their compliments on our hull design and their apologies for mispredicting the spin.”

“Ahem.” The room's lighting shone, flickering with rapidly switching colours. The room's wall panels followed along, writing out Ined's words in fifteen written languages. “As I was saying, she should be here in—”

Pancake blinked rapidly, scrambling to a seated position. The room's gathered affini paused, looking over to her, concerned by her unexpected motion. Before any of them had managed to speak Pancake was already halfway across the room, dropping to her knees before the door just in time for it to slide open.

The room became alive again. Everything became alive. Stars above, how had she not noticed how grey the world felt without Her presence? Pancake took in a shaky gasp and fixed her eyes on the ground before Her feet.

There came a single tut from above. “This isn't where I left you, sweetness,” noted her Lady. “Explain.”

“It– It was Joanne, most generous one! She– She said such awful things! She said that you were leaving me, that I wasn't interesting any more! She said that I needed to fight, like I used to, so you'd want me again! She said I should run away!” Pancake dared not look towards the instigator for fear she would lose her nerve.

“Did she now.” Lady Maple knelt before that which was hers and took her chin between a forefinger and thumb. Her gaze was pulled irresistibly upwards. “Look at me. Eyes on mine. Darling, I know you care for Joanne very much, but she cannot speak. You should have been...” She, o Beautiful paused for a moment, as if searching for the word. “Asleep, shall we say.”

Glochi perked up. “Now, Sacchara, would that be a euphemism for, y'know?” He made some kind of gesture, but Pancake's eyes were fixed firmly in place.

“It would,” confirmed the only perfect creature the universe had ever known.

“Then it appears your theory is correct, Aquae. Have you ever considered becoming a vet? Her prescription isn't meant to be interrupted, and the consequences of a partial exposure for her class-H blend explains her symptoms perfectly. Leaves the brain a little too plastic, so the poor thing is susceptible to unwanted side effects like hallucinations, independent thought, and anxiety. She is likely blending with her former self, but unwilling to accept feralist desires as her own.”

She looked back towards Pancake. “Oh, my poor sweet desert. Tell me the truth now, Joanne didn't really say those things, did she?”

Pancake felt her heart drop out. Her Lady was accusing her of lying to her. Of disobedience, and worse than that, disobedience under a direct order. Her upper lip began to quiver, eyes blurring as tears began to stain her vision. Her Magnificent grip never faltered, and Pancake was forced to stare her owner in the eyes while her psyche cracked.

Because Lady Maple always won.

Always.

She was never wrong, no matter how confident Pancake might be.

Pancake had been lying. She just hadn't wanted to admit it even to herself. “N- no, my Goddess.” Though her head could not move, Pancake could still avert her eyes. “I just... I don't understand. I know you're always right! I- I can't think a single bad thing about you no matter how hard I try, and, and, and—”

Pancake faltered, words lost in the tears. She wasn't supposed to be like this. There was a correct way for her to be, and she was wrong.

“Keep going,” She ordered.

Pancake stared at a blurred out wall and sniffed hard. “And I know because I've been trying. I tried to think bad things about You. I'm sorry, my Lady.”

Lady Maple glanced over at one of the other affini. “Please do not take this as a rejection of the good work that you and many others have put into these technological dooblies,” she explained, reaching over to pull the disk away from Pancake's temple. She gasped, feeling the full weight of her thoughts slam into her consciousness, almost toppling her forward. Her Lady's hand kept her steady, as it always did. “But I think I will stick with the old-fashioned ways.”

Her Lady pressed a finger beneath Her Pancake's chin and lifted her gaze. She slowly fidgeted with the disc, twirling it around in her fingers. Pancake hadn't had a chance to see one up close before. It was far more beautiful than she'd expected it to be.

One side was a sheet of flat metal maybe two centimetres in diameter and largely featureless. The other side, though, the side that seemed to stick to her temple like she were magnetic, gleamed with a deep purple refraction that bounced the light in a thousand different ways off of a thousand tiny components.

Pancake remembered it now. She remembered watching Glochi towering over her, reaching out with it in his hand. She remembered the instant that she—he?—no, she had felt it snapping against her skull. All the fight had gone out of her in a single moment. How had she forgotten that? The fight in her had never come back. She remembered her Lady's hungry smile as newly pliant Pancake had sat back and listened to the machines telling her who she was going to be. She remembered watching as the aliens snatched her body and replaced her with a version of herself that no true Terran could look upon without feeling her uncanniness.

She struggled to keep her eyes off of it. Her memories—her real memories—were starting to return, and there was the device that could steal them all away again, casually twirled between a pair of Her beautiful fingers.

Pancake's mouth was drying out. She forced her gaze away, up to her perfect owner, and remembered.

“Tell me, little one,” She spoke, voice a song, voice a chorus of angels, “what you remember.” She paused the disc, holding it firm between finger and thumb, shiny side facing away.

“I remember... being in this room. I was fighting You, my Lady, though... that doesn't make any sense. What reason could I have for fighting? But I did. I know I did. I was so angry at something. I was so angry all of the time.” She let out a long breath. “At the Affini, at the Terrans, at You, but... most of all at myself?”

“Does that even make sense?” Why would Pancake be angry at herself? She was an extension of Her will, and Her will was unquestionable, so what possible grounds could Pancake have to criticise herself?

“Hmn.” Her Lady glanced up, eyebrow raised, at the other affini in the room. Pancake winced vicariously. Such an expression of displeasure was akin to her worst imaginings. Thankfully, when Her attention returned to Pancake, it was with a smile.

A hungry, vicious smile.

“Shame,” She said, with a shrug. “And here I was thinking you were—” Her finger pressed upwards, forcing Pancake's neck to bend. A thumb brushed along her lower lip, bringing the floret to whimpers— “finally beaten, o 'captain'. Why do you think you're so incapable of thinking a single teeny tiny negative thing about me, pet?” She moved closer as she spoke, ending so close that Pancake could feel the heat of her breath against her skin.

“B- because you're perfect?” she asked, through quivering lips.

“Because the spoils of war go to the victor,” growled a Goddess. “Remember the first time we met? Oh, how you fought me. Or, well, how you tried. It was adorable, watching you flail. You thought yourself so fierce and you were as helpless as all the rest. I had to have you.”

“That's- that's not...”

“How you remember it, treat? Of course it isn't.” Her thumb paused in the middle of Pancake's lower lip, then pressed inside. The girl couldn't help but gently lick against the leafy skin. “You are mine. Your memories are mine. Your reality is mine. You believe what I wish. I'd bet you couldn't remember the truth, even knowing the lies. Can you, pet? I can lead you right up to it and you'll still stare up at me with those adoring eyes and that unconditional love.”

Pancake stared, gently suckling on her owner's thumb like the adoring pet that she was. Lady Maple was just perfect.

Yet, that meant that every word that came out of Her mouth was the truth, and every challenge She set was Pancake's heart's desire. The girl found herself trapped in a contradiction. Her owner was perfect and flawless, yet telling her that she wasn't. A perfect being couldn't be wrong.

Something deep within Pancake cracked. She slowly stopped sucking, leaning back to escape Her—no, her—grip. “I, you... no... Joanne was right?! I... I wasn't always yours? But... but then, were her other lies right too?!”

“What lies might those be?”

“That– That I didn't want to be this. That you broke me. That you only wanted to break me, and now that you're finished, I'm not interesting. That...” Even struggling to keep down the anger, Pancake couldn't hold back tears. “That you don't want me any more.”

“Oh, precious thing. Even this close to slipping the leash and you still yearn for me, hmn?”

“I... yes, my Lady,” Pancake replied, staring down at the floor. “Could you please tell me if Joanne was right? I'm afraid, but I need to know. Please.”

“Very well. You did not want to be this.” Maple reached forward, ran the back of her hand over Pancake's cheek. It radiated with comfortable warmth. “You were aware that you did not want this. You were aware that you never would want this. I suspect that you came to yell at me with at least subconscious knowledge of what the consequences of your admissions would be, but yell you did.”

The hand trailed up to Pancake's head, where it lay heavily. “And so yes, I broke you. The thing that you were was a sad and angry thing and I was unwilling to see such potential in you going to waste. I took your anger; I took your knowledge; I took your memories, your name, your very identity, and I ground them together to make you. There may be some facet of feral desperation within you that hopes they were merely locked away and you can regain your former self.” She leaned close and planted a kiss against Pancake's forehead. “They were not. The raw material I made you from is forever gone.”

“So that's two yesses so far,” Maple admitted, tapping her fingers against the back of Pancake's skull as she held her head in a single hand. “I wanted to break you, and now that I have, you are delightful. You bring me joy each and every day. I adore you. On the good days you elevate me. On the bad days, you comfort and soothe me. Your submission to me has been a work of art, Pancake. You are a masterpiece.”

The girl stared up with quivering eyes. Joanne had been right? Not about everything, but about enough. “Is— Is Pancake even my real name?” she asked, voice quiet. “Am I just a slave to you?”

“Of course your name is Pancake, dear. It's the only name you ever need know. As for your species' prior barbaric history, nothing like that will ever occur again. I will never ask anything of you but for you to be yourself. However. I will not permit you to suffer in uncertainty about who that self is any longer.” Maple leaned in, staring into Pancake's eyes with an otherworldly glimmer, pressing a finger to her temple. “Remember yourself, floret.”

Pancake looked to her plush. Its beady, emotionless eyes incited to violence. “Yes, remember, captain!” Joanne hissed, fur standing on end. “Remember who you are. Remember the righteous battles! The victorious last stands! The great contests of strength! These plants think they've won, and they are worthy opponents indeed. They may have shown strategic brilliance, but they made one crucial mistake!”

Joanne shuffled closer, forcing her motion despite the vine gently holding her in place. “They left you alive, hero.”

As the plush spoke, Pancake remembered. In her mind's eye she cowered behind boxes and chest-high walls, hugging a snap rifle she couldn't bring herself to fire. A crew looked to her for guidance and hope and she had none to give. A command structure gave her orders that broke her heart just to consider. This wasn't her.

“No,” she whispered, reaching out to hug Joanne close. “They didn't. You're just the last little bits of the person I used to pretend I was. But I wasn't. I was always Lady Maple's, I just didn't know it yet.”

Joanne seethed. “No! She treats you like a toy! She made you weak and laughs at you for it! She stole your strength, and then pretends that she beats you fairly! She says she only asks for you to be you while she's changing who you are!”

The floret was too busy looking up at her owner to give the plush a second glance. “Yeah,” she agreed, sinking into a happy smile. “She does.”

“She doesn't care about you! She cares about this thing that she's made from you!”

Pancake laughed, leaning forward and planting her forehead into She Herself's chest. “Yeah. She really, really does.”

“She isn't on your side! She's a fucking space alien with goals she won't even tell us about! She's xeno scum and she'll never be on your side no matter how much you lick her boots!”

That earned an amused glance downwards. “I don't care. I don't need her to be on my side.” She looked back up at her Lady just in time to catch her ventriloquist act red handed. The puppet-plush came in for a hug. “I just need to be on your side, my Goddess. Please? Take the rest away? Don't let me fight you. I'm meant to be yours.”

The space alien smiled an utterly inscrutable smile and dropped the metal disc. It fell inches before the length of yarn tied around it pulled taut and left it hanging, interface-side towards Pancake. “There's a good girl,” She breathed, voice dripping with self-satisfaction. “My once-upon-a-time hero, begging to be permitted surrender. Close your eyes.”

Pancake complied, letting her eyelids slide closed. She put herself entirely at the mercy of the creature before her. Why would she ever want things otherwise? The room's bright lighting bled through her eyelids, thumping with a familiar pattern.

“Breathe for me now, pet. Deep breaths. Focus on me.” Lady Maple's words seemed to ripple, echoing, bending the air to land with emphasis. “Hear my words; Feel my voice. Recognise me as I echo through your mind, and let me in. Don't worry about what I want. Don't worry about what you want. Just stay there, eyes closed, and let me in.”

Her voice came from all around, every direction at once. Echoing off the walls? Some kind of technological trickery? Pancake could feel the spirit of Joanne in the back of her mind fighting, trying to distract her and break her focus. Pancake wouldn't let Joanne win. She had to be her Lady's. There was no other way.

“Feel how my voice seems to rise and fall in time with your own breath. Feel the weight in your body as I speak. Feel the yearning to be mine. Can you feel it, Pancake?”

“I think so?” she asked, trying oh so hard. If she was supposed to be stolen away then Pancake still felt very herself. If Joanne was supposed to be silent, then she still felt very loud.

“Then open your eyes.”

Pancake let her eyes fall open, and—

Her vision was slammed with an endless fractal colourscape glittering and glimmering right before her, swung all gentle on length of yarn. Iridescent purple surrendered to extant teal, lost itself to the green, oh to the green. Pancake's breath caught in her chest, her heartbeat caught on nothing, her thoughts scattered to all the winds. Her eyes followed the swinging of the disc, stuck without hope of escape or thought of defence, drinking in colours that her eyes could not perceive.

The girl's eyes opened wider, no agency of her own involved. The lights blinded, but nothing shone so much as the disc. That endless chromatic dance left burning cuts in her vision. The fake colours left behind mixed with the real until Pancake had lost track entirely and reality became something She controlled.

With every flick of the disc, Pancake fell deeper. Into a trance. Into Lady Maple. Into her own oblivion.

“That's right,” She breathed. “Watch the pretty colours for me, as if you could do anything else.” She said more than that, Pancake was pretty sure, but the sounds just joined the colours as an endless swirl of input that left her overwhelmed. The disc swayed and the pattern grew only more complicated, with sharp lines of bright light cutting shapes into the air as her eyes gave up on processing anything but the disc.

Something reminded her to breathe, and she breathed. The sweet syrup scent of her Lady filled her nostrils, adding to the sensory overload a third desperate dimension. Pancake breathed deep, taking Her into herself, letting Her swirl around within her body to fill her. Over short seconds, Pancake felt the fury that she'd been grasping so tight start to slip away, little by little. She breathed in, taking Her sweet happiness within. She breathed out, expelling her own sour anger.

The negativity fell away and Pancake was left open and eager for the xeno scum to mould. Pancake didn't mind. So she was instructed, and so she believed. Each and every word that drifted through her mind became her reality just for an instant, before drifting through and being lost forever.

Pancake stared, enthralled, as her Lady Maple slowed down the disc to a halt, and with it, slowed Pancake too.

“Remember all that you were,” demanded the affini, voice so soft it could slice through steel. Pancake remembered it all. Her pain, her fear, the bravado that had covered it up for long enough that she herself had begun to believe the lies. She remembered the horrors perpetrated by her hand. The pain she caused. The fear she was responsible for. The bravado she put down.

The danger she posed. The damage she had done.

“It hurts, doesn't it? You hate it. You hate what you were. You don't want it. Let it go,” She continued, lowering the disc while raising Her property's gaze to meet Her eyes.

What eyes they were. If the disc had been beautiful then these were beyond description. Pancake saw colours nameless, shapes without reason. Tied deep beneath it all she saw a blank, empty silence that yearned to be her.

There wasn't space for the silence, not with all the memories of that which had come before. It pushed, but it was nothing. It was too weak. The trauma stuck to Pancake's soul and she felt as if she would never be clean.

“Just let it all go,” She whispered, stroking down the side of Pancake's cheek. “You can do it. I know you can.”

The void was weak, but she could help. Pancake pulled, forcing each memory out one at a time. They faded and they fuzzed, and they felt like dreams, illusions of imaginations that revealed themselves to be nonsense in the warm light of day. Events that had haunted lost clarity, and no matter how hard she tried to hold on they just slipped through her fingers like raindrops in a storm.

“Forget that silly anger of yours. You were astray, without my help. You cannot be blamed for lashing out when there was nobody to care for you.” The fire in Pancake's heart spluttered out. The memories fuelling it were getting so fuzzy and it vanished without regret. How could she hold herself accountable for things she could barely remember, from a time she had been so very alone?

“Forget all that fear. You lived in a hostile universe where anything could hurt you. Nothing will ever be able to hurt you ever again.” What had she been afraid of? Whatever it was, it must have been big. It had defined her life. She'd spent all her time running, hoping that if she could get big and strong enough she wouldn't have to be scared any more. How silly. All her strength had been built on a bed of terror.

Now she was small and weak and the fear had no hold on her.

“Forget the you you used to be. Forget the yourself you built before you had me,” She ordered, and Pancake complied. Her dreams faded until there was little more than the vague impression of nightmares now passed. “Let go of the shackles you placed on your own mind.”

Pancake was free. Blank, open, and free. With the fear and the anger no longer even distant memories, she could finally find the courage to do what she wanted.

She sat, stared, mind hanging open on Her word. With herself forgotten, there was nothing. No time passed. All reality shrank to one short loop of Pancake held helpless in her Owner's grip, drinking in Her gaze and breathing in Her scent, becoming ever more wrapped up in Her control. Pancake felt nothing about this. It was simply what was happening. Opinions were for things that could think.

She was nothing.

“Remember who you could be,” her Goddess spoke, inviting her worshipper back to the congregation. “Remember, you are mine. My Pancake. My toy. My precious, pliable pet.” she whispered, leaning so close now. “Say it.”

“I am yours,” Pancake whispered, blank slate no more. Her Lady's words scored language on her soul and defined that which she could be. “Your Pancake. Your toy. Your precious, pliable pet.”

“You belong to me.” Her words were getting fuzzy again, falling beneath the veil of Pancake's enthralment as they became less words and more her own thoughts.

“I belong to you,” she repeated. “I am your property. Not a person, just a pet. Not a burden, just a pet. Not a bother. Just a pet.” The words echoed in her mind as if they were her own thoughts, and for all Pancake knew they were. “I don't need to fight to be interesting. I don't need to fight to be worthy. I don't need to fight.”

“I am just a pet,” she said, every word filling her chest with a deep euphoria. Every word felt better to say than that before. Lady Maple took the open, mouldable clay that was Pancake's soul and showed her what she was to be. “I'm soft and gentle and harmless. I'm warm and sweet and cosy. I'm a comfort blanket for those in need, and a toy for all.”

The thoughts paused for a moment, but Pancake found herself so excited that she couldn't help but repeat her words again. Instructions. Purpose. Definition. Desire. The her that She was building was simpler than the her she had once been. Pancake didn't mind at all.

She was soft, gentle, and harmless. She didn't need to be complicated.

She was warm, sweet, and cosy. She didn't need to be capable.

She was something now. A pet, eager and willing. A prize, fairly won. A toy, for whatever was needed. A comfortable object, here to make the universe just that little bit softer. She was so many things, but all were defined by reference to the most important creature in the universe. Her pet. Her prize. Her toy.

Hers, and nothing else.

Eventually there were fresh thoughts for her to think. “When my Owner wins, I win too. I was just a prize to be won, and now I am property. When I was won, I won too.” More thoughts for her to repeat, added to the set.

Her sculptor's chisel tapped away, cutting free the parts of a person that weren't necessary for a pet. That silly little urge at the base of her animal brain to have self-determination, gone. The unfounded belief that she had rights, or even privileges, that weren't granted by Her hand, no more. That fundamental push towards freedom and agency that had been the casus belli for a trillion deaths simply snuffed out.

Pancake did not know how long she was under. She lost count of the words spoken, yet retained utter certainty that she would recite them to herself every day for the rest of her life. She became little more than a novel's worth of rules, instructions, desires, hopes, dreams, lusts and loves and needs. She became utterly Hers.

Lady Maple snapped her fingers, and Pancake woke up. There was a quiet voice from the other room and a short guffaw from one of the affini, but Pancake's focus was on Her entirely and all else seemed ultimately unimportant.

“Good morning, Pancake. Are you feeling better now?”

“Good morning, my Lady. I am, thank you. I can't quite remember what was wrong with me, but I think it's okay now.” She fell forward, wrapping her arms around her person. “I think everything is going to be okay forever, now.”

---

Glochi Opun busied himself polishing the business end of his cognitive remapper. Most probably would have just recompiled it, but one didn't get to his age without growing some sentimentality. That little disc had been with him for a long, long time and seen many, many pets.

He chuckled, holding it up so the light hit it just right and revealed to him the complex weave of advanced technology that would interface with an astonishing array of cute alien minds and render them open. It was a little outdated, he knew. There were designs in the Records that were half the size, or could operate at a distance, or that merged in a dedicated reprogrammer to make durable, persistent changes by itself.

It was pretty, he supposed. There were a lot of little details to pay attention to. It was hard to imagine it being so pretty as to steal somebody's mind away without truly interfacing with them. Glochi looked over towards the floret, now smiling wide and hugging into her owner's side while they staged a mock brainwashing session for a small plush cat.

“It is the eyes,” Thatch explained, apparently noticing him staring. “Terran eyes do not 'see' like ours do. They are oblate spheroids composed of photoreceptors suspended in goo, and not very capable. They can see colour in only a few degrees in the middle, for example, so their brains evolved to remember the colour of things so that it could pretend it still perceived their pigment.”

She held out a hand, and Glochi passed the remapper over. Thatch drew a vine slowly over one of the functional groups. “This part is already designed to exploit that. The disc snaps into place and these—” She tapped a series of brighter spots— “send little pulses of light into the skin, which bounce through to the eyes in patterns that the Terrans can not detect, but that nonetheless trigger all those evolved coping mechanisms to let us write whatever we need into their minds. They are astonishingly exploitable. It is a wonder they got this far at all.”

She offered the disc back with an awkward and embarrassed smile. Glochi grinned back. “Actually, keep it. Let it be a reminder, Aquae, that you do know what you're rotting talking about.”

The affini paused. She blared her feelings into the room with all the impertinence of youth, and Glochi found the flush of embarrassed gratitude worth all the play acting. “You did not truly require my help with this, did you?”

Glochi shrugged. “With the pet? No. I needed your assistance with you. Like I said, if you'll come to my clinic and behave like a grumpy floret, I'll treat you like one.” He levelled a firm stare and a wide smile. “And I fix grumpy florets. Look at that one—” He gestured over at Pancake, hugging her freshly hypnotised plushie close while Sarracha stowed away her makeshift pendulum—”and tell me that you're unique in being imperfect with your stewardship, that you're the only one with eccentric techniques, or that any of that matters one bit when we make them happy nonetheless.”

“I can not,” Thatch admitted. “And I suppose like any lost young thing making her way through your doors, I shall leave grateful.” She paused, then added “And with another lollipop.”

“Ask nicely, like a good girl.” Glochi grinned for a moment, but did hand two fresh lollipops over after enjoying her brief indignation. “You're allowed to need help too, you know?”

Thatch shrugged, but nodded. “I am working on accepting that. I do not think I really believe that we— that I am wrong for that which I desire any longer, but...” She glanced over at her floret, staring for long moments.

Sarracha Maple wandered over, floret held in her arms. Glochi distributed another trio of lollipops. He was running low. He'd have to find the time to forge some more some time soon.

“But?” he prompted.

“I suspect that my reservations about our techniques stem far more from questioning my own capacity for executing them than from a lack of belief in the good that we are doing.” Her gaze returned to her floret, peacefully slumbering. “We make them happy nonetheless,” she spoke, voice held quiet. “Of that, I am convinced.”

Glochi reached out, gripping one of her vines in one of his. “You're doing great. She's very well taken care of. Messing up is how we learn, and we have a long time to do it.”

“I hesitate to ask,” Thatch began, after a moment of silence, “but to paraphrase Sarracha here, one is not a burden for having needs. Would you be open to me visiting again some time, once my Katie is ambulant? I suspect you know a great deal more than I about veterinary science, and I would love to learn.” She held up the disc, wiggling it in place. “I suspect I know more than you about biotechnological integration, however. I imagine I could fix whatever went wrong with little Pancake's programming apparatus.”

“Any time,” Glochi assured. “Do you like music? Ah, I'm sure you can learn.”

Pancake made grabby motions for several seconds before Sarracha reached over and tugged Thatch's hand over so her floret could give it a hug. “Thank you for helping me, Ma'am.” She looked over to Glochi. “Sir.”

“Don't get so wrapped up in technique that you forget why we do this, you two,” Sarracha laughed. She glanced over to the other room, where Katie lay still, and emitted an appraising hum. “Though I think you may be my kind of affini. Your floret looks like she's getting to be her best self. What did you say your name was?”

“That would be Thatch Aquae, Second Bloom,” Thatch responded, clearly trying not to sound like the least experienced thing in the room.

“Well then, 'Thatch Aquae, Second Bloom', call me some time. You left a good impression on my floret, and she has impeccable taste. Bring yours, we'll make it a playdate. I'll show you what you can do with a pretty rock and a smooth voice, and you can show me what you can do with one of those technical dooblies.”

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.”