Sui Generis

by Kanagen

Summary:

Tamara Slaine: attorney, wife, Martian. She endures the crushing gravity of the ancestral homeworld and the gladhanding and bootlicking that comes of managing the money of the elite for the sake of her clients, whom she represents in the legalistic hell of the Accord's courts, and for her wife, Judy, who she privately keeps as a pet totally free of any responsibilities.

When the Affini come, Tam's world is utterly upended. Her struggle against the State, once all-but-impossible, is over. Now her only concern is assisting the Affini as they help her incarcerated clients adjust to a new reality, and adjusting herself to the new reality of her alien overlords also keeping humans as pets. She finds herself questioning what it means to be Tam, what it means to "own" her wife, and even what it means to be human.

 

(Set in the Human Domestication Guide universe, based on GlitchyRobo's story.)

Chapter 1

Notes:

Well, here we go again — time for Kana to start a new long-form project!

Content Warnings for this chapter: Unjust legal systems, conscription, anxiety over impending invasion, environmental collapse due to climate change, mild drug use, body dysmorphia, a very disgusting description of the process of eating, and kinky sex (mostly elided). Oh, and petplay, but I mean come on, it's an HDG fic.

If this is your first fic set in the Human Domestication Guide universe, or you haven't been given the link elsewhere yet, you might want to have a look at the wiki at https://humandomestication.guide, where you can find details on the universe and links to other fics!

The kid standing in front of me — and, stars, he was just a kid, couldn't be more than twenty — was dressed in the closest thing to a suit he could afford, a thin black sweater and his least-patched pair of jeans. The court was air-conditioned, but not well, and he was already starting to sweat. Of course, it probably didn't help that he was on trial.

"Just breathe, Mal, you're going to be fine," I told him. "You signed the plea deal. All you have to do is get up, say your lines, and do two years with a penal labor battalion. It's going to be miserable, but it's better than conscription, right?"

"Yeah," he muttered, going so pale you could almost pick out the blue and red of the blood vessels just beneath the skin. "Anything's better that that."

"So come on," I told him, putting an arm around his shoulder. "We're up next. Just sit, remember to breathe, and let me do the talking, okay?" He nodded, and with a little guidance from me he made his way up to the front of the courtroom.

"Now calling for the record the case of State v. Riley, case number 544-24873," the judge announced. Rickards was not the best judge we could have drawn, but with the plea deal and allocution in hand the threat from the old man with the salt-and-pepper beard and the hard-on for "corrective justice" was substantially reduced. "If counsel would identify themselves for the record?"

The skinny Terran across the aisle from me stood up. Like me, he wore a suit, and like me, it was tailored. His probably cost about a quarter of what mine did, but I had several very good reasons for that. "Good morning, Your Honor — or, I suppose we've just hit good afternoon. Spencer Gasper, for the State." Being a prosecutor was probably Spence's worst quality; he was a nice guy, when he wasn't actively trying to ruin peoples' lives. That's aversarial law for you.

But it was my turn, now. "Tamara Slaine for the Defendant, Your Honor," I said. Here it comes, I thought. Wait for it, wait for it...

"Aaah, Ms. Slaine. I thought I spotted your hulking figure back there," Judge Rickards said, chuckling to himself. He made this joke every time I drew him, and laughed at it every time. I think it was less because he found the joke genuinely amusing and because it gave him a plausible excuse for a traditionalist asshole taking a shot at a nontraditional woman in his courtroom.

"Well, Your Honor, those weights aren't going to lift themselves, are they?" Two could play at this game. Let him sit up there trying to look down on the Martian woman across from him that could, without a doubt, pick him up and snap him in two if she felt like it, even in his native two and a half Ms of gravity. There were only two kinds of Martians on Earth, after all: the snowflakes in life support frames so they could claim to have visited the all-important Homeworld, or the ones with physiques like Olympic athletes who were here to work.

"I suppose they're not," he said, angling an eyebrow just a little. "And I see here we have a plea deal. So, the defendant has chosen to take responsibility for his criminal actions and save the State the expense and time of a trial? That kind of civic-mindedness is rare, these days."

"Mr. Riley has chosen to allocute, yes, Your Honor," Spence said. "And the State is entirely satisfied with the arrangement."

"Well, alright, let's hear it," Judge Rickards said, leaning back in his chair and fixing Mal Riley with a practiced and deeply uncomfortable look. For a moment, the kid just sat there; once I gave him a prod, he all but jumped to his feet, picked up the tablet I'd set in front of him, and started reading. I took the opportunity to sit, and everything south of my knees sighed in relief.

Stars, it was fucking gutting. This poor kid lifted a six-pack of prepackaged meals from a corner chain, and now he was going to spend two years of his life breaking his body for whatever the State needed him for. Logistics work, probably, but if they decided he had a mechanical aptitude he might get "lucky" with assignment to a factory somewhere, putting together weapons or other tech for the war effort. Then, once his debt to society was paid off (plus any extra time added on for penal infractions, which would probably add up to another year), they'd turf him right back out with nothing more than the clothes on his back, and without a support system to get him on his feet again he'd probably have to resort to stealing to eat, and back into the system he would inevitably go.

How monstrously and elegantly designed, this machine that ate human lives. I hated every minute I spent in it, but if I wasn't here to pump the brakes, to do what little I could to slow it down, it would be so, so much worse for the people I could have helped. It wasn't much, but it was what I could do — I could be there for the kid, I could speak the secret words of the Court, I could put my finger on the scales of justice, and when he got out I could pull some strings and maybe land him a job that would take an ex-felon — not great work, not well-paying work, but maybe, just maybe, enough to keep him out of the system for good after that.

I hated that this was all I could do for him, but it was better than doing nothing.

There was silence in the courtroom for a few seconds after the kid finished his statement. Judge Rickards leaned forward and peered down at him. "That's it? Very well then, allocution accepted. I see here the agreed-upon sentence recommendation is..." He paused, shuffling through the papers in front of him. "Two years?" He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Mr. Gasper, surely we can do better than that?"

Spence cleared his throat and stood. "Your Honor?"

Oh shit, I thought.

"This young man here, during a period of civil emergency, has flagrantly defied the law. There is no indication that he will not do so again the moment he has the opportunity, unless he receives a sufficient mortal correction — and two years in a penal labor battalion does not strike me as sufficient in the slightest."

I was on my feet in seconds, and I didn't even feel the usual complaints from my joints. "Your Honor, the State has consented–"

"Ms. Slaine, you've done your due diligence, and I commend you for, if nothing else, your ability to bully the officers of the State into giving your criminal clients far more leniency than they should. However, due to the ongoing civil emergency and in the interest of the State, the Court exercises its authority to alter the terms of the plea deal. The Defendant is sentenced to penal conscription for a period of not less than five years, or for the full term of current hostilities, whichever may be longer, subject to review by military authority."

"What?!" Riley jaw hung loose as he stared up at Judge Rickards.

"Your Honor, this is a wildly disproportionate sentence, and the Defense objects in the strongest possible terms to the abrogation of the signed agreement!"

"Object all you like, file an appeal for all the good it'll do you — this young man's off to the front. Go forth and do your duty, son. You'll come back a better man." He reached out and, with a casual rap from his gavel, added, "Case dismissed. Bailiff, take him down."

"You've gotta do something!" Riley exclaimed, grabbing onto my sleeve.

"Just... just go along, for now," I told him, taking him by the shoulders. All Terrans were short, sure, but this kid felt so small and helpless in my hands. "The transport shuttle only runs weekly, and it took off two days ago. Five days is plenty of time for me to put in an appeal, and we definitely have grounds." I didn't tell him that the appeal would almost certainly be rejected out of hand — the Court of Appeals was not exactly predisposed to the Defense at the best of times, and it was not the best of times. I didn't tell him that he was, without a shadow of a doubt, going to end up on some void-wretched barge, scant training and a gauss rifle his only weapons as the Cosmic Navy shoveled him and hundreds of other kids just like him in the ever-ravening maw of the Affini. He didn't deserve it. No one did. And the Bailiff wasn't willing to wait any longer. "Just do what they say, and I'll get the hold put in place. And I'll be in touch, I promise." That, at least, was a promise I could keep.

Ten minutes later, I stood in the washroom, hunched over a sink and feeling an unwelcome urge to smash my fist into the towel dispenser. It had seen no small amount of abuse over the years, and had plenty of dents in it already — the poor thing didn't need me to add my mark to it. Besides, I'd probably destroy the thing if I actually did it.

One of these days, I thought, I was going to completely lose it in the courtroom. The sheer cruelty of the legal system on display, and the fawning love for it from the agents of the State — it was almost too much to bear. The law was supposed to be a tool for levelling, for fairness, for equality. That's what they still taught at the UMVM School of Law, anyway. Go Vikings, I thought bitterly, forcing myself to look up from the sink into my reflection's eyes.

Here we go, I thought. Mirror time.

It was something I avoided as much as possible — I hated seeing myself, and I always had. Even before I emigrated to Earth, even before I packed on the muscle to support my weight in the absurd gravity my species called "normal," I hated every inch of my body, every inch of bone, skin, muscle, nerves, and organs. It felt like a punishment, somehow.

But appearances mattered. They mattered in the courtroom, yes, but they especially mattered where I was going next. I would have done the inventory anyway, but after getting so agitated I really needed to.

The woman in the mirror, all two-meters-fifteen of her, had the usual Martian frame, stretched out just a little too much in the vertical, but unlike the usual Martians one saw in film and vid, this one had the figure of a weightlifter, the tailored suit unable to hide how thick her arms were, her Martian barrel-chest, a wall of abdominal muscle trained for Earth gravity. Legs like tree trunks supported her — beneath the line of the counter, they continued, the subtle cybernetic grafts of her Sixth Toes system helping her skeleton support a weight it still wasn't entirely used to.

It had taken the woman in the mirror four years of constant, heavy training, supported by cutting-edge medtech and tours on four increasingly-high-G stations in Martian orbit to get her body into this state. She took great pride in the accomplishment — very few could stick to the regimen, could tolerate the tailored neohormones, could endure the crushing weight long enough for their bodies to remember it, to bear up under it, to grow accustomed to it.

Even now, every movement was an effort, but she didn't mind that, because it made her think before she acted. She always felt like she scared Terrans, being so tall and so broad and so strong all at once. It was a good feeling, but at the same time it ached to be othered for one of the few things she actually liked about her body. She — I — liked the size and the strength. That part never bothered me. Whatever it was I wanted to be had those traits, at least, but beyond that I had no earthly idea what it could be. Gender wasn't the issue — stars, I had enough trans friends that I'd have spotted that ages ago. I liked the idea of being a woman. The disconnect was somewhere else.

Time for the face. I took a slow, deep breath, and let it hiss out bit by bit. Then, I met my own eyes in the mirror. The hair, short, feathered, swept to one side, was mostly undisturbed. It could even pass for artfully disheveled. The cheeks were still red from frustration, but that would pass. A few adjustments fixed my collar, my tie following just a moment later. Everything in order. I looked away and instantly felt the pressure I felt fall away.

I had work to do. Worse work, somehow, than what I had just endured, but without it, I could never do what mattered most, nor could I care for all the people that depended on me. That was my secret: no matter how miserable, how grating, how cruel and terrible and intolerable my work became, I would endure it. Enduring it kept the people I loved safe, and let me help those with no one else to help them.

Why it mattered so much to me, I didn't know. It's not as if the world I lived in encouraged selflessness — far from it. My parents, back in Valles Marineris, certainly thought I was nuts for moving all the way to Earth only to hobnob with down-and-outs and take public defender cases. I was simply fortunate enough to be in a position where I could do what felt natural, where I could help. It wasn't enough, and it never would be. There were so many people who needed it and I was only one woman.

But so long as I could help, I would. I owed the world that, at least.

---

I would not shiver. I would not shiver. I would not shiver.

The meeting room was cooled to sub-20 degrees, far cooler than anyone in Vancouver-Victoria ran their environmental systems. When you ran it this cold, then stepped outside, the heat of midday was even worse. Only places like this, the highrises that sat above the smogline, cooled themselves like this, and even then only when the demand rose.

They weren't running it for me. I'd rented the meeting room, sure, set out the appropriate placards and added my personal touches, but it wasn't for me — it was for the client.

The snowflake was a heavyset man in his forties, his hair perfectly engineered into sticking around well past its sell-by date. His suit cost more than the meeting room's rental fee (which was substantial), but it couldn't hide the sweat. "Yeesh, it's a hot one today, huh?" Warren Argall said as he shook my hand.

"It is getting on towards the hot season," I admitted, adamantly refusing to shiver in the frigid air-conditioning. "It's very nice to see you again, Mr. Argall. How's Alert City holding up?"

"Oh, about as well as anywhere," he muttered, waving off his matched pair of security guards that looked as though they'd crawled out of a cloning vat (and who knows, maybe they had). They took up positions outside the door and closed it, leaving the two of us alone.

Such trust. It had taken me a while to cultivate it.

"Yes, it's a bit tense here too," I admitted. No one wanted to talk about it. That was probably normal — outside of legal precedent, history wasn't my strong suit, but I had a feeling that if you looked at wars that were obviously going badly throughout human history, you'd see the losing side behaving much the same way that we all were now. "Shall we sit?"

"Yeah, let's get this done. I've got a hypersonic hop to McMurdo Bay in two hours."

"Heading down for the season early?" Some snowflakes couldn't even tolerate the mild summers the poles got. Argall must have been one of them.

"More business than pleasure," he grunted, mopping at his forehead with a silk handkerchief. "You have the paperwork?"

"Of course," I said, smiling politely and holding out a folio to him. "As directed, I've established a suitably labyrinthine network of shell corporations, false fronts, and various other legal workarounds. As far as anyone looking at the paperwork will be concerned, you'll have a slightly-higher-than-average net worth." That, instead of the tens of trillions to his name. I'd never managed to land a quadrillionaire, but maybe if I'd had a couple more years to network I could have managed it. Oh, the things I could do with a retainer from one of those ghouls...

At this point, though, the idea was moot. Argall was one of seven clients of mine, all of whom had spent the last two weeks frantically doing the same thing: trying to hide every cent, every property, every asset they could, because they knew what everyone else who wasn't completely blinkered by the official media line knew: the Affini were coming, and the Accord couldn't stop them. The ones who could afford it loaded up everything they could onto private starships and ran. The ones who couldn't — the mere trillionaires — had to do the next best thing, to hide their wealth and hope to ride out the storm. Some, perhaps, hoped that when they did so, they could emerge into a new economic landscape, one where a less-than-overwhelming fortune would still be enough to leverage themselves into the new elite. Better that, after all, than the mines, or whatever the Affini really intended.

"Perfect, perfect," he said, flipping through it far too fast to have actually read any of it, then signing it everywhere I'd left the little sticky-note arrows. I could have put in a clause that signed his entire fortune over to me, and he would have happily signed it. Alas, my integrity wouldn't allow it. And, frankly, he'd have me shot before I could make it stick, anyway. "Thank you, Tam. You're a lifesaver, you know that?"

"Oh, I try," I said, that same customer-service smile pasted on my face. I might not have hijacked his entire fortune, but the fees were more than sufficient for my needs — especially if the world was about to end. "And thank you once again for thinking of me."

"Tam, Tam my girl, listen," he said, looking up at me. "There are thousands of bottom feeders up in Alert who would kill for work like this. You, on the other hand, you're a big fish in this pond. Why have big-name pond-scum when I can have the local catch of the day, hmmm?"

"I suppose that's one way to think of it," I replied in good cheer, accepting the folio back from him. "Congratulations on joining the unwashed masses," I added with a wink.

"....listen," he added. "I'm not going south for business. You've been good to me, so here's a bit of free advice: find a place to hunker down. They're coming. They'll be here sooner than you think."

This was not as hot a tip as he thought it was. The media had stopped reporting on the locations of fleet encounters since Capella, when they realized a bit too late that the glorious victories of the Cosmic Navy over the Affini were moving in the wrong direction, but by reading through the lines and seeing what systems were specifically not mentioned, one could glean a fairly accurate reading. Epsilon Eridani, one of the primary trans-shipment points for the near rim, hadn't been mentioned for over two weeks. "... I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Argall, thank you."

"You take care of yourself, Tam," he said, standing with a grunt, mopping his brow again, and walking out. It was only the work of a few moments to collect all my artificial presence in the meeting room, walk out, and sign out the rental. Not even with trillionaire fees could I actually afford an office like this one. No, my office, the one I handled both contract law and the pro bono defense work from, was out in the suburb of Nanaimo.

My car was waiting in the garage for me, already warmed up and the environmental system dialed in to a comfortable level. It strained once it hit the top of the ramp and emerged into the blinding sunlight, the windows going almost opaque to screen the UV as the interior screens lit up with a computer-generated interpretation of the surrounding streets. I let the autopilot handle the drive, toggled on the sound system, and leaned back to try to shed the stress of the working day. I knew the route by feel — the change in road quality as I left the grid and got onto the Punchbowl Expressway that ran across the top of the mega-seawall that kept the meters-higher ocean from spilling into the meters-lower Salish Sea/Strait of Georgia/Puget Sound watershed — the eponymous Punchbowl. The thing was almost 250 years old at this point, and not even comfort-oriented shock absorbers could quite take the rumble out of the trip.

By the time I hit the suburban sprawl of Nanaimo, a good bit of the tension had managed to find its way out of me. The windows began to run half-clear as the car pulled onto the street I lived on, then finally cleared entirely as the car pulled into the climate-controlled garage beneath my townhouse. I let the door close and the atmosphere exchanger run for about thirty seconds before I killed the car's motor and let it plug into the grid to recharge — any earlier, and it would have been over 40 or 45 degrees in there, easy. With the wait, it got down to a tolerable 30, and the inside of the house would be an easy 25.

I forced the last of the tension out of myself when I opened the door to the house. This was important, the most important thing. Everything else I did, I did for this moment and what came after. "Juuuuudy~" I called as I hiked up to the first landing, my knees silently protesting with each step, "I'm home!"

For a moment, there was quiet. Then came the thumping of feet on stairs as my wife all but ran down and threw herself off the last step at me, her arms locking around my waist as she rubbed herself against my chest, her cute little butt wiggling back and forth. I took a moment to simply drink in the look of her, her mousy-brown hair done up in a loose ponytail, her crop top, panties, and socks the only clothes she was wearing, her smooth skin that my hands couldn't help but run all over, the jingle of her name tag on her big lavender leather collar.

This was the best part of every day.

"You're back, you're back, you're back!" Judy murmured, pressing herself into me as tightly as she could. I could feel her chastity cage through the thin shield of her panties, and from the way she was rubbing it up against my leg, I knew she was good and revved up already.

"I'm back," I whispered in her ear, wrapping my arms around her, squeezing her tightly, and lifting her up into the air for a big full-circle spin. She laughed happily and clung to me. "How was my cute puppy's day, hmm?" I asked as I set her down.

"I got a PB in Mecha March 3!" she said excitedly. "42:55!"

"You got a forty-two?" I said, letting my pride come through loud and clear. "Good girl, Judy!" I ruffled her hair and she let out a little whimper of happiness. "That's top ten, isn't it?"

"Eleventh," she said, pouting despite her obvious excitement. "SyntheticToast got a 42:53 yesterday."

"Oh, boo. Well, tomorrow's another day, and I know you're not giving up. My girl loves Mecha March 3, doesn't she? Doesn't she?" Judy nodded happily as I ruffled her hair again. "Buuut~" I narrowed my eyes and shifted my voice just a bit lower, giving it that rough edge she liked so much. I immediately felt her shiver. With one hand, I traced her jaw and lifted it to make her look up into my eyes. "What's the rule, Judypup~?" My thumb brushed her bottom lip ever so tenderly, and I watched her pupils dilate.

"Mmmmmf..." She bit her lip and squirmed. Stars, she was delicious when she knew she'd been a bad girl.

"Why's my puppy on two legs, huh~?" I purred. "Good pups walk on four legs." She whimpered and almost immediately her legs gave out from under her. She went to her knees right there on the landing, and I guided her down slowly. (Like every other floor in the house that wasn't the bathroom, the kitchen, or the solarium, it was carpeted for the sake of my sweet little wifepet's knees.) "Good girl, Judy," I said, kneeling down to scritch her behind her ears for a moment before gently taking her collar in hand and pulling her in for a kiss. Her lips were soft and perfect, just like the rest of her, just the way I liked her. "Now, is my Judypup ready for dinner?"

I cooked for her every night. The townhouse had a nice enough kitchen, and someone ought to benefit from it. Tonight, I'd planned a straightforward teriyaki chicken over rice with a side of lightly pickled cabbage — it was quick, easy, and one of Judy's favorites. I hadn't planned on today being so draining, but then, most days were draining in one way or another at this point. As rough as things were, though, I knew I had it better than most. In an absence of rationing or any other kind of economic controls, anything but the cheapest of lab-grown meat substitute had rapidly outpriced most peoples' budgets. I kept Judy in real meat and vegetables by dipping into rainy day funds, and by cutting back on the quality of my own food. It wasn't like I cared how mine tasted, but even if I did, I'd do it anyway.

I hate food. I hate the concept of it. Macerating bits of plant and animal between projections of textured bone, pushing it around with a half-connected muscle, and then gulping it down a meat-tube to dissolve in a pit of acid — it was enough to make one want to vomit. The only thing I could stand about it was the smell, and even that could get overwhelming. Thankfully, the long odyssey of heavy training to emigrate to Earth taught me how to efficiently load calories and nutrition, and I hadn't chewed a meal in years at this point.

Judy, though, she deserved the best. I'd learned to cook for her, and I'd gotten damned good at it. The chicken was moist on the inside and well-seared on the outside, sliced into bite-size slivers and laid on a bed of perfectly steamed rice. A nice, thick, sweet sauce drizzled on top and a side of shredded cabbage later, and her dinner was ready. "Here you go, sweetie," I said, kneeling down (ow) and setting the big red ceramic dog bowl with "JUDY" written on the side on the little elevated tray — Judy had been hovering at my side the entire time, leaning happily against my leg, and she dug in immediately, going face-first into the dog bowl as I gathered up stray bits of her hair that had escaped and re-tied her ponytail for her. "Good girl, Judy~" I murmured, stroking her hair. "Remember to drink too, love," I added, pointing at the water bowl next to her dinner. "I want to see that empty by the time you're done."

"Mmmf." Her mouth was full, and she was already a bit of a mess, but she looked content, and that was all that mattered. Cleaning her up could wait — there was still my dinner to attend to. That was a lot easier, since it wasn't a thing of seasoning or technique so much as collecting the appropriate ingredients, from leafy greens to vat-grown proteins, and then blending them all down into a loose slurry that I tipped into a large glass.

Stars, I hated this part.

I took a deep breath, tilted my head back, and began to chug. The taste was horrible, the texture was foul, and the sensation of it all sliding down my throat was enough to turn my stomach — but I had lots of practice at keeping my gorge down long enough to actually finish. Dinner took thirty seconds, tops. One for breakfast, one for dinner; a minute of hell every day. Still, that left 1,339 minutes of not having to deal with the concept of food at all. I'd take that plea bargain any day.

I washed my mouth out with a glass of water and spat it into the sink. Then, as my wife finished her dinner, I cleaned up the kitchen and began preparing for the next day's meals, taking a bit of beef out of the freezer to thaw (taco salads tomorrow) and preparing a cold-cut sandwich and a small salad for Judy to eat while I was at work. I tucked the latter into a vacuum container and stuck a note that read "Wash your hands first, pup!" on the top, then set the entire thing in the fridge.

There. Done with the necessaries. Now I could devote every bit of my attention directly my gorgeous, perfect wifepet. When she finished her dinner (and her water bowl), I cleaned up her face with a washcloth and gave her a kiss, the essence of the sauce still clinging to her lips. "Now then...I think it's playtime~" I purred in her ear as I wrapped my arms around her and hoisted her up into the air, swinging her into a wedding carry and setting off up the stairs to the bedroom. She laughed and squealed excitedly the whole way, hanging off my neck and kicking her legs. Stars, she was perfect. I didn't even feel my knees complaining — that's how perfect my Judy was.

Within minutes, I had her crop top off and her panties peeled down to her knees, her wrists anchored to the headboard with soft, padded cuffs. Her nipples were already hard, ready for the tiny little bullet vibes I clamped to each one. She whimpered and squirmed at the pinching, but I didn't turn them on, not just yet. I took my time removing my own clothes, leering hungrily down at her as she wriggled and rubbed her thighs together. First came my shirt, bundled up and tossed into the hamper in the corner; then, my shoes, one by one. I made her wait for me, both to let her stomach settle after dinner and because it turned her on.

When my socks came off, I spared just a moment to check the Sixth Toes, the implants anchored to my ankles, knees, and hips that bore about a third of my weight while standing. Without the corded bands of electroflex artificial muscle and the ceramic weight distribution plate that ran alongside the outside of each foot, the ten years I'd spent on Earth would probably already have me in leg braces and using crutches; another ten, and I'd need a wheelchair. I depended on the device, and just like my meat-body, I took every chance to make sure it was in good working order. A quick flex of each ankle, up and down, side to side; the Sixth Toe read the nerve impulses and moved with perfect range of motion. After so long using the thing, I sometimes felt a kind of phantom-limb sensation at night, when I unhooked the device to let it charge.

A quick check, and nothing more. Then, off came the rest: trousers, bra, and boxers one at a time, as slow as I could manage. Then I stood there for a long moment, letting Judy take in the sight of my body, the perfectly defined muscles, the stretched-out Martian curves. I didn't enjoy being in my body, but I could take pride in what I'd made of it nonetheless, and I could take endless joy in how much Judy loved it. I gave her a good, long look, made her wait some more, her lip between her teeth and whimpering up at me.

Only then did I pick up my phone, pair it with the nipple clamps, and switch on the integrated bullet vibes. Judy let out such a noise then, and oh, how I wished I could just live on that sound alone. "Hush, puppy~" I said, grinning, lifting the ball gag from its case and showing it off to her. "We're just getting started. Open." The word carried with it the tone of command, of expectation, and my beautiful Judypup obeyed without even thinking, her sweet little mouth falling open for me. Once the ball gag was in place, and Judy moaning around it, I reached up and toyed with the key on the chain around my neck. "Now. Does my good girl want to play?"

"Mmmmf!" Judy nodded frantically, twisting back and forth on the bed and bucking gently. Her face was already flushed, her eyes deep pools of need.

I made her wait a little more. "Does my puppy want to play?" She let out a squeal, redoubling her efforts and kicking helplessly, a raw sound that might have been a please climbing up from her throat. I waited for just the right moment, for her to look up and meet my eyes — then, I made a fist around the key and tore the chain from around my neck. (Sure, it was a pair of magnetic clamps, meant to come away like that, but it never failed to get Judy revved up regardless).

I climbed onto the bed, holding down my wifepet's legs and straddling them. "Okay, puppy," I purred as I ran my free hand up the side of her body, across her curves and her soft, smooth skin. "Let's play."

---

I didn't switch on the news until after I heard the first few snores come from Judy. After unlocking her chastity cage and fucking her absolutely senseless, I'd washed her up in the master bath, then carried her down to the living room and given her a Judy-Treat — which is to say, I gave her a high-dose edible that would give her a warm and cozy couple of hours before making it easy for her to drift off to sleep.

It wasn't like I could keep her from knowing what was going on. She was at home on her own all day, streaming from her little Judy Den and chatting with all her friends and fans — sometimes, when I was working from the office, I'd put it on and watch her adorable little puppygirl avatar, with its cute little fluffy white ears and tail, bouncing excitedly up and down as she got on a good run. It was the closest thing to a job she could manage, and while it did bring home some advertising money, she didn't do it as work — she did it because it made her happy. After all, if I couldn't be there to treat her like a dog, at least her chat could be reliably counted on to play along.

We didn't talk about it when I was at home, the same way people tried to avoid talking about out in the world. I didn't want to burden her with the worry. I wanted, to the best of my ability, to make every moment she had left to her the best it could be. No one knew what the Affini would do when they finally reached Earth, but everyone knew they would come, and soon. The "war effort," three years on, was a sick joke that was strangling everything in a desperate attempt to justify itself. Everyone that could was hiding or running for the stars; the vast majority could merely wait for the end to come.

Now that Judy was asleep, I keyed on the news channel and muted the display, letting the realtime captioning tell me what was being said. Every channel was running the official line, of course — our heroic men and women of the Cosmic Navy were trouncing the evil invaders left and right, but there were somehow always more of them in need of trouncing, and they need your support, and blah blah blah. Still, one could read between the lines, glean the occasional detail. It had been three days since anyone had so much as mentioned Alpha Centauri, and half the footage being run was similar enough to spots I'd seen before that I was fairly certain they were algorithmic repacks or retouches.

Same ol', same ol', in other words — at least, until the cut back to the anchor desk, the digital avatar smooth and perfectly coiffed even if the actor behind it was clearly stressed out if the mo-cap was anything to go by. The captions began to transcribe his speech a moment later: "An official notice from Cosmic Navy High Command — due to orbital live fire exercises involving high-energy gamma lances, citizens in North America are advised to remain indoors, lower their blinds, and above all not to look at the sky. Failure to do so may result in cataracts, blindness, and–"

I stopped paying attention there. My eyes immediately went to the window to my right, looking up at the hazy and light-polluted sky above the Punchbowl, and I'm sure I wasn't alone at that moment — half the city was probably doing the same thing. The only reason I wasn't pressed up against the window for a better view was the cute puppygirl asleep in my lap.

I contented myself instead by switching away from the official feed and enabling the broad-spectrum media stream. Usually, the algorithm only churned up absolute trash, but during a crisis you could usually expect one or two decent bits of info to rise to the top. Bingo, I thought, clicking on one panel from an amateur astronomy stream that showed a strange cylindrical thing silhouetted against the starfield. The image quality wasn't amazing, but still had enough fidelity to show the slow rotation of the ... petals? surrounding it. The steamers were chattering rapidly in what sounded like Icelandic, but before the auto-translator could catch up to what they were saying, the stream went down, replaced with a generic background declaring that the stream was in violation of Public Safety Order 13-5325-A in half a dozen official Accord languages.

I spent the next hour stream-hopping. The longest any of them stayed up once I found them was about five minutes, but it was enough to confirm that it wasn't just a one-off — the ships were being sighted everywhere, hundreds of them. Several enterprising skywatchers had even recorded one in a transit against Luna, and math nerds on the net rapidly began using the video feeds to measure the size of the thing via parallax.

It was a hundred and thirty kilometers long.

I honestly couldn't process anything for a while after reading that. If you laid the thing's nose right outside my door, its ass end would be in the Salish Sea. Maybe even all the way to Seattle. And there were hundreds of these in orbit.

What the everliving hell were we doing fighting these things? I thought. If they're flying around in ships like that, we never stood a chance.

There was no telling how long was left, now. I composed a quick text to my staff letting them know not to try to come to work tomorrow unless they heard otherwise — and I couldn't imagine telling them otherwise, considering what was happening — and to please let me know if there was anything I could do to help them. I heard back in fits and starts, but only paid it scant attention. I could see stars that were certainly not stars moving against the pale orange-pink backdrop of the night sky, and I knew that most of them were probably not the usual stations, satellites, and transiting starships.

At least Judy was out like a light. Normally, I would wake her to brush her teeth before bed, but given the circumstances I decided to let her sleep. She only stirred a little as I lifted her — "Shhh, just moving you to bed, Judypup," I whispered — and carried her up the stairs. I tucked her into bed, then disengaged the locks on my Sixth Toes, unplugged them from my legs, and set them in their charging rack beside the bed. I spooned in beside my high-as-a-kite little puppywife and cuddled her up close, and she made a happy little noise as she drifted back off.

I tried to sleep, too, but all I could do was worry for her. There wasn't anything I could do, except to hope that the propaganda about the Affini was as wrong about their aims as it was about their capacity for conquest.

I would have slept better that night if I'd known exactly how wrong it was.

Chapter 2

"Authorities would like to remind citizens that the ongoing defense of our Terran liberties requires us all to do our part. Therefore, unless specifically told otherwise by your superiors at your workplace, do not remain at home. Productivity is–"

"House, TV off," I grunted, silencing the insipid anchor as I hauled myself into another pull-up on the bar that spanned the doorway to the kitchen. Leg day was critical for Martians, but no less so was the upper body — that carried plenty of weight too. Besides, Judy liked how my lats and delts stood out. I could expend a little extra effort to give her a show.

Anything, really, to distract her from what was going on in the world outside. It wasn't quite an outright panic, but even looking out the window at the street below that morning I could feel the tension just waiting to snap. The fact that, from up on the hill, I could make out three separate Affini ships hovering over Vancouver did not help matters. The east-facing view and the rising sun necessitated the lowering of the blinds, thankfully, and by the time Judy had stumbled out of bed and down to the living room those were out of sight and what little sound of gunfire there'd been had stopped. Now, she was looking over at me from her spot curled up on the couch.

I had dropped to the floor (carefully) and was in the middle of a freeweight routine when I heard her soft voice say, "Peopletalk?"

I paused mid-lunge and shot a glance over at her. Oh stars, I thought. She's gotten worried. I set the weights down and joined her on the couch, cuddling her up close. "Of course, babe. What's wrong?"

"I don't know," she mumbled, burying her face against my sweaty chest. "Just...scared, I guess. I mean, I knew they were coming, just–" She broke off, sniffling.

"Yeah," I said, stroking her hair and squeezing her tight with my other arm. "I know, baby, I know. I guess I was hoping this would all blow over and you could just not worry about it."

"Yeah, but...well, I mean, it's everywhere. I tried to be a good dog about it, but..."

Fuck. Now I felt like a heel. I'd been trying to keep her mind off it by avoiding the subject, and instead I'd just let her stew. "You are a good dog, Judypup. I'm here, sweetheart, no matter what happens, okay?"

She nodded. "I don't wanna lose you."

"I'm not gonna let that happen," I said firmly. "I don't care what it takes. I will never, ever abandon you." I took her by the chin and lifted it to meet her pretty blue eyes. She didn't let anyone else do this. "I promise."

She sniffled, her eyes tearing up just a little. "I love you, Tam."

"I love you too, Jude." Absolutely no one else got to call her that, and it never failed to warm my heart that she had given me permission to, that she had felt safe enough with me to do so. "You feel a little better?" She nodded again, and I gave her another tight squeeze. "Good girl. You want some breakfast, and then maybe go get set up in your den?"

"In a little while?" Ah. She was feeling cuddly. I smiled and pulled her all the way into my lap, stroking her hair until she began to relax against me. "Thank you," she whispered.

"My pleasure, sweetheart." And it was. We stayed that way for a long while, and it was only the soft chime of the telephone that disturbed us (I'd replaced the default ringers — they all gave Judy migraines). "House, display caller?" The vidscreen lit up with the call's details: Malcom Abrams, calling from Keats Island Correctional Facility. "Shit. Jude, I gotta take this, something might have happened to a client."

"Okay," she said, nodding. I gave her a good squeeze and a kiss before I keyed the call on, audio only.

"Ms. Slaine?" Abrams was a known quantity, one of the administrative personnel at the site, and one I ran paperwork through on a regular basis. A decent enough man considering the work he did. Tam had seen far worse.

"I'm here, Mr. Abrams. What's the problem?"

"Ah, well...this is a little unusual." There was something about his voice that spoke to an unease, a departure from the typical form of a call to a prisoner's attorney. He felt out of his depth, it was obvious. "The, ah, the Affini are here, and...well, they want to talk to you."

What. "To me?"

"Well, to pretty much every defense attorney in Vancouver-Victoria," he clarified. "They've got me calling everyone. Took me a while to get through, the network is a mess. They want to talk to you about your clients. Why, I couldn't tell you — we've already turned over all our records to them. Not like we had a choice in the matter..."

"Wait, wait, back up," I cut in, "why are the Affini at Keats Island at all? I can't imagine you're a critically important strategic target, no offense."

"I honestly don't know," Abrams said, sounding as confused as I did. "I mean, I know what they told me, but they can't have been serious."

"What did they say?"

"That they're going to let every single prisoner go." I didn't have anything to say to respond to that. It was so outside-context for me that I simply sat with it for a minute, long enough for Abrams to add, "Ms. Slaine? Did we get disconnected?"

"No, no, I'm still here," I said. "Ah..." Shit. I glanced down at Judy, met her eyes. I didn't want to leave her alone. "Give me just a second. House, mute mic." When I heard the little beep and saw the mic-with-a-red-slash icon light up on the viewscreen, I added to Judy, "I don't know what this is about, but–"

"Go," she said, hugging me tightly. "I know your clients are important to you."

"You're important to me," I countered. "I don't want to just ditch you."

"I have the house, and it's safe, and...and if they really are letting people go, I mean..." She laughed weakly. "Everyone knows the government was just making up whatever weird stuff they wanted about the Affini. Maybe they're not all bad? If they're letting people go from prison..."

"Yeah, that surprised me too. And, if my clients are getting turned loose...well, I'm going to have to step up trying to find work for them. And who knows how the Affini handle criminal justice." It would probably involve long nights of study and probably having to get relicensed, if they even allowed humans to practice law. Shit. I was going to have dip more into the rainy day fund for sure, if I was going to be out of a job. "Are you sure you're okay to be on your own?"

She hesitated, thinking it over. Good girl, I thought, smiling. "Yeah, I think so," she said. "I'll just, uhm... I guess I'll stream?"

"Okay. And I'll let Clara know you're on your own, and to come check in on you if she doesn't hear from me, okay? And if you have any problems, you're to call me, then her if I don't pick up." Clara, one of my paralegals, lived relatively close; like the others, she knew about Judy, and had pitched in to look after her a couple of times when I had to be away.

Judy nodded and leaned up to kiss me. "Go be a cool badass lawyer," she said, winking. "That's almost as hot as you doing pull-ups."

---

"Today's going to be sunny, with a high of 43 in the afternoon; red zone temperatures from four to six. Summer's comin' folks, and remember what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen!" The weather was about the only channel that wasn't either jammed or laden with propaganda, and so it was the white noise of choice as I let the car take me across the Punchbowl Expressway and south across the Howe Sound Bridge. The exit to Keats Island involved a long, looping curve to bleed off highway speeds, and ended in a small parking lot and security checkpoint.

This was all normal for me. I came out here to advise clients regularly. What was not normal was the chain-link, razor-wire-topped gates standing wide open, both of them. That never happened. The guardhouse was still staffed, but the man there was simply staring up at the small cloud of Affini vehicles hovering silently in the air above the prison.

"Hey, Jeff," I said, flashing my legal ID. He barely looked, and I could hardly blame him. I was gaping up at the aircraft, too.

"Huh? Oh. Ms. Slaine. Hi." He went right back to staring up at the things. Their undersides glowed a soft blue, but otherwise they gave no indication of being powered. They simply hung there.

"What happened?"

"Uh...well, the Affini are here," he said, scratching his two-day growth of beard. From the bags under his eyes, I figured he'd been put on a swing shift. More and more common, these days, especially when anyone who had half an idea how to fire a weapon was getting conscripted. Jeff had only avoided it because of an inner ear problem that made putting him anywhere near microgravity as much a problem for everyone around him as it was for him. "Just kinda... showed up, about four or five hours ago. Ed tried to shoot one. You know Ed, right?"

"Older guy, going bald, rosacea?" I'd seen him around a bit. Had him pegged as a bit of an asshole.

Jeff nodded. "Didn't do shit. They gassed him with some purple stuff and stuck him, and a couple of the other guys who tried the same thing, in one of their pods, and it just... flew off," he muttered. He hadn't looked away from the aircraft, and he might not have blinked, either. "They said to open up and uh...y'know, I ain't paid enough for this shit, so, uh, I opened up."

"I don't think anyone's paid enough for this," I replied. "But, here we are."

"Yeah. Here we are." He had the same resigned tone a lot of my clients had when faced with what felt like a no-win scenario. I tried to comfort myself by remembering that I had, in fact, won a decent share of those so-called no-win scenarios, and more than most would have.

I could have stood there staring for a lot longer than I did, but I was here for a reason, and the morning wasn't getting any cooler. Past the twin gates, incongruously both open, there was a brief walk across a cement path by grass that was still clinging to life. Then, the entryway, and the inner security checkpoint. I'd been through this routine dozens of times, and I knew precisely what to expect from the heavily armed security force that would be waiting for me inside.

I didn't get what I expected. Instead, I got an enormous topiary in the vague shape of a human being. It stood, stooped over, a little too tall for the drop ceiling inside. Then, it moved, turning to face me, and my eyes finally managed to sort it into a proper shape. This wasn't just a plant, but an Affini, one of the ravening horde of interstellar monsters (if Accord propaganda was to be believed, anyway) that had spent the last three years methodically taking apart every Cosmic Navy fleet sent against it (obvious if one was even the slightest bit perceptive). I had seen broadcasts, of course, that purported to describe the Affini, but they were almost always algorithmically generated models specifically designed to appear as menacing and dangerous as possible.

"Oh! Hello there!" it said cheerfully. Menacing and dangerous were not words that described what I was looking at, what I was hearing. My brain was happily rattling off a few suggestions, though.

Incredible.

Beautiful.

Perfect.

The alien standing in front of me resolved more and more into a human shape the more I stared at it, like my brain was filling in the gaps in a connect-the-dots puzzle. There was the deep violet petals sweeping back over her head, as if it were some kind of flower bud caught mid-bloom. A pair of ferns or something like them, at least, poked out between a few of the petals like antennae. Her compound eyes, which shimmered like oil on water, shifted endlessly between shades of green and yellow. Vines coiled around vines like muscles in an anatomical diagram, making her look almost as cut as I was; unlike me, she didn't having fat and skin covering it, but a light down of moss, soft-looking grasses, and tufts of foliage that, if you squinted, sort of resembled an attempt at not being naked. Before long, I couldn't see her — at some point my brain had decided "yep, that's a woman, and you're gay" — as anything more than a three-meter knockout, absolutely stunningly gorgeous in a way that left me feeling strangely gutted.

Void take me, I thought, I wish I could look like that.

I had absolutely no idea where that thought came from.

"...hello?" The alien was leaning in, peering at me. Her voice had a strange kind of melodic vibrato underlying it, and again I felt that bizarre pang of wanting.

Right. Conversation. That was a thing I did. In a certain sense it was literally my job. "H-hi, sorry," I said, cramming the confusing feelings back down in my gut where they belonged. "I'm Tamara Slaine, I'm an attorney representing....I think the current count is 117 people incarcerated at this facility."

"Oh, you're one of the defense attorneys!" the alien said, her eyes literally flashing. "I'm so glad one of you showed up! My name is Karyon Sparaxis, First Bloom, my pronouns are she/they, and I'm with the Office of Transitional Decarceralization."

Pronouns? I had to raise an eyebrow at that. I expected that sort of thing from my paralegals and the queer community they all hailed from, but from alien invaders? "She/her, here," I said, smiling politely.

"Mmm! Thank you, I was trying to find a way to ask," she said. "You're very tall for a terran, has anyone ever told you that?"

I had to laugh a little at that. "Only everyone, constantly." I didn't even have to do anything to fluster women half the time. Along with 'You're Tall,' I practically answered to 'Oh Wow' and 'Please Step On Me, Mommy' like they were my name. "And I'm Martian, not Terran."

"You're from the fourth planet?" She went from enthusiastic interest to a concerned look almost immediately. "Oh, but doesn't that world have a much lower gravity? You must be terribly uncomfortable here. You don't have to stay, you know — if you like, I can arrange to have you offworld and on a more suitable habitat–"

"No, no, I'm fine," I said, waving the concern off. "No one made me come to Earth, I chose to be here. It was a lot of hard work to get here, and it's hard work to stay here, but I manage, and my clients need me." This sort of treatment always rankled me. Terrans always look at Martians like we're broken for being elgees, as if anywhere from a quarter to a third of the population of the fucking Accord isn't somewhere on the low gravity developmental spectrum, depending on where you drew the line. Even when you're a foot taller and have about 30 kilos on them, all muscle, they only see the spindly helpless elgee from algorithmic disaster movies tragically dying under the crushing weight of "normal" gravity.

I suppose I couldn't blame the alien quite as much as I blamed Terrans for believing the trope, though. She was probably just doing some very scary-sounding math in her head two minutes after meeting her first Earth-dwelling Martian.

"You're sure?" she said. "I'm not a specialist or anything, but it seems like living in more than two and a half times your native gravity must be an incredible strain."

I shrugged. "We evolved on Earth. The body remembers, if you remind it with enough exercise and hormones." It was more complicated than that, but I didn't feel like getting into an in-depth discussion about the physiokinematics of the Martian skeleton or the predicted rate of epigenetic divergence between the two populations. I could emigrate to Earth, but Martians a thousand years from now might not be so lucky. "So, Office of Transitional Decarceralization. I take it the rumors I heard were true, and you intend to release everyone being held here?"

"We do indeed," Karyon said, apparently entirely willing to drop the subject. Points in her favor for that. "Honestly, when we started rescuing your colonies, we were a little stunned at how many of your own people you terrans — that is to say, terrans in general, inclusive of martians and those of you from other worlds — incarcerate, but I'm starting to see that was only the first layer of the blossom. Now, I understand that you may have some concerns about this, but please rest assured that we have the situation well in hand and that everyone, the current residents of this facility included, will be taken care of."

"Oh, I have no objections," I replied. "I'm a defense attorney, remember? I've spent my entire career trying to keep people out of places like this."

"I confess that I'm not as well-read on the structure of your legal system as I probably ought to be," she said, a small note of embarrassment creeping into her tone. Odd, how easy it was to read a being that had evolved on another planet around another star thousands upon thousands of light-years away. "So please correct me if I'm wrong, but...is a defense attorney not a part of the overall process of incarceration?"

"Inasmuch as I'm sworn to uphold the law and comply with ethical standards, I suppose." It was not a comfortable thing to think about how much one had to play by a set of broken rules in order to participate in in the legal system. "But the alternative is leaving people without someone who understands the nature of the system, how it functions, and how to apply pressure to it. I can't simply abandon them to suit my own personal distaste with how the system operates."

Karyon's eyes flashed again. Was that a sign of excitement? "You are a very interesting little t- martian," she said, catching herself and smiling. "Not so little, either, at least by your own standards."

"Eh, I try." I gave her a wink before I could stop myself, my void-wretched lizard-brain going immediately into flirtation mode. I pressed on, and hoped that Karyon being an alien meant she hadn't noticed. "Are you prepared for the logistics of this, though? You say you've been doing this on colony worlds, but their incarcerated population tends to be much lower, with fewer long-term prisoners. You're going to have a lot of people who are not ready to be mainstreamed back into society, who are going to have difficulty holding down a job — and that's assuming they can find someone willing to hire an ex-felon, which is not a guaranteed thing."

Karyon laughed, and fuck I wished I could sound that good when I laughed. "Oh petal, you've really thought this out, haven't you?"

"I've handled it for clients who've gotten out before, so I have some experience with it. It takes connections and, frankly, no small amount of good luck. I'm not trying to argue against what you're doing, I support it wholeheartedly, but... it's a lot, and I want to make sure my clients, and everyone else in here, aren't simply being turfed out on their own with no support structure in place to help them adapt."

"That's very admirable, and I hope you'll be reassured to know that's just what the Office of Transitional Decarceralization is here to do," Karyon said. "That's just why we've asked you here — we've had a look at the records on hand, and while they are absolutely exhaustive when it comes to infractions, punishments, and administrative details regarding incarcerated life and the psychology of maintaining dominance over the incarcerated population, they are very poorly detailed when it comes to the actual incarcerated sophonts themselves. The facility's administrator seemed to believe, to quote, 'that's not our job.' We're hoping that you, and the other defense attorneys, may be able to provide far better context for why each individual sophont was incarcerated here and what their individual needs and issues may be, which will help us determine how best to help them, and whether they'll be able to return to life as independent sophonts or whether they'll require domestication."

It was a lot to drink down, but a lifetime of swallowing legal arguments whole and flensing them apart internally to find all their angles and weaknesses served me well as I oriented myself around what was, apparently, the new paradigm. One thing stood out. "Define domestication, please."

"...you haven't seen any of our broadcasts?" She seemed almost sad about the fact.

"I live on Earth. The media environment here is extremely tightly regulated by military censorship, on top of governmental and corporate filtering software." In point of fact, I had seen snippets of broadcasts that had made it through, but none of them had contained anything that even vaguely explained what the hell the Affini even wanted. Hell, they barely contained Affini; Karyon was the first one I'd ever gotten a good look at.

"Well, domestication, in the context of an individual sophont, refers to a xeno who surrenders their social and political rights and becomes the property of an Affini, who cares for them and provides for all their needs and ensures that they are both maximally happy and able, to the best of their abilities, self-actualize in whatever manner best fits them. We call these xenos 'florets,' and I believe the closest term your language has for the concept is 'pet.' Will that suffice as a definition, or should I go further into detail?"

I was not ready for any of that. "You...keep humans as pets?"

"Wellllll~, any xeno, really," Karyon said, giggling in a frustratingly attractive way, "but in the context of this domestication campaign, yes, humans. Oh, but don't worry, petal," she added quickly, "we only domesticate volunteers, those who pose a threat to themselves or to others, or those who are unable to adequately see to their own needs. You seem like a very level-headed and competent little xeno, so I'm fairly confident that you only need to worry about deciding to be part of the first category there."

"Not likely," I said, still trying to process what I'd just learned. "Just so we're clear: you invaded the Accord...to take humans as pets?"

"And to ensure that those we don't keep as pets are adequately cared for as well, of course," Karyon said. "We're not going to simply neglect the needs of the majority of the population the way your government has. Everyone will be taken care of, Ms. Slaine, absolutely everyone. No one will go hungry, no one will want for medical care, no one will be forced to work for a... a wage." She said the word like it was some kind of horrible infection.

"...and that's it?" This was sounding far too good to be true. My lawyer senses were scanning it like a contract certain to carry a sneaky little rider clause that would ruin everything.

"That's it." She seemed entirely calm and certain about it.

"You don't want anything from us for it?"

"Only for you to happy. That is the entire purpose of the Affini Compact, and the entire function of the bureaucracy that sustains it, of which the Office of Transitional Decarceralization is but a small part."

There must have been a catch somewhere, I thought. A lifetime of living under the Accord had taught me that things that sounded too good to be true probably were. Aliens invade, and instead of sending everyone to the mines or just plain eating us for lunch, they provide for all material needs and ensure everyone is taken care of, regardless of their ability or degree of function? Without any concern for economic participation? This definitely sounded too good to be true.

And yet, it was an impulse I understood on a gut level. The way Karyon (and presumably the rest of the Affini) felt about us was exactly how I felt about my clients, about my friends and community, and especially how I felt about Judy. Everyone should be taken care of. That was why I had gone into the law, why I did what I did, why I hired people from the local queer community — if society wasn't going to take care of them, I would, as best as I was able.

So I looked up at her, met her strange, shifting eyes, and said, "Two things. One: call me Tam. Two: how can I help?"

Notes:

A second chapter appears! And definitely not a day later than I'd planned! >_>

Chapter 3

I've always been a bit of a neatnik, one of those people who has a place for everything and keeps everything in its place. Judy, of course, brings her own incredibly cute brand of chaos to my home, but even there, and especially when it comes to the parts that are very much mine, I maintain a certain sense of order. The solarium, up on the top floor of the townhouse, is a perfect example: shelves upon shelves of carefully arranged planters, each with its own little growing things. I know where absolutely every plant, every tool, every supplement, every monitoring device is. I could care for the entire garden blindfolded, if I had to.

Paperwork, to me, is functionally the same thing. A properly filled out form gives me the same sense of accomplishment as seeing my garden nice and healthy, or as seeing Judy content in whatever she's doing without a care in the world. My paralegals joke that I must secretly be some kind of paperwork robot underneath my skin, the way I go through it, but it's just that I see the underlying logic of it all. It's easy. It's downright relaxing.

And I discovered that day that I am an absolute amateur, a dabbler, a vaguely interested party when it comes to paperwork — at least, when compared to Karyon. I watched her disentangle one arm to form a cloud of vines to sort through reams of forms concerning prisoners, creating a massive flurry from which she plucked individual sheets of paper and sorted them neatly. I'd never been so jealous in my life.

Before we got to work, of course, I texted Judy and let her know that everything was fine and that I was safe, and that I'd explain things when I got home. Then, I threw myself into the work with Karyon. By lunchtime, we'd already sorted out over two dozen of my clients who could be released on the spot, having been convicted of petty crimes that, as far as the Affini were concerned, weren't really crimes at all. I accompanied her into the inner courtyard of the prison, where the entire population (along with over a dozen Affini) were milling about, at once relieved and elated by the prospect of imminent release but just as confused as I'd been when I'd shown up. The Affini had planted some kind of biotech tree in the middle of the yard — it punched up through the reinforced cement and reached six or seven stories high before spreading out a massive canopy that shaded the entire yard, and somehow a cool breeze seemed to blow gently out of it. It was much cooler in the yard than it had been outside the gate — I couldn't remember the last time I'd been genuinely comfortable outdoors in April.

One by one, I introduced Karyon to my clients. She gave them the same spiel she'd given me (along with a handful of pamphlets with titles like "Welcome to the Compact!" and a shiny golden flower sticker for each of them), answered any questions they had ("Is this for real?" was usually the first), and gently directed them to the exit. Emotions ran high more than once; Mal Riley, who'd spent barely a day on the inside, actually broke down crying on me.

"Stars, you're the best damn lawyer ever," he said, laughing through his tears. "I didn't think you meant 'I'll get the Affini to invade and turn you loose' when you said you were gonna appeal!"

I couldn't blame them for thinking it wasn't real, of course. I still wasn't entirely sure myself. It was the best feeling in the world, though, watching their eyes as they realized it was real, and they were going home. Even the ones who weren't obvious instant release cases were being saturated with the unbelievable — the Affini had brought in a dozen machines Karyon called compilers, cubes about a meter on each side that could spit out literally anything you asked it to. They were using these compilers not just to feed the prisoners, but to compile fresh clothes for them in whatever style they liked, as well as tablets loaded with games, media, and details about the Compact that came preconnected to the Affini overnet. Once someone realized that they also connected to the terrestrial comms network, half the yard was filled with excited conversations with loved ones who hadn't been able to afford the exorbitant visitation rates or video call fees.

I checked in with all of my clients while I was there, making sure not to miss a single one. I couldn't keep all the details of their cases in my head, of course, but Karyon made it clear that, regardless of their situation, none of them would be spending any more time in the prison than absolutely necessary.

"It's unsanitary, has terrible climate moderation, is frightfully cramped, and in general is not fit for sophont habitation," she said to one group. "We'll have temporary housing in place by tonight, and once we've made sure we've extracted every available bit of information from the place, we're going to tear the whole thing down." That got a cheer from everyone in earshot.

I didn't know what temporary housing was going to look like, given that in the few hours I'd been hanging around Karyon I'd gotten the clear impression that the Affini did nothing by halves, but there was no way it would be a step down. The real concern was those clients of mine, not to mention the other prisoners whose lawyers had yet to turn up, who had no support network to go back to or whose details were uncertain.

"The good news," I told Karyon, "is that I have my clients' paperwork archived back at my offices. Witness statements, psychological profiles, evidentiary hearings, court transcripts, the works." I never disposed of paperwork unless legally required to do so. I still have receipts from the corner store across from my first apartment — the one back on Mars.

"That would be very helpful. Shall we take care of that now?" And so I found myself back out in the parking lot, telling my car to go home without me — Karyon insisted on showing off one of the flying pods drifting overhead, and it wasn't as if she could fit in my car anyway, not without bottoming it out. The little pod slid noiselessly down to the ground, and once I got close I could finally feel the gentle heat of the underside — some kind of omnidirectional thruster, I guessed, but I was no engineer, and I had no clue what made it work. Then again, a terran engineer probably wouldn't, either.

"Hop in!" Karyon said as the canopy levered open. She didn't climb up into the thing so much as pour herself in. The interior had a single, massive seat, sized not just for Karyon but for an Affini a meter or more taller as well. She patted her lap expectantly with one hand, and offered the other to me.

"Uh, what?"

"Come on, there's plenty of room for both of us in here," she said, grinning.

"Right, it's just..." I had to laugh, if only to cover the awkwardness of it all. "Usually I'm the one with someone sitting on me," I added as I took her hand. She hoisted me up without any difficulty, up and over and into her soft, warm lap. Stars, I wondered, is this is how Judy feels when I pick her up and swing her around?

"Well, take it as an opportunity to see how it feels, and to refine your technique accordingly," Karyon said, wrapping a vine or two around me to hold me in place. "Now, where's your office?" I pulled out my phone, brought up a map, and pointed it out to her. "Ah, easy! Right... over... here!" she said, tapping at the control screen. The canopy slid down, and the pod leapt up with surprising speed, arcing over the Strait. For a brief moment I could see practically the whole of the Punchbowl — then, we were descending again, diving right into the heart of Nanaimo's business district. The whole trip couldn't have taken more than a minute, I realized as Karyon set me down on the sidewalk right outside my office. My knees did not quite want to hold me up, but the Sixth Toes did their job and kept me upright.

"Holy shit," I muttered as I watched the pod float up and park itself above the building.

"It's just a transit pod," Karyon said, giggling and patting me on the back. "Don't act so shocked."

"I reserve the right to continue to be shocked by casual displays of superior technology," I said, grinning up at her as I fished for my card key and unlocked the door. The office wasn't much to look at — a lobby with a (currently unoccupied) front desk; the hallway that led to my office and the break room where a sink, microwave, refrigerator, and coffeemaker all stood at the ready; and the door to the workroom, which was nothing but a set of long tables down the middle and shelves stacked with boxes upon boxes of documentation. The latter made up the vast majority of the interior of the place, and it was where the paralegals spent most of their time on the job.

Right now, though, it was just me and Karyon. I treated her to some of the nicer tea I kept stocked in the breakroom, and we spent the next five hours digging through files. It felt so paradoxically ordinary — sure, Karyon was very flirty, but frankly, so were my paralegals half the time. Yes, Karyon was an alien whose species had just conquered Earth (or, at least, was in the process of doing so — it really wasn't on my mind at the moment exactly how far along they were in terms of taking over the entire planet, considering how inevitable their victory clearly was), but after I got used to that, it was just working with any other colleague, a visiting lawyer from another firm who was collaborating on a case. It just happened that the other firm was the Affini Compact, and the case was total prison abolition.

Stars, it felt really good to be doing this. And it felt good to be doing it with Karyon. Sometimes, you run into someone, and you just know that you're going to be good friends — you click on some level, like you were always waiting to find each other, to fit together. It was like that with me and Karyon. We fit. Something about her vibe and mine came together so harmoniously that we worked more like a single unit than a duo. We got an absolutely absurd amount of work done, and while some of that was without a doubt down to Karyon's omnipresent vines, the teamwork was definitely a part of what was making the dream work.

About the only thing I held back on, really, was Judy. I just didn't know how to broach the subject. I wanted to, stars I wanted to, but how the hell was I supposed to do it? How do you tell an alien whose entire culture is centered on taking intelligent life and making pets out of them that you were doing it before it was popular? Was I just supposed to give her a knowing nod, a wink, and say "Same hat?" Somehow, I didn't feel like that would get the message across.

The sun made its slow arc across the sky. It was dark out before either of us realized it, even though I'd been checking in with Judy throughout the day. I had always hated keeping her secret, even if I was practiced at it. "Oh, my wife works from home," I would tell people. "She's shy, she doesn't come out to these sorts of events." None of it was a lie, really, but it missed the point. Judy wasn't just my wife, she was my pet. She wanted that, and I wanted that, and fuck anyone who didn't care for it or thought it was wrong.

Out in the professional world, of course, that was not a valid response — I couldn't just tell people to die mad about it. The thing was, as far as I could tell, that professional world no longer existed, and the one that I was nebulously orbiting the fringes of now not only didn't care, but would probably be tickled pink to hear about it. And so, at the last check-in of the evening, I sent Judy a text.

‹tslaine› Hey, sweetheart, I'm on my way home and I'd like to bring a new friend over to meet you.

‹Judypup› OK!!!!

‹Judypup› Wait are they ok or do I need to peoplemode

‹tslaine› Come as you are, beautiful, I don't think she's gonna mind

I locked my phone and glanced up at Karyon, who was putting away the last of the boxes. "Hey, you wanna keep this up?"

"I think you've put in more than enough work for one day, Tam," Karyon said as she nudged the box into perfect alignment with all the others. "It's important to pace yourself and rest."

"Not for more paperwork," I said. "Much as I think we'd both enjoy it. Just, y'know, this." I waved a finger back and forth between her and myself. "Just talking. I get a good feeling from you, but I want to meet free-time Karyon too." Once again, I thanked Lady Luck that I was blessed with the greatest lesbian superpower of them all: the confidence to just tell someone I liked them and wanted to spend more time with them. "And, besides that, there's something I want to show you back at my place. I don't know what you're gonna think, but I have a good idea, and I'm dying to find out if I'm right or not."

"Well, that is an intriguing invitation," Karyon said. She reached inside herself, parting the vines of her chest and pulling her tablet back out — I still wasn't over this, and definitely wasn't sure why I felt jealous that she could do it — and began tapping at it. "And my colleagues can certainly handle looking after all the cuties back at Keats Island. All the temporary housing is in place, by the way, and they all seem very happy with it!"

"Cuties, huh?" This wasn't the first time she'd broad-brushed a large group of humans with that word, and I wasn't so sure I agreed with her assessment on an aesthetic level in this case — Keats Island didn't have a female wing, and I was very, very gay.

"So cute. Incredibly adorable, even," she said, tucking her tablet back inside herself. "The elders always say the sheer cuteness level gets overwhelming on your first domestication campaign, but I wasn't expecting just how sweet terrans really are in person. And there's so many of you here, much more than on any of the ships or colonies I've seen."

"Well, I have a particularly cute human I'd like you to meet," I said, grinning. "So, shall we?"

---

"Okay, watch your head, the ceilings are a little low for you, sorry. Whew, it's hot out there." I was not used to coming in through the front door, especially not outside the brief span of time between November and February when the weather was tolerable outside. The air conditioning hit me like a wall as I stepped out of the entryway.

"Yes, the Bureau of Environmental Remediation is going to have a lot of work in their vines," Karyon said, "but don't worry, they'll get it fixed!"

"Based on what I've seen so far, I have very little doubt," I said, setting down my briefcase and slipping my suit jacket off. "Give me a second, then follow me down the stairs when I call, okay?" She nodded, and I went down the stairs and into Judy's den. It was all one room that took up most of the first underground floor, an open space with shelves for all of her favorite knickknacks, models, and toys, warm LED panels on the walls casting ever-shifting hues across a thick white carpet. One entire corner was full of nothing but big soft cushions, strewn with about a dozen plushies of varying sizes, where Judy liked to recline while she played video games on the big vid screen hanging down from the ceiling. She was there now, curled up, watching something — the minute I walked in, though, she perked up and flung herself at me. "Hey, beautiful!" I said as I caught her, swinging her around and giving her a big kiss, then a scritch behind her ear. "How was my pup's day, huh?"

"Mmmmmgood," she said. "A little scary on the net, but once you told me everything was gonna be okay it wasn't so bad."

"I'm glad to hear that," I said, stroking her hair and cuddling her up close. "I'm sorry I was gone so long, baby. I'm gonna get dinner going real quick, but first I want to introduce you to my new friend."

She stiffened just a little in my arms. "She's really okay with...me?" she asked quietly, looking up at me with her big pretty puppy-dog eyes. She'd had bad experiences with people who didn't like the idea of a human being a pet before. But then, all those people who had been nasty about Judy were going to be really mad when they found out about the Affini's raison d'etre. That gave me a little kick of pure schadenfreude.

"I think you're gonna knock her dead, baby," I whispered back, stroking her cheekbone with my thumb. "She told me flat out she's absolutely okay with humans being pets. See...she's an Affini. Turns out, that's what this is all about. Isn't that funny?"

Her eyes somehow went wider. "There's an Affini upstairs?" she hissed.

"She's okay, I promise. We spent all day together, a bunch of it just the two of us, and if she was gonna eat me, she had plenty of opportunity. I get a good vibe from her. Trust me?"

"Always," she said, without a moment's hesitation.

"All green?"

"All green," she replied, standing on tiptoe — I got the message and gave her a little boost so she could kiss me. Judy was on the tall side for a Terran, but I still had a head and a half on her. She liked how small I made her feel, and I took every opportunity to remind her what a little cutie she was.

Stars, I thought, laughing to myself. I met her less than twelve hours ago and I'm already thinking in Karyon-isms. "Hey, Karyon? Come on down," I called back over my shoulder.

It only took a moment for her to descend the stairs into the den, and most of that was due to her being exceptionally careful not to whack her head on the door frame (something I had done more than once — I'd bought the place because it had high ceilings, but not all the doors were as tall as they could be). She looked around the room, taking in every detail, and pausing when she reached me and Judy. She stared for a long moment, her eyes shifting rapidly through dozens of shades before they settled on a vibrant green shot through with streaks of gold. "Everbloom, Tam, is that–"

I took the opening her hesitation left me. "You told me you keep sophonts as pets, so... Karyon, this is my pet, Judy, pronouns she/her. Judy, this is Karyon Sparaxis, First Bloom, pronouns she/they."

"H-hi," Judy said, half-hiding behind me.

"You have a pet terran?" Karyon's body seemed to shake itself loose all of a sudden, her humanoid shape growing just a little less distinct. She clasped her big, double-thumbed hands together and made a noise that I'm not certain anyone on Terra had ever heard before. "That's adorable! Oh, I have to get a picture, my friends will never believe I met a xeno who has a xeno pet! May I... may I pet her?" she added, her form tightening up just a little as she reached out hesitantly.

"What do you say, Judypup?" I said, grinning and winking at her. "You want some scritches?" Karyon's reaction seemed to have settled Judy a bit, because she only hesitated a little before stepping forward — though she glommed onto my hand and held on tight as Karyon ran a vine tentatively along Judy's head. She left out a soft little noise at the first stroke, but relaxed when the second one came, and by the third all the tension had completely left her body.

"Good girl~" Karyon murmured, stroking her with her full hand now. "Oh, how absolutely precious you are, Judy! Oop!" She laughed and caught Judy as she went straight into sub-drop, before I could even move. Cradling her gently, she guided the spaced-out puppygirl to the carpet, petting her all the while and settling down next to her on the floor. It was less a sitting motion than a slow spreading out of her lower body — her head was still pretty close to the ceiling. "Tam, she is absolutely perfect."

"Isn't she?" I crouched down next to her, tapping the Sixth Toe control on my hip to increase the tension, letting it bear more of my weight at the price of lower mobility. Long term squats were not a good thing for my knees, but I wasn't missing out on prime Judypup loving. I ran a hand up and down her back, slipping it under her top and stroking her just where she loved it. She whimpered and squirmed in a way I knew meant she was in pup-brain paradise. "You got her under fast. I'm impressed."

"Affini are naturally hypnotic," Karyon said, "so I have a bit of an advantage, but this adorable little xeno is very susceptible. You've clearly been training her. Am I right?"

"Only for about eight years," I said, finding Judy's favorite spot, right at the base of her neck where it met her shoulders. I ran my fingertips in a circle around it, and she let out a helpless little squeal that woke me up faster than a liter of black coffee. "Stars, I love her," I said out loud. "She doesn't like having to be people, so when I'm home, she's not. Not unless she has something she wants to say. But right now, I don't think she could put two words together if she tried," I added, laughing. "Isn't that right, Judypup? You're totally out to lunch, aren't you?" All I got back from her was a happy whine.

"She's very sweet," Karyon said, ruffling Judy's hair. "And your touch on her is very noticeable. She's almost floret-like, it's really quite something. Though..." She hesitated, giving me an apologetic look. "Now I've had some time to let the first blush of cuteness wear off, I am a little concerned. You shouldn't have to be looking after her like this, and I... well, please don't take this the wrong way, but are you entirely certain you're meeting all her needs?"

I stiffened. "Are you saying I'm a bad owner?" Ten years of practiced courtroom manners let me keep my voice cool, but inside I was mad. I invited Karyon into my house and within five minutes she was calling me out?

"Not by your own standards, of course. It's clear you love Judy and have done your best to see her cared for. This, for example," she added, gesturing around the room and particularly at the corner full of cushions and plushies. "This is all very lovely, and seems to please Judy, but keeping a pet is more than just giving them material goods, you know?"

"I also feed her," I said, "healthy meals, all home-cooked and nutritionally balanced. She has access to the best medical care I can get for her, including transition care. She has friends both in the local community and online who know and respect her for who she is."

"And again...for humans, on Terra, this is very good, I'm not denying that," Karyon said. "You've done the very best you could be expected to under the circumstances, I'm sure, and you should be very, very proud of that, but we have a higher standard of care, Tam. We, the Affini, are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the well-being of xenos, and while we don't have a domestication treaty with your species yet, that's hardly going to stop us from ensuring that every terran we can help, we do."

I looked down at Judy, who was well and truly off to the races, smiling and rolling around under our touch. If she knew what we were talking about, if she heard even a single word of it, she gave no sign. "You're not going to try to separate us, are you?" I whispered, wondering if I'd made a terrible mistake by bringing Karyon here.

"No! No, never!" Karyon said emphatically, and I felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders. "It's clear the two of you are very tightly bonded. I could see that the moment I saw you two together. It's just that–" She let out a very human-sounding sigh. "At the very least, I want her to see a veterinarian. It's a little late tonight, and you've had a very long day, and Judy seems to be healthy and happy, so I think it can wait until tomorrow. I have contact information for a veterinarian that Transitional Decarceralization is referring anyone who needs advanced medical care to, so I can take care of that, at least."

"Well, alright," I said. "And you mean doctor, not veterinarian. I play with Judy and tell her she's going to the vet when we have to see a doctor for a checkup or something, but that's just play — vets are for animals."

"No, I mean veterinarian. A medical professional who specializes in the care of xenos such as yourself."

I couldn't help but stare up at her for a moment. "You call your doctors who specialize in humans veterinarians."

"Not just humans, all non-Affini sophonts, but... yes. Why, what's the issue?"

"Well....I guess it's just that I never thought I'd meet someone who was more into being a petplay top than me," I said, chuckling and scritching Judy under the chin. "You hear that, Judypup? Tomorrow, you get to see a real, live, actual veterinarian!"

I don't know if she really processed what I was saying, but she let out the happiest noise yet a moment later.

Notes:

Next time: a vet is visited, a seed is sown, and paralegals are present!

Chapter 4

"You're sure you have everything you need? And that everything is... okay?"

Clara all but laughed in my face. "Tam, honey, sweetie," my office manager said, "one more flirty queer in the office isn't going to rock the boat that much, even if she is an alien, okay?"

"Fair enough," I said, giving her a smile. It wasn't as if I was worried about my staff being left alone with Karyon. Once the initial shock wore off, introductions had gone well, and Karyon was certainly charmed by the eclectic bunch of local weirdos I kept employed, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't dragging them into something against their will. "You have my number, and the local network seems pretty stable, so if anything comes up, call me, okay?"

"Tam." Clara pulled her wire-rim glasses off and brushed a lock of her curly blonde hair back out of her eyes — she'd re-dyed it yesterday, since she had the day off, and it was bright and vibrant just the way she liked. "Take your pup to the vet." She gave Judy, standing next to me, a wink, and my adorable little wifepet squirmed happily.

"Yes, ma'am," I said with only the barest hint of sarcasm — Clara and I both knew that, authoritative as she might be when it came to keeping my office running for me, that I'd seen her naked, gagged, and on her knees with her arms bound behind her far too many times to ever take orders from her. But that was part of the game, too.

And that was the best part of hiring exclusively from the local kinky, queer subculture I'd adopted as my own: it quickly dispensed with the tiresome pretense that everyone present was some kind of sexless work robot without needs or desires of their own. Everyone in the office knew that Clara liked being tied up and slapped around, everyone knew that whatever cash Elena didn't spend on food, rent, and other necessities went into the latex wardrobe we'd all helped her pick out, and so on. It made it refreshingly easy to just connect with one another as people instead of cogs in a machine.

Who knows, maybe the Affini would fix that too when they chucked out capitalism, but I like to think I'd done a decent enough job of getting there first in my own little corner of the world.

Judy, meanwhile, had been on cloud nine the entire day. Not only was she getting to see a real, actual veterinarian (instead of us just privately calling the doctor one), but she got to keep her real collar on instead of the subtle peoplemode choker she usually wore when she went out. Her cheeks were bright red in a way that had nothing to do with the late-morning heat as I opened the passenger door of my car for her. "You're sure this is okay?" she asked, biting her lip as she reached up and ran a finger around the inside of her collar.

"My love," I told her, cupping her cheek with one hand and brushing my thumb across her cheekbone, "I think the days of you having to peoplemode when you don't want to are rapidly coming to an end." That little bit of affirmation and affection left her all but vibrating for the entire drive across the Punchbowl Expressway. Stars, being her owner was the best feeling in the world, even better than meeting an entire alien culture that agreed without reservation that people made the best pets. "Now let's see," I said as keyed through Karyon's directions on the car's HUD as we neared the destination. "We're looking for a... oh. Well, that's probably it."

It looked less like a building and more like some kind of massive mollusk, spiraling and fluted, dwarfing the buildings it sat next to. The thing had actually planted itself half in the water, half on the edge of a wharf, long tentacle-looking extensions burrowing into the ground and the bay. Glossy like nacre, when it caught the sunlight it shone in brilliant rainbow hues. A single door, ensconced beneath an overhang of the same material, beckoned. There were very few people around, onlookers hanging back across the street and staring at the thing that had unceremoniously taken over part of the waterfront.

"Come on, sweetie," I said, opening the door for Judy and offering my hand to her. She was halfway out when I heard quick footsteps approaching.

"H-hey!" It was an older man, grey mustache, receding grey hair, wearing a threadbare tank top and cargo shorts. He was in good shape despite his age; maybe a day laborer. "What are you doing?"

"I don't see how it's any concern of yours," I said. Judy hid behind me.

"I mean, you see that thing, right?" He pointed at the Affini construction, fear in his eyes.

"Obviously? Look, do you need something? Because if not, my wife and I are busy."

His brows furrowed for a moment, like little grey caterpillars. "You're not going in there?"

"Yeah, we are," I said evenly. I held back the urge to sigh. This was probably going to be a fairly common sort of encounter going forward — Keats Island's enthusiastic population was probably going to be in the minority when it came to reactions to the Affini's arrival.

"That's an Affini ship!" he cried. "Who knows what they'll do to you?!"

"Well, if the information I have is accurate, they'll give my wife a medical checkup. Look, I get it, we've all been spoonfed the same nonsense for the last three years straight, but having actually met the Affini, I think I can quite confidently state that they aren't here to eat us, or send us to the mines, or anything like that."

"You've met them?!" The man looked absolutely horrified.

"You meet all kinds of interesting people in my line of work," I replied. "Come on, Judy," I added, "let's go." I turned, put an arm around her shoulder, and shut the car door with my free hand. If the man noticed her collar, he said nothing — but then, I think the idea that I'd met the Affini and somehow escaped with my life had left him dumbfounded. I glanced back over my shoulder to see the dirty looks and horrified stares from the other onlookers, but none interfered as I led Judy up to the entrance and into the ... the whatever it was.

For all its otherworldly exterior, the interior looked like every waiting room I had ever seen (perhaps a little less utilitarian), but scaled to twice the size as usual. Made sense, I supposed — if Karyon was on the short side for an Affini, which judging by the pod she certainly seemed to be, it made sense they'd want something sufficiently roomy. It felt very odd not to be too big for a space.

The reception desk was unoccupied; instead, there was a big red button hanging over the edge, its assembly attached to some kind of vine-like wire. A handwritten sign was taped to the desk next to it, which read "PLEASE PUSH THIS TO GET MY ATTENTION, I DON'T HAVE A RECEPTIONIST YET." Under that, in smaller lettering, it read, "Unless you want to volunteer, in which case, hi there cutie~" Around the borders it was decorated with hearts, stars, wavy lines, and odd spiraling shapes. I looked at the sign, looked down at Judy, shrugged, and pushed the button.

There was a chime from somewhere in the room, and a loud crash from the hallway behind the reception desk. "Dirt, dirt, dirt!" I heard an Affini voice shout, followed by, "Er, sorry! Yes, uhm... come on back, cutie!" A few vines reached out into the hallway, gesturing vaguely. "Yes, you, come on, round the side of the desk and down the hall!"

This was not filling me with a great deal of confidence, and Judy didn't seem to feel any different. Still, we'd come here for a reason, and I was going to prove to these aliens that I was, in fact, a model fucking owner for Judy. "Come on, babe," I whispered to Judy. She hesitated for just a moment, looking up at me, but a hand at her back seemed to calm her, and I knew something else that would help. "Does my Judypup want her leash?" Her eyes lit up, and she nodded enthusiastically; I pulled the strip of leather from my pocket, unfolded it, and clipped it to the ring on her collar. "Walkies time," I purred. "Now heel, Judy."

I didn't even have to tug — she followed two steps behind me and just to my right, like I'd trained her. Stars, I was so glad I'd remembered to bring the leash with me. Calm down, I told myself. Don't get spun up at the actual literal alien veterinarian's office. Save that energy for later. I led her down the hall, following the vine and turning into a room that–

I wasn't sure what it was, to be perfectly honest. It was dome-shaped, broad and tapering up to a single, warmly glowing chandelier-planter draped with creeping vines and flowers that hung down over the sides. The room had to be at least six or seven meters tall. The walls were covered with pipes and tubes that fed into and out of machines I couldn't even begin to guess at the nature of, all of it seemingly grown in place as if this room was their natural habitat. Several tall pillars stood around the perimeter of the room, glowing a vivid green from within. Between two of them, awkwardly braced against the floor and half-broken-up into a collection of vines that were hurriedly picking up dozens of little glass vials and beakers, was another Affini.

She looked nothing like Karyon, all smooth curves and poise — this one was a tangled mountain of knotted vines that streamed from the alien's head all the way to the floor in a thick curtain, its body only visible through occasional gaps as it moved. As it cleared up the last of the glassware into a tray, it slowly began to take on a human shape, squat and hunched behind the hair-like vines like some kind of fairy-tale crone. It wasn't that much taller than I was. Half a face and one eye peered out at me and Judy. "...why have you got that other terran on a leash?"

Here we go, I thought. "Because she's my pet," I said with as much casually smooth confidence as I could muster.

"Pet?" The alien almost dropped the glassware tray again, but caught in just in time and set it down in a niche on the wall. "Pet? Pet?! You don't do that. Terrans don't do that. I know terrans, and you don't do that! All your ownership concepts are much more toxic and tied up with your bizarre ideas about economics."

"She's not my employee, if that's what you mean," I replied. "She's my pet, Judy, and her pronouns are she/her. I'm Tamara Slaine, her owner, pronouns also she/her."

"Hmmm." That one eye seemed to leer at the two of us for a long second. "Oh. Right, right. Camassia Lathrys, Seventh Bloom, she/her," she added offhandedly. "Hmmph. Rapid onset of behavioral emulation. Odd, very odd. Definitely going to have to have a look at that."

"Behavioral emulation?" I raised an eyebrow. Did she think I was just some copycat?

Camassia's entire body rippled. "It's normal and natural for sophonts integrated into the Compact to desire to emulate Affini traits, but it doesn't usually happen literally overnight. And for such a feral lot, especially! Hmm. You must have been inspired by a broadcast. How long has this been going on, two weeks, a month, what?"

"Try eight years," I said evenly.

"... years being planetary revolutions around your star?"

"That's correct."

"...no no no, quite impossible," Camassia said. "Quite impossible, you didn't know about us that long ago. We didn't know about you that long ago. Ergo, you can't have been emulating our behavior for eight years."

"See, now you've got it," I said, smiling and waiting for her to realize what she'd just said.

It took a moment. "Wait. Waaaaaaait." She leaned in just a little too close, close enough I could smell the thick floral scent of her body — very different from Karyon's, oddly. I'd expected them to smell a similar way. It's wasn't bad, wasn't disappointing, just interesting. "No. No no no. You started doing this on your own? Terrans don't do that! The literature has nothing about it!"

"Well, then you get to add to the literature, don't you?" I'd dealt with enough academics in my career that I knew how to massage their egos when necessary, and I was willing to bet it was no different for alien academics — and I was right. Her eye immediately began to glow brightly in a way I knew from Karyon meant excitement.

"Hhhhhuh. Terran-Terran owner/pet relationship?" She reached up with one hand and swept aside the curtain of her hair/vines, revealing the other half of her face, which was studded with about a dozen eyes of varying shapes and sizes. Judy huddled up close to me, burrowing into my arm. "Mmmm, no. Martian-Terran. Potentially relevant?"

"You know about the difference between Martians and Terrans?" I didn't bother hiding my surprise.

"Obvious low-gravity developmental adaptations in your skeletal system," Camassia murmured. "I've treated many terrans with simular morphology. Though your musculature varies from theirs considerably. High-gravity readaptation, no doubt. Fascinating." She shifted her gaze lower, reached out and ran a vine up the side of my leg before I could react. "Aaah! Cybernetic support prosthesis! Fascinating, fascinating!"

"Well, I tell you what, doc," I said, "you can look at it all you want once this girl here gets her checkup." I ruffled Judy's hair, and she squirmed happily. "Karyon insisted once she found out about us."

"Mmmm, yes, yes, very wise of her," Camassia said, nodding. "Who is Karyon?"

"... you don't know her? She's the one who suggested you to me, she's with the Office of Transitional Decarceralization."

"Mmm!" Camassia's face lit up with understanding. "Yes, yes, they're supposed to send their little sweeties to see me if they need anything more advanced than a quick checkup. Once we get things settled enough for in-depth exams, of course, I'm going to be much more busy, but you, you have chosen the perfect time to come and relieve me of my boredom!" She turned to Judy, and something about her entire manner shifted in an instant. "Hello there, little one," she said, her voice suddenly soft and gentle. "I'm going to run a few tests on you to make sure you're good and healthy, and I'm going to talk to..." She hesitated for just a second, glancing at me. "...your owner about your needs and anything that might need to be taken care of. But you don't worry even a little bit, okay~?" She offered a hand to Judy. "You're just going to take a little nap, and before you know it, you'll be aaaaall done!"

Judy blushed bright red, biting her lip and squeezing my arm. "Can I?" she whispered.

"Of course, love," I whispered back, reaching up and unclipping her leash. "I'll be right here the whole time, I promise." I gave her a little nudge forward, and she reached out to take Camassia's hand.

"Good girl~" Camassia said, holding onto Judy's hand tenderly. "Now, let's get you off to sleepytime." From inside her thicket of vines, a flowerbud poked its way free, unfurling into a brilliantly violet blossom that put me in mind of a bigger, fluffier crocus. "Just take a big sniff of this," she said, holding it out to Judy on the end of a vine — and Judy, perfect little obedient pup that she was, didn't hesitate for more than a second, leaning in and breathing deeply. Her body went limp almost immediately, but Camassia had vines ready to catch and support her, drawing her into her arms. "Ooookay," she said, dropping the kindly affect. Then, she unfolded, the squat shape of her body beneath her hair giving way to a lithe, almost spindly body that rose to what must have been three-and-a-half to four meters. Her hair/vines still hung most of the way down her body. "Let's get this cutie into the exam room."

---

The exam room was much like the room we'd found Camassia in, but only slightly less festooned with unusual biomachines — and with the addition of a comfortable-looking exam table in the center of the room. Judy reclined on it, still unconscious, as Camassia ran lines into and out of her body, waved strange devices over her, and said "Hmm" at least once every three seconds.

I tried to stay out of the way. The last thing I wanted to do was antagonize the alien that was going to be evaluating my fitness to keep Judy as a pet. Once we get this finished, I told myself, it'll be that much easier to convince other Affini that I know what I'm doing, and that I'm good for her. The prospect of being able to openly talk about the way Judy and I lived was nothing short of intoxicating after almost a decade of having to treat it like something perverted, something wrong.

"Hmmm," Camassia said, peering at the tablet in her hands as her vines poked and prodded Judy. "Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmmm." She glanced at me, back to the tablet, then back to me — then, she crouched down again, going back into lump mode and hiding behind her vines. "She is, if not in absolutely perfect health, in the best that could be expected given the abysmal state of Terran medical science."

Okay, I'll admit, I breathed a sigh of relief there. "Glad to hear it," I said, smiling.

"Now, explain," she said firmly. "What prompted you to attempt to keep a terran as a pet?"

I shrugged. "I love her and want her to be happy, and this is what makes her happy?"

Her eyes narrowed, and once again I was just a little in awe of how well Affini could mimic human expressions. "Details, please."

"Alright, details. We met not too long after I came to Earth. She was burning out really badly and not taking care of herself — she's got some pretty nasty executive function problems and is, in general, what she likes to call 'neurospicy.'"

"Yes, yes, divergent neurotype, noted that," Camassia said, gesturing for me to continue.

"Well, she ended up losing her job and needed a place to stay, and I offered because I didn't want to see her get picked up for vagrancy. I'd landed my first long-term client, so my retainer could cover for us both for as long as she needed. And, well... we connected, sparks flew, we started doing petplay, and she liked it. She really liked it." I smiled as I remembered the first time I'd put a collar on her, how her eyes had lit up, how her cheeks had flushed a bright red, and how I could see the tension and anxiety just fall right out of her. "So, eight years ago as of this January, we made it permanent. She's been my pet ever since."

"What prompted you to start this pet play?"

I had to think for a moment on that one, and to be perfectly honest I wasn't sure I had an answer. "It just felt right," I said, shrugging again. "I don't know if I can explain it better that — she needed to be absolutely, totally taken care of, and I wanted to give her that. And when I did, it was good for her. She...grew, as a person. She didn't have to worry, she could just be herself in the way that made her happiest. Does that make sense?"

Camassia simply stared at me. "You are a very unusual terran. Martian. Same root evolutionary biome. Unusual, is the point."

My gut twisted. I tried not to let it show. "Was that not an acceptable answer?"

Camassia snorted. "If we hadn't just arrived on your planet, and if it wasn't entirely clear to me that you're being truthful, I would wonder if this Karyon of yours hadn't told you to say that as some sort of prank on me, because it's exactly the sort of thing I'd expect an Affini to say. So, yes, acceptable answer, and given the situation an acceptable level of care. I'm still going to have to pass this on to the Xenosophont Wellness and Care Bureau, but I will make a note that you are doing an adequate job given the pre-domestication status quo. Obviously there is room for improvement."

"If there's a way I can be better for Judy, I'm all ears," I said, smiling. "I may be new to all this," I added, gesturing at the exam room around us, "but I'm a quick study, and nothing's too good for my Judypup."

"Well, there are things I can do for her," Camassia said, "but the bigger issue is simply that you're not an Affini, and therefore she doesn't have a haustoric implant."

"That being?"

"Mmm." Camassia grinned. "A work of art. Perhaps the crowning achievement of my species. The haustoric implant bonds and integrates with the subject's nervous system, allowing for high-fidelity control of endocrine and neurological functions. Among other things, this means it can be used to monitor and adjust various physiological parameters, leading to vastly improved health outcomes. Faster healing, better immune system, psychological improvements."

"Okay, sounds great," I said. "Let's get her one of those."

"Can't," Camassia replied. "You're not an Affini. The implant requires a core sample to function properly. You're not an Affini, ergo you have no core, ergo no implant for your not-quite-a-floret. Sorry."

"...shit," I muttered. "Fair enough." It was not fair. I felt let down in a deeply frustrating way that seemed to go beyond Judy not being able to have something that would be good for her. It stuck in my gut, in the back of my mind, a sense that this was wrong somehow. But I pushed that aside — it was just frustration, nothing more. "Okay, but you said there are things you can do. Like what?"

"Well, were you an Affini, I would discuss future treatment and medication options with you and we would make any appropriate decisions regarding your pet," Camassia said. "However, legally, especially in the absence of a controlling domestication treaty, she's an independent sophont, and so I have to discuss medical options with her, even if she then decides to defer the decision to you."

"Yeah...yeah, I suppose that makes sense," I said, nodding. Karyon had made it clear the Affini knew what they were doing when it came to situations like this, that they had procedures to fall back on with literally millennia of field-testing. "And I think she'd be fine with that. She's used to having to peoplemode with doctors, she'd want to have input."

"...people... mode." Camassia paused, then chuckled. "I like that. People mode."

It didn't take long to bring Judy back around. Camassia, all stretched out again, offered to assist me up onto the exam table, but it was within my reach, so I simply grabbed the edge, did a pull-up, and swung myself up and onto it — it was a fairly significant bit of exertion, but hey, I like to show off, and I especially like to make it clear to slightly condescending aliens that I'm entirely capable of navigating their world as well as my own. Soon, Judy was stirring in my arms, blinking up at me with a dazed look in her eye. "Tam?"

"Hey, beautiful," I said, squeezing her tightly. "Have a nice nap?"

"Mmmyeah," she said, yawning and stretching. Stars, she was adorable. "Everything okay?"

"Oh my yes," Camassia said, leaning in and ruffling Judy's hair. "You are very fortunate, you know, to have an... owner who clearly loves you and applies herself to your welfare. But, now that we Affini are here, there are some things we can improve upon. For example, the terran regimen of exogenous hormone replacement. I would like to stop that immediately–"

"What? No!" Judy clung to me and practically tried to burrow under my arm.

"–in favor of a far more efficacious Class-G xenodrug regimen," Camassia went on. "Which will not only replicate the effects of your current medication, but will eclipse them entirely. I've treated many terrans with a disconnect between identity and physiology. Indeed, it seems alarmingly common in your species. Rest assured that whatever shape you want to be in, we can make that happen without any difficulty."

Judy slowly relaxed. "So... you could make me...shorter?" she said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

Camassia laughed out loud, a chirpy, staccato sound that nevertheless carried with it a beautiful harmony. "Shorter? That's easy." She tapped away at her tablet. "Just a slight adjustment to the Class-G regimen. How much shorter would you like? Five centimeters? Ten?"

"Wouldn't that take...surgery?"

"No, no, no. Surgery would only be required for a more significant modification, like tails, horns, things like that. Why, are you considering something a bit more extravagant?" Camassia's eyes lit up as her mouth stretched into a wide, excited smile. "Please say yes. Body modifications and biohacking are my passion and so rarely really get to stretch my vines."

I don't think Judy heard anything after the word 'tail.' "I could have a tail?!" she said, practically bouncing up and down in my lap. "Can I? Oh please, oh please!" she added, turning to beam excitedly up at me. "Can I, Tam? Can I have a puppy tail? Please please please! I want a tail I want a tail I want a tail!"

"My love, you can have whatever you want," I said, taking her by the chin and kissing her, both to interrupt her and because she was almost painfully sweet when she got excited like this. "But take a second, breathe in, nice and slow, hold it, and out. In, hold, and out." She did as she was told, perfect sweet obedient pup that she was. "Okay, pup, now peopletalk, nice and slow."

"Mmmm!" She was still an excited mess, hands flapping, but she was at least focused enough to express herself and her desires properly. "I want a tail!" she said to Camassia. "A big fluffy white puppy tail! Like a samoyed or a husky! Can I have a tail like that?!"

"I have literally lost count of how many adorable puppy tails I've given terrans," Camassia said. "... no, that's not true. You'd be number 173. That's a nice number, isn't it? All nice and prime."

"And ears?"

"Big and fluffy and white too, I take it? Trivial, absolutely trivial."

"Yeah! Oooh, and a long tongue! So I can lick Tam, and and and lap up water from my bowl!" She turned bright red and squirmed happily, having successfully flustered herself.

"Now that, I don't get a lot of!" Camassia said, brightening. "Good girl~ And let me guess, you want nice soft fluffy paws instead of hands?"

"Huh? N-no!" she said, her eyes going wide. "No, I need my hands for speedrunning!"

"Petal, terran hands are very poorly adapted for running on," Camassia said gently. "Paws would be much better."

"She means her video games," I said. "She competes with others to see who can finish them the fastest."

"... oh." She seemed confused, but took it in stride. "Well, alright. No paws for now. I'll get the implants you requested culturing, and you can come back in a few days for the surgery. We'll start you on Class-Vs for increased neuroplasticity then, since you don't have a haustoric implant to handle the neurobiological networking for you. It might take a little longer than usual for your brain to figure out what to do with the new nerves, but it'll happen. Now then–" She turned to me, pinning me with an incredibly predatory stare, grinning even wider than before. "I believe you promised me a look at high-gravity-adapted martian, hmmm?"

Chapter 5

I've spent more than my fair share of time being poked and prodded by doctors. Four years of active training to emigrate with biweekly evaluations, plus bimonthly checkups on Earth, all conducted by physicians convinced I was absolutely insane but happy to take my money regardless, had given me a high tolerance for doctor bullshit.

Earth doctors have nothing on Camassia. From the word go she was running at least two or three tests on me at a time, her vines flying every which way as she muttered to herself, usually some variation on "Fascinating, fascinating!" Judy quickly got bored and started playing games on her phone, cuddled up next to me on the exam table whenever it didn't interfere with whatever Camassia was doing at the moment.

She seemed particularly enamored with the Sixth Toes. "Fascinating! An integrated distributed weight support system, hmm! Never seen anything this advanced on any of the martians I've met before."

"Well, most people can't afford ones this nice," I said. "They get stuck with half-assed prosthetics or leg braces that cause about as many problems as they solve."

"Mmm, mmm, yes, I've seen them. Pressure injuries, circulatory problems. Terrible, terrible. This is much better than I thought Terran medicine could do. Still much to improve on, though," she added, tapping yet another entry onto her tablet. My file could probably have killed an entire ream of paper if it was printed to hardcopy at this point. "Immune system issues, long-term microfracture problems. Far, far better solutions than this."

"So, is that it? Curiosity satisfied? Can I get dressed again?"

"Mmmmno, stay naked," Judy said, grinning and leaning into me as she bleeped and blooped at some kind of shooter game.

"Initial observations, yes, yes. I want to see you regularly, very interesting case. In any event, you need additional cardiovascular support and your joints are in unacceptable shape, but a simple Class-G will help on both counts while I look into more permanent solutions." She paused, looked up at the two of us. "I'll color code them to make sure you're not taking each others' prescription."

"Much appreciated, doc," I said, chuckling. "Am I really that interesting, though?"

"Oh yes, yes! You represent a nascent attempt by humans to pursue my own field of study, that is, post-developmental biohacking. You developed entirely in Martian gravity, then altered yourself to thrive on Earth. Not as well as we could have, but nevertheless successfully enough to live on a world with more than double the gravity you were raised in. Fascinating contrast!"

"So it's not all snips and snails and puppy dog tails, huh?"

"Well, the tails, yes. I'm not certain what gastropods have to do with anything," she said, looking confused. "No terran I've treated has ever wanted that. But the limitations on Affini bioscience are far beyond your own, of course. If you wanted, I could reengineer you to be partially or fully aquatic, with gills, a swim bladder, blood chemistry optimized for oxygen loading and retention, and so on. Or microgravity! I've done several very basic experimental modifications to correct biological deficiencies in your species when it comes to permanent life in microgravity. Bone density, perfusion issues, and of course re-engineering the feet to be more useful when it comes to grasping and fine manipulation. Really, the possibilities are as endless as your imagination~"

I couldn't help but smile — she had the same energy and joy when talking about biohacking that Judy did when she was explaining some absurdly complicated trick in one of her games. "So, what," I said, reaching for the stars on a lark, half joking, "you could fix it so I never have to eat again?"

She stopped typing and looked directly at me with every single one of her eyes. "...why would you want that?" There was surprise in her voice, but not the offended kind of surprise I usually got. I hadn't expect her to take me seriously — but then, the way the Affini were, maybe I should have.

Whatever. Either way, it didn't hurt me to admit it. "Because I hate eating. It's revolting."

"Hmm." She turned back to the tablet. "I didn't detect any abnormalities in your gustatory nervous system-"

"It's not about taste," I interrupted her. "I taste the food I make for Judy to make sure it's good, I just don't eat it. It's the... the feeling of it. The act itself. The chewing, the swallowing, the digesting. It's disgusting, I hate it. Honestly, I'm jealous of you." It was out of my mouth before I'd properly processed the thought, but here I was again, jealous of an Affini. Once was odd. Twice was downright weird. Wait, no, three times. That's what the feeling had been before, when Camassia told me she couldn't give Judy a haustoric implant. If once was odd, and twice was weird...

Camassia derailed my train of thought with a question. "Jealous? Why?"

"I mean..." I gestured at her, waving my hand up and down her long body. "All the green, I'm assuming you're photosynthetic, right?"

"Oh. Oh. Yes, yes, I see," she said, nodding and resuming typing on her tablet. "Yes, yes, that makes sense. Interesting, fascinating. Oh, I like you, you pose very fun problems!"

"Wait, what? I didn't-"

"Full autotrophic conversion will of course require supplemental organs not native to your species, but I've found that terran bodies tolerate phytotechnology well enough to support that kind of grafting without a haustoric implant to govern them. Autonomic systems are very easy to trick like that. Hmm, hmm, yes, the real issue will be convincing your skin to develop the appropriate organelles..." She was pacing in circles around the perimeter of the exam room now, muttering to herself. "Retroviral? Beta-amylase shift... oooh! Pyruvic acid! Yes! Oh, this will be fun!"

"...fun?" I stared up at her. "What do you mean, fun? You mean you could actually do it?"

"Oh easily! Well, not easily, I'm breaking new ground here — as far as I know, no one's tried to hack a terran for photoautotrophy yet, but we have done it with other species, so the conceptual groundwork is there, I just need to adapt it for your particular biochemistry. We can probably start the procedure in, oh, I would say... probably three weeks. One month on the outside, depending on how busy Transitional Decarceralization and the other Offices I'm working with keep me." She finally turned to face me, the excitement plain on her face. "Yes? Please say yes. There will be paperwork of course, this is all experimental, but I would be happy to make you an autotroph!"

This couldn't be happening. This really couldn't be happening. Maybe I'd had a Judy-Treat and was caught up in a wildly trippy dream, a dream where enormous friendly plant people were prison abolitionists who kept humans as pets and could free me from ever having to eat again on top of it. It was all too good to be true, and this was perhaps the most outlandish thing of all. But what if it wasn't a dream?

On the off chance it wasn't, I said yes.

---

The door to the records room stood open when Judy and I arrived at the office, allowing the sounds of idle chatter and the occasional laugh to escape. For a moment, Judy and I just lingered, drinking down the cool air coming from the vent and letting the climate control overcome the rush of hot air we'd brought in with us. Judy was still bouncing up and down excitedly — she hadn't been able to sit still for the entire ride back from Camassia's clinic/laboratory, and I couldn't blame her.

"Hey," I said, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her in close.

She laughed and nuzzled into me. "Hey~"

"You want some iced tea, pup?"

"Mmm! Yes please!" she said, jumping up and wrapping her arms around my neck (with a little help from me catching and holding her) so she could kiss me. She let out a giggle as I swept her up into my arms. "I love you!"

"I love you too, Judypup," I said, giving her a good scritch right between the shoulder blades. She squealed happily as I carried her to the breakroom. That door was open, too — Elena was at the microwave, heating up leftovers. "Hey," I said as I set Judy down on the couch. "How's it been going?"

"Oh, not too bad," she said. "Turns out working here was good training for dealing with giant plant aliens with no concept of personal space." She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. "How did your thing go?"

"Very well," I said. I crossed to the fridge and pulled out a carafe of cold-brewed tea. "She's happy and healthy even by their incredibly high standards. I'm going to try very hard not to I-told-you-so Karyon."

She laughed. The microwave beeped, and she pulled out the container — some kind of pasta dish. "I still can't believe that all of this was over their cultural petplay fetish."

"She's been filling you in?"

"This and that. And flirting, God, the flirting." She rolled her eyes and sat at the little table in the center of the breakroom. "She's worse than you, you know. You at least stopped flirting with me once you hired me."

"At your request," I said as I poured some tea into a little metal doggie bowl for Judy. Elena might have been a massive exhibitionist, but that (along with her orientation) was a relatively recent discovery. She didn't want to have to figure out sex and kink stuff at the same time that she learned a new job and how to live independent of a controlling family and a less-than-healthy marriage, and I was happy to oblige. It was not an unreasonable ask, and little steps were still steps.

Case in point: when I knelt and set the doggie bowl down on Judy's tray, she stared a little longer than was strictly necessary, even after Judy had started to lap up her tea, but she didn't say anything. Our relationship had spooked Elena to no small degree when she'd first met us at the Grinder, but over time she'd relaxed about it. A little.

"That is true, you've been very good about that," she said as she started picking at her food. "Rebel and Rio, less so."

"Anything I need to do something about?"

She shook her head. "Just the two of them going off, one after the other, acting like they're being sneaky when it's obvious they're having sex in the bathroom."

"Ah." I wasn't convinced Rebel and Rio had gone more than eight hours without fucking since they'd gotten together, so I wasn't particularly surprised, but I'd have to have a word in private with them about subtlety. "Well, they clean up after themselves, at least."

"That is true," she admitted, "but still." Her cheeks had the faintest hint of red about them. Maybe she was upset she hadn't thought of the idea first. Or maybe she'd just put a lot of red pepper flakes into her pasta.

"Well, don't worry, I'll talk to them about it," I told her.

"Talk to who about what~?" a musical voice called — Karyon was ducking through the doorway, a big smile on her simulated face as she pushed herself through in a flowing motion. She rapidly began to take up most of the floor space in the breakroom.

"Karyon!" Judy perked up immediately, and whether she rushed into Karyon's vines or Karyon reached out to hug her first, I couldn't tell, but within seconds Judy was rolled over on her back getting the tummyrub of a lifetime.

"Goooood puppy, Judy!" she hummed, her entire body rippling with what I had to assume was excitement or happiness. "I take it," she added, glancing up at Tam, "that her checkup went well?"

"Top marks in all categories," I said, with no small amount of pride in my voice. "Which, according to Camassia, is no small thing given, as she put it, 'the abysmal state of Terran medical science.' She's sending paperwork off to the appropriate Bureau with a recommendation that I do, in fact, know what I'm doing, and we're working on some of the things we couldn't do before you showed up." Some. I tried to smother the angry, frustrated ember in the pit of my stomach about the fact that I couldn't give Judy the haustoric implant.

"I'm very glad to hear it," Karyon said. "And I do hope you're not upset that I insisted on having her checked out."

"Far from it!" I reassured her, without an ounce of reservation. "If we hadn't gone in, Judypup here wouldn't be getting a tail." And I wouldn't be counting the meals until I never had to swallow anything for sustenance besides water ever again.

"Wait, a tail?" Elena said, staring at me.

"Ooooh, good choice!" Kayron said, totally oblivious as she ruffled Judy's hair. The squirming girl in her lap let out a happy whimper and burrowed deeper into her — which, given the fact that Karyon was a mass of vines and foliage, was something she could actually do. "This cutie will be absolutely adorable with a tail!"

"Apparently it's a downright routine surgery for them," I told Elena. "They grow a biotech implant and just plug it right in."

"Indeed," Karyon said. "And even more is possible for a proper floret with a haustoric implant. I've seen some very ambitious work done, a tail is very simple by comparison."

I was surprised I didn't snap a piece of the table off, I was squeezing the edge of it so hard.

"And she...she wants that?" Elena said, looking at me.

"It was her idea," I said, refusing to let any of my inner turmoil show on my face. Years in the courtroom had made me very, very good at swallowing upsetting feelings, even ones that came on suddenly, but that skill was really getting a workout today. "And you know me: what Judy wants-"

"-Judy gets," Elena finished for me, smiling and shaking her head. "You spoil that girl, Tam."

"Isn't that the point of a pet?" Karyon asked, cuddling Judy up into her arms and rocking her gently back and forth. "To absolutely and utterly spoil them?"

"On that," I said, with an honest smile on my face, "you and I couldn't agree more."

Elena looked back and forth between the two of us for a moment, then laughed. "It's a good thing you're not green, Tam," she said, shaking her head and spearing a few pieces of pasta with her fork. "Otherwise, I'd never be able to tell the two of you apart."

Still guarded, I didn't let the strange sting I felt at Elena's words show. I shrugged. "Nobody's perfect."

"Aww, I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it," Karyon said, setting Judy down on the floor with one last ruffle of her hair. "I certainly couldn't replace you. For one thing, the roof here is much too low!" She reached up with a vine and poked one of the drop-ceiling tiles gently.

"Welcome to Earth," I said, smiling. "Every ceiling at least two feet too low. Alright, I'm itching to get some work done. Let's let Elena eat, and you can bring me up to speed on where we're at. We've got people to get out of lockup."

And get people out of lockup we did — with my staff there to help out, we were clearing files even faster than we had last night. Keats Island wasn't the only place my clients had wound up, of course — some were doing time at other facilities, or had been sentenced to penal conscription. A few had even been sentenced to subcontracted penal transportation, and had wound up light-years from home without much hope of ever returning. "We'll run those by the Office of Transitional Neoxenoveterinary Archaeobureaucracy's archives department," Karyon said. "Some of them may already have been liberated, but there's still plenty of your worlds we haven't seen to yet, unfortunately."

"Well, let's start a pile for each system, then," I said, tossing a file folder into a clear space on the work table. "That one's for Solstice."

"Yikes," Jill said, a look of dismay on her baby-butch face. "I didn't know we had anyone out there."

"Before your time," Clara said. Jill had only been with the office for a couple of years. "Grand larceny, I think, data crime. Pissed off the wrong oligarch, poor guy."

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm missing something," Karyon said. "Is Solstice a particularly bad place?"

"There was a prison riot there a few years back," I told her, "and we haven't heard anything about it since. I spent six months trying to get a call back from Osborne-Clark's headquarters, and when I did, they claimed 'trade secrets.' So that doesn't bode particularly well."

"Hmmm." Karyon poked at her tablet. "No, we haven't been to any planets by that name, at least not according to the current records I have. I'll flag it for the fleet's planning committee to look into. I'm sure we can spare a ship to go have a look."

That was the worst-case-scenario out of all the files, or at least, as far as I saw — and even then, we were moving in the right direction, doing what we could for our clients. Most of them were still on-planet or in-system, interstellar transshipment being so expensive. Those who weren't local were still usually only a only few systems away — even with penal conscription the Cosmic Navy still preferred volunteers until they ran out of those, which left most penal battalions to fill logistical and manufacturing roles, the majority of which were still this side of the near rim. It would take a while to get to everyone, but we were making good progress, and in the meantime the Affini were providing far better accommodations for the ones still in question.

"Explain this whole 'wardship' thing to me again," Rio said, later in the afternoon. His feathered, neon-blue hair was thoroughly mussed, a casualty of Karyon's inability to resist playing with it. "As in, how is it not just imprisonment with a different name?"

"Well, for one thing, the sophont in question isn't being kept in a tiny room or crowded in with dozens of others," Karyon said. "They receive personalized observation and care while it's determined whether or not they're capable of seeing to their own needs or integrating healthily into society. That's handled by a committee of experts, though in most cases, it becomes clear very quickly what the best course of action is for a given sophont. We do have a lot of experience to draw on."

"I'd like to be involved in that process," I put in as I sorted through an unrelated case file. "It may not be a criminal justice matter, but it's still an official proceeding, and my clients are entitled to representation." Or at least, they would be under the Accord, in theory if not always in practice. Whether the Affini did things that way or not, I was going to lean hard on tradition and local precedent to make sure my clients weren't being railroaded — even if I didn't necessarily think the Affini would do that. It didn't seem their style.

Karyon shrugged. "I can't imagine why anyone would object, so long as the sophont in question consents to your presence. Having someone familiar with the sophont's history prior to our arrival might even be helpful. I'll send you the model procedure for wardship hearings via the net — I'm sure you'll find it fascinating~"

"Oh, I know I will," I said, grinning. More flirting. It never really stopped, just went through occasional lulls, and Karyon was always eager to get right back to it. Camassia had been the same way, just a lot more easily distracted by interesting problems in biology, and some of the other Affini I'd met in the yard at Keats Island had been similarly disposed towards the inmates, very friendly and extremely keen on touch.

Were Affini just like that? Part of me really hoped so. Maybe having them around would finally get our culture to unclench about public displays of affection. I'd seen all of my paralegals naked at one point or another, had even slept with a couple of them, (for varying definitions of 'slept with'), but stars forbid I show even the slightest bit of affection to them when clients or colleagues from other firms were around. Shit, even Rio's hair and Rebel's absolute refusal to acknowledge gender norms in any way had been off-putting to some of the people who walked in our door.

And Karyon didn't give a shit about any of it. She was entirely happy to hand out affection at the slightest provocation, without even the slightest bit of favoritism (with, perhaps, a slight exception for Judy, who felt absolutely comfortable demanding it). Terran society — human society at large — could stand to learn a lot from the Affini, in my opinion, and the Affini, thankfully, seemed to agree.

Things were going to get better. Karyon had made that entirely clear to me, and it was a tremendous relief to finally be able to be a part of real change. It was still early days yet, and who knows, maybe I would find something about the Affini I didn't find powerfully attractive, but based on what I'd seen so far, I doubted it. I wish I could have done it all myself, years ago, but I would settle for being able to be part of it happening now.

Change was on the horizon, in more ways than one.

Notes:

Hey, look, it's a shameless reference to my other long-form fic in the HDG universe! How'd that get there?

Thus ends the first arc of Sui Generis. Next chapter, and for many chapters moving forward, we'll be skipping over a bit of time. The end is still a ways away, both in terms of the timeline and the outline, but we're getting there, bit by bit. Thanks for reading, and I hope you stick with it!

Chapter 6

Notes:

In which a small amount of time has passed.

Content warning: a big ol' dysphoria bomb goes off.

May, 2554

I had spent the morning in my solarium, going from planter to planter as the sun rose in the east, the light spilling in. I pruned a leaf here, adjusted soil pH there, and breathed in the deep, rich scent of growing things and fertile earth.

On Mars, it had been a rare scent. You had to visit greenhouses or arboretum domes to enjoy it. Outside, the air was still thin, cold, and often carried a stinging tang. Not even a couple centuries of terraforming, of creeping, tenacious ground cover slowly turning perchlorates into safe soil, of carefully guided cometary bombardment over old Acidalia and Utopia to create the Boreal Sea, had been able to stop the dust entirely. It was safe enough to breathe, but the terrestrial nose had evolved with a particular sensitivity to certain compounds, and a few hundred years of Martian living wasn't enough for it to kick the habit of shouting every time it got a whiff of something it didn't like.

A greenhouse, though — a greenhouse was something beautiful, something sacred, the deep green of a distant homeworld under white-bright sunlamps that the real sun in the sky could never hope to emulate. The air there was thick with moisture, kept at a higher atmospheric pressure that the more delicate plants required. It hadn't been on my mind when I was just a kid, but spending so much time there had made the transition to Earth easier. Most Martian expats stuck to high elevations: Lhasa, La Paz, places like that that, where the air pressure was a little more like it was back home. As far as I knew I was the only Martian living in Vancouver-Victoria, and I will admit, the humidity gets to me sometimes, especially if I'm unlucky enough to pick up a respiratory infection.

On the other hand, of all the places I could have moved, this was the one with the biggest gap between public defender availability and felony arrests. V-V had been overcrowded for over a century, as successive refugee waves poured in from the Ashbelt, from the Californian Inundation, and especially from the Fifty-Year Drought. Without enough work to go around, people got desperate, and desperate people did illegal things to get by. Living here had been rough sometimes, but here was where I was needed most — and it had the benefit of being the closest active spaceport to snowflake cities like Anchorage and Alert, which meant that I could pick up retainer fees so that I could actually fund the part of my practice that mattered.

Of course, I didn't have to worry about that anymore. My brain would still go down that path every so often, stressing about finances or feeling as if I needed to go trolling for more wealthy clients. Then, I'd stop, and remember that capitalism was literally illegal now, and I no longer needed to worry about providing for the people I cared about. And then I'd smile, and go back to whatever I'd been doing.

I clipped a bit of blossoming snapdragon that was encroaching on another plant, set my pruning shears back on the wall rack, and went back downstairs, closing the door tightly to ensure a good seal. Judy was lying on the couch watching the vidscreen — one of the Affini programs, I thought, the ones made to appeal to florets, this one about a floret making friends with the ship she lived on as she explored it bit by bit. I'd have to make a note to take Judy to visit one of the Affini ships in orbit one day, as a surprise. "Hey, Judypup," I said, leaning down and tucking the snapdragon into her hair behind one of her big, fluffy ears. "Good show?"

"Mmmhmm~" She giggled and gave me a lick on my cheek, her big, long tongue more than sufficient to reach. It had been almost three weeks since she'd had the augments put in, and I still couldn't get within two feet of her without her trying to give me a puppy kiss. It was absolutely adorable.

"Good girl," I whispered, leaning in and kissing her — it didn't matter how long her tongue was when I was shoving mine into her mouth. Her tail was wagging excitedly. It had taken a few days after the bandages came off, but she'd picked up the knack quickly — human still had nerves and bits of the brain half-expecting us to have tails, anyway — and basically hadn't stopped since. "You excited for today?" I asked as I broke the kiss, and she nodded happily.

The last few weeks had been frantic, and though I'd done my best to minimize the disruption to Judy's life and schedule, certain things had fallen out due to surgical recovery times and general life reshuffling for everyone involved. Half of my interns had already moved into new, Affini-built habs — I was holding off because the townhouse was more than sufficient for our needs, and because most people in V-V were in much worse housing situations. If I didn't need to move right away, I didn't want to gum up the works for others.

But today, after more than a month of missing it, we were bringing back Game Night. I was making a special occasion of it, and had already compiled several thick cuts of beef chuck that I'd ground and mixed with a host of spices — that, along with the handmade brioche buns waiting to go into the oven and a few selections of fresh veg, was destined to become a platter of sliders. The compiler had been my one concession to Affini convenience, and what a convenience it was. With it, I could be absolutely certain that everything in my Judypup's diet was wholesome on a molecular level. Not even the fanciest, most luxurious of meats from before, the kind of thing that would break the bank for anyone short of a trillionaire, could provide that assurance.

Eventually, I would need to go and complete preparations for the sliders, but that could wait. I had an adorable Judypup on my hands who was in desperate need of love, affection, and a good proper fucking before everyone got here and got her all wound up.

---

"I've got four industry here, looking to buy energy!" Jill said, pushing four of the little brown cubes forward. "Any takers?"

"Throw in that colony you got last turn and you've got a deal for three," Elena said, totally impassive. How she'd never gotten into poker, I had no idea, because when she wanted to, she could shut off basically every muscle in her face.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold up, that's worth way more than three," Jill said, "it's two information a turn!"

"Which you don't need for any of your processes," Elena said.

"No, but I need the colony to upgrade Choral Song!"

"If it's colonies you need, petal, I'm positively swimming in them over here," Karyon said, waving a vine at Jill. "And I'd be happy to let you have one, if I can get Mutual Understanding for this turn."

"Ooooh~," Rio said, grinning and leering across the coffee table. "A three-way."

"You can't make that joke literally every time, hon," Rebel said, rolling their eyes and sighing.

"Watch me," he replied, winking at Rebel. "Also give me that ultratech."

"For what?"

"A ki~i~i~i~ss? And also all this culture."

I watched all the trades take place, eyeing the Acknowledgements I'd handed out — at least two would be coming back to me with victory points this turn, I figured, and thanks to some clever trading last turn I had enough resources to run my own converters for several turns to come. All there was to do, really, was run the Relic World converter, keep track of who was pushing for what, and trade scritches for tailthumps with the sleepypup whose head was resting on my leg. Judy had been full of energy and excitement earlier, but after bouncing around and hugging everyone (and a very intense snuggle session with Karyon in particular for the first few turns), she was content to merely curl up next to me at the head of the coffee table we were playing the game around. Her tail wagged in a slow, happy rhythm.

"You know, I was very concerned at first about this game," Karyon mused as she handed a colony card off to Jill and accepted the Mutual Understanding card in return, "and I suppose I still am, just a little, what with all the trading going on, but it is very engrossing."

"Hey, just because capitalism is illegal now doesn't mean we can't simulate it for fun," Rio said.

"It's not even simulated capitalism, though," I told him. "It's just trade."

"And for the explicit purpose of building connections between species, yes," Karyon said. "But after all the awful things you cuties did to each other in the name of accumulation, you can't really blame me for being a bit hypervigilant about it."

"Y'all have fun arguing about whether little plastic cubes are sufficiently capitalistic to be banned," Rebel said, stretching and getting to their feet. They had always been like goretex for gender, with a sense of style less androgynous and more "how dare you attempt to apply gender to me," but ever since they'd gotten a compiler, they had achieved orders of magnitude more ambiguity in their wardrobe, makeup, and accessory choices while showing more skin every time I saw them. When I'd first seen the outfit they were wearing, whisper-thin straps and little else, I'd thought for a moment they'd gotten a full-body tattoo and then simply turned up naked. It would not be out of character for them. "No more trades for me, bio break."

"Want me to come?" Rio said, reaching up and intertwining his fingers with Rebel's.

"No, babe, actual bio break," they said, laughing and playing with his hair. They turned to walk away, but paused just as they passed me. "...holy shit, Tam, what the hell is that?"

"Hmm?" I glanced up at them. "What's what?"

"You've got, like green on your neck," they said, leaning in and pointing. My heart immediately jumped, and I suppose my face must have lit up like one of the orbital billboards that the Affini were still carefully deorbiting, because they immediately added, "...and that's a good thing?"

"Yes," I said, biting my lip and doing my best not to vibrate with sheer excitement. "I didn't think it'd come in so quickly." Everyone was getting to their feet now, the game totally forgotten as they crowded around me to see.

"Oh that's weird," Rio said. "What is it?"

"Well, went I took Judy to see the vet...I might have expressed interest in some modifications of my own," I said, looking across the table at Karyon, who was the only one still sitting.

"Aaaah, so you're the big project Camassia's been working on every time I've had to communicate with her," Karyon said, chuckling amiably.

"Okay," Clara said, "but what's it for? Besides more She-Hulk jokes."

"Ha ha," I said, rolling my eyes — I got enough of those already, but I was willing to endure more if it meant never having to eat again. "Camassia's altering my skin to make it photosynthetic. She thinks that inside six months I might actually hit self-sufficiency."

"Photosynthesis?" Elena's voice was thick with incredulity. "You're kidding, right?"

"Nope," I said, twisting to look up at her. "One hundred percent serious." There was dead silence all around, and with everyone staring down at me, it got a little uncomfortable. My fingers gently seized a fistful of Judy's hair, and I felt her sharp, excited intake of breath — that, if nothing else, steadied me a little.

Then, Rebel laughed and lifted a hand in the air. "Called it!" The mood was instantly broken, with laughs and groans all around.

"I can't fucking believe you actually predicted that," Elena said, crossing her arms and shaking her head.

"Predicted what?" My fingers relaxed ever so fractionally.

"Tam, please," Rebel said. "We all saw the way you were looking at Karyon. The only argument was over whether you were just gay for her or whether you wanted to be her. Frankly, I think it was obvious from day one — you've always been...well, whatever the Affini version of an egg is."

"I'm not an egg," I protested. I had explained this to them before — just because I intuitively understood dysphoria didn't mean I was trans. I had trans friends, and I had thoroughly explored the possibility that I might have been a guy the whole time, and nope, definitely a woman. Body dysmorphia didn't have to be gender-related.

"We don't lay eggs," Karyon added, putting on a confused face.

"It means someone who hasn't realized they're trans yet," Clara said. "Maybe seed is a better word for this?"

Karyon laughed, immediately exchanging her expression for one of amusement. "Tam's definitely not a seed, believe me."

"I dunno," Rio said, "I can see it. Huge, extremely into making sure people are taken care of, keeps a human as a pet-"

"No no no," Karyon said, still laughing. "A seed is a xeno who wants to be domesticated but doesn't know it yet."

I had to laugh too, just a little. "I don't know whether to be more stunned that you have that concept and that it aligns so perfectly with the concept of eggs, or that you all think that I want to be an Affini." And I didn't. That wasn't even part of the calculus. I just didn't want to have to eat. And, well, there were other things about the Affini I had to admit were attractive, not just in an aesthetic sense but in a more kinesthetic sense. It would be an upgrade in practically every way, if you thought about it. Not having muscles, bones, sinews, and all the disgusting things that made up a human body. No lungs, no bronchia to get inflamed from all the humidity and high air pressure. Being able to unwind yourself entirely, either to multitask at an absurd level or just to relax. Being able to graft other plants onto yourself, either just for looks or for a functional purpose, like having xenodrugs ready to dispense. Being able to dose up your pet like that. Being able to donate core material for a haustoric implant, and for that matter not being suspected of being a bad owner by every other Af-

Oh. Oh fuck.

"Mmm. I know that face," Rebel said, their voice sober. "I think we just saw an eggshell crack in real time." They raised their voice and shouted across to the kitchen. "Compiler! Bourbon, neat!"

"I don't want a drink," I mumbled, eyes fixed on the surface of the coffee table in front of me, strewn with cards and tokens and reference sheets.

"It's for me, hon," Rebel said, leaning in and clapping me on the shoulder. "Listen, you're gonna be fine, alright? You think this is bad? At least you've got one of their docs turning you green. I've met someone whose gender is a specific mathematical equation, I don't think even the Affini have HRT for that."

"Well, actually-" Karyon began, then paused. "You know, maybe this isn't the time for that conversation. I think Tam might need a little space. Short break?" She had a point: the game had been going on for a while, and there were snacks to be snacked on in the kitchen, and she was right: I needed space, and it was obvious. Everyone agreed, gave me a few parting reassurances, and spread out, leaving me seated alone on the floor next to the coffee table. Karyon stayed, though, one vine reaching across and gently draping itself around my shoulders. "Does that help a little?"

"...yeah, a little," I said quietly. I pulled Judy into my lap and hugged her close, one hand stroking her hair. She stirred, blinked her eyes, smiled up at me, and let them drift shut again. She was so perfect, and I loved her so much. "I just...I hadn't thought about it like that before, you know?"

"Well, as I understand it, the thing about big revelations is that you don't see them coming," she said, smiling. "Not that I have a lot of experience with that. I'm not that much older than you are."

"Twice my age and then some is definitely significantly older than me," I said, a smile sneaking its way onto my face as I looked up at her. Right on schedule, there it came, the feeling that I'd been squelching every time I looked at her, the ache in the gut and in the heart as my eyes settled on detail after detail of her form. The vines, the flowers, the foliage, the moss. It was so much sharper this time, though, an ache transformed into a sharp, stabbing hurt. My mind dredged up the traditional Button Test that Clara had explained to me years back — if there was a button I could push that would instantly and irreversibly turn me into an Affini, would I press it?

Without hesitation.

Fuck.

"I'm still in my first Bloom," Karyon said, "and still very early on in it. I'm closer in age to you than to any of my co-workers you've met."

"Yeah, but being 90 is very different from being 40," I said. I knew what she was doing — she was trying to distract me from wallowing in complicated feelings until they'd had time to settle. It wasn't really working, but I appreciated the effort. Fuck. What was I going to do? Now that I had something to point to, now that I knew what I'd been craving my entire life without knowing it, every feeling of alienation from my body was far, far worse. I could feel my heartbeat in my chest, each beat a disgusting pair of convulsions that sent an audible gout of blood rushing up my neck. I could feel my lungs expanding and contracting with every breath, feel the muscles sliding over one another as they pulled and pushed on them. I felt sick — the taste of it in my mouth, the cramping of a stomach I could barely stand to think about — and it was only through sheer force of will that I didn't retch.

Fuuuuuuck.

Karyon must have noticed my distress, because before I knew it she was by my side, her vines wrapping tightly around me and Judy, her thick floral scent enveloping us. How the hell had she moved so fast? "I'm here," she said softly. "And you will be okay. I promise. I may be just a sprout, but if I know anything, it's that we'll find a way to help you."

I didn't say anything. The thought of feeling my vocal cords vibrating in my throat, paradoxically, made me want to scream. I just nodded, squeezing my eyes shut and trying not to think about the fluids leaking out of them and dribbling down my face.

"Do you... maybe a little bit of Class-E would help?" Karyon suggested. "I have an aerosol graft, since I work in xenosophont support. All you'd have to do is take a little sniff of it." A new, tangy scent joined Karyon's floral aura, and I opened my eyes to see a soft sky-blue inflorescence dangling a foot or so away from me.

I stared at it for a long moment. Judy had been taking a low-level Class-E when she felt nervous, and it had really helped her. Sure, it made her a little clumsy (in a really cute way, and it gave me an excuse to carry her around or do things for her that I wasn't about to miss), but it also helped her ground herself. She'd been needing it less and less, anyway, as she slowly recovered from the propaganda-induced stress of waiting for the Affini to arrive, so it wasn't like she was reliant on it.

Maybe I should take it, I thought. I shouldn't have been going to pieces like this. It wasn't like me. My friends relied on me — less, admittedly, now that they didn't have to pay for things like food or rent, but Judy certainly did — and I needed to be stable, if not for me than for them. So I nodded, reached out with one hand, pulled the flower close, and took a cautious sniff.

I felt it almost immediately, the slackening of tension in my muscles and the cool, tingly wave that spread across my scalp. Even as my brain was processing the scent — something between vanilla and lavender, with a note of mint hiding somewhere in the middle — it was unclenching from the painful state of absolute awareness of every inch of skin, muscle, and bone. I heard myself let out a sigh of relief without realizing I'd been holding my breath. "Oh fuck," I whispered, leaning back into Karyon.

"Better?" Her voice was warm, gentle, and and as soft as the rest of her.

"Yeah. Better." I twisted to look back up at her. "Thank you."

"It was my pleasure," she said, smiling as some of her thinner, more delicate vines began to wrap themselves around my still outstretched arm. My gaze slid easily down to track the sensation, to watch my arm enfolded with greenery, with little flower buds, with leaves, with moss. They crept all along it until even my fingers were enfolded, and as I flexed them, they gave without resistance. I could still feel the muscles, the bones, but to look at it...

Fuck. I wanted that. It was perfect. I wanted to look that way all the time. The ache came back, but I was ready for it this time, and it didn't seize me the same way. Maybe that was the Class-E, or maybe I was just getting used to knowing exactly how what I wanted differed from what I had. I could deal with this. I'd dealt with it for almost forty years, I could deal with it a little longer — because Karyon was right. Camassia was already planning on grafting phytotech organs into my body. Why couldn't she do a little more? I'd have to talk to her about it when I went in for my checkup. Hell. She'd probably be thrilled to hear I wanted more work done, knowing her.

Something warm and wet and velvety-soft ran across my cheek, startling me out of my train of thought. I looked down into Judy's big, sweet eyes just in time for her to lick me again. Her ears weren't quite pinned back, but weren't their usual pricked-up-excited, either. "You okay?"

"I'll be fine, pup," I said, reaching out with my foliage-sheathed hand to stroke her hair. It felt and looked so, so right, more right than giving her affection ever had before. "Just had a little bit to work through. But I'll be fine, promise. After all, you're right here." I smiled and pulled her into a kiss, and she squealed and squirmed happily, and Karyon's vines tightened around the two of us.

I would be fine. I trusted that, trusted Karyon and Camassia and the Affini. I'd seen what they could do in less than a month with my Judypup, and how quickly and easily she'd healed even without a haustoric implant to manage it. I had endured emigration from Mars to Earth; I could handle whatever they threw at me.

Chapter 7

October, 2554

 

The man that was following me was not being subtle about it. He probably thought he was, but he stood out to me like an inkblot on a clean sheet of paper. I'd been stalked before — by the police, by upset families, and once maybe even by the Office of Domestic Security — and I knew what to look for. This guy wasn't even trying to be that subtle, and was just following me about ten meters back. He'd been doing so since the transit station at least, since that was when I'd picked him out, and I knew he was following me because when I stopped to check directions on my tablet, I felt him stop too.

Okay, friend, what's your story? I thought as I felt out the silhouette and wash of vague color that represented him in what I'd started calling skinsight to myself. It didn't work so well indoors, but in the bright late morning sunlight I could pick out shapes and colors easily. The more skin I showed, the clearer the skinsight got — never on par with what my eyes could do, but I was showing a lot more skin than I used to these days, and every inch of it was hungry for light. I was seeing the man following me with the broad expanse of my back, deep-green and uncovered save for the single strap of the halter top I was wearing to preserve my modesty. My thighs — the part that wasn't covered by the lightweight shorts, anyway — added to the picture, as did my arms and calves. The image shifted with every move I made as I tapped away at my tablet.

The skinsight wasn't something that either I or Camassia had anticipated, though it fascinated my vet to no end how quickly my brain began interpreting the sensation of light against photosensitive cells. Maybe there was a way to focus the image better. I filed the idea away as one to experiment with later before tucking the tablet back into my bag and turning to face my stalker.

With my eyes, I filled in the details my skin couldn't: short (well, average height, I suppose, for a Terran), a bit heavyset, hair cropped short. Maybe he was trying for a military look — the angry glare he gave me when our eyes met certainly said 'feralist' loud and clear.

"Can I help you?" I said. I kept my voice unconcerned, something possible thanks both to years of practice for the courtroom and the knowledge that the absolute worst he could come at me with, thanks to the Firebreak, was a knife. He could probably give me a nasty cut or two, but by the time he could, he'd be well within my reach, and if there's one thing I'd learned about Terran men, it's that they're terrified of women who are bigger and stronger than them.

He didn't say anything for a moment, just kept glaring at me. The crowd on the street was thinning out as it got towards midday — something else that had made it easy to spot him following me — and the few people around us were giving us a wide berth. I couldn't blame them, I suppose. I wouldn't want to be involved in a situation like this, either, and unlike me, no few of them were probably concerned that if they were, they might get caught up in it, and when the Affini inevitably showed up they might find themselves in line for domestication.

Which was a silly thing to fear, really, but walking around getting steadily greener for the last six months or so had taught me a lot about how Terrans saw the Affini, even if the Compact had undeniably improved living conditions for everyone on the planet day by day since they'd arrived.

"The fuck are you doing?" he finally growled, gesturing at me with an open hand as he stormed up to me. He stopped a few steps away, clearly waiting for an answer.

"Meeting a friend for tea," I said, shrugging. "Do you have some kind of objection to tea?"

"Why the fuck are you green?" His other hand balled up into a fist. Involuntarily, maybe. I could give him the benefit of the doubt a far as that.

I sighed, and replied in the most bored tone I could, "Because I'm photosynthetic. Any other pressing questions?"

"It's not enough you get one of those things in your neck, they have to go and turn you into some kind of... giant freak." It wasn't a question, just the beginnings of a diatribe.

"Oh come on, you've seen old movies, haven't you?" I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone knows women from Mars are green."

"You're not a Martian, I'm not stupid," he spat. "Martians can't live here!"

"You're willing to accept that the Affini could, in the space of six months, take someone your size and make them look like this-" I lifted an arm and flexed to show off my bicep, which was probably thicker around than one of his legs. "-but not that a Martian could just build muscle like humans have been doing for as long as we've been a species?" The flex put him on the back foot, and I saw him swallow involuntarily. "Anyway, I'm not a floret, not that there's anything wrong with being a floret, I've just availed myself of the same services we all have access to now. I could give you my vet's contact information, if you're interested in having some work done."

"You think I want to look like some kind of perverted traitor?!" His face was getting redder by the minute, and he took another step closer, lifting that clenched fist. "People like you are the only reason we lost the war!"

"I don't know how you haven't realized the Accord never stood a chance against the Compact yet," I said, "but if it'll make you feel better, go ahead and take a swing at me. It will make you feel better, in the long run." I made a point, a theatrically as I could, of glancing behind him. For a moment, he resisted the urge to look, but the more my gaze stayed steady, unconcerned, fixed on something behind him, the more I could see the pressure to turn and look taking its toll.

Three, two, one...

He turned.

"Is something wrong, Tam?" Karyon was just arriving from across the street, her foliage and flowers vibrant in the sunlight, a concerned look on her face. The man stared up at her for a full second, the color draining out of his face, before he bolted. "...whatever was that about?"

"Just another wannabe feralist, I think," I told her, shaking my head. "Don't worry about it. It's been happening more and more." There had been a lull, following the signing of the Human Domestication Treaty, when I thought that Terrans might adapt to the Affini's presence relatively quickly — and to be fair, many had. The streets were clean, everyone had a place to sleep, enough to eat (and not just preprocessed lowest-bidder garbage, but better food than most had ever had before). Things were better.

But the better things got, the angrier that made some of them. Maybe it was because it showed the Accord for what it was, a horrible machine that, for all their faith in it, had never cared for their well-being the way that aliens from another galaxy manifestly did. It had to provoke no small amount of cognitive dissonance, and there were only two responses to that: either you accepted that your understanding of reality was wrong, or you doubled down.

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Karyon said, draping a vine across my shoulder as she watched the man vanish around a corner. "Terrans do seem to be a surprisingly stubborn species, though. At least, until they get the affection and love they don't realize they need."

I had to smile, just a little. It had been six months since my bud blossomed (Rebel's phrase, and one they were very proud of) and Karyon had never once so much as suggested that she might include me in the "Terran" category. "Well, he'll get what he needs eventually, one way or another." I nodded down the block toward my original destination. "Shall we?"

"Let's do," she said, smiling back, and we walked together, her vine a comfortable weight on my shoulder. I'm sure plenty of people assumed I was a floret, collar or no, but I was practiced at ignoring what I thought others were thinking of me. It had been a necessary skill before, and it would probably be one for some time to come.

The coffee shop wasn't new construction, but was one of the many buildings rapidly renovated by the Affini once property ownership, developer-written zoning regulations, and other issues were removed from the equation. It now boasted ceilings comfortable enough even for Affini, along with mixed-use tables for both Affini and Terrans and a selection of mineralized water to Affini tastes alongside the more traditional coffee and tea. It had been part of a chain before, but was now run by a handful of the baristas who, in the absence of an economic requirement to work, now chose to do it for the sake of the art itself. The one managing the front of house, greeting patrons and taking orders, wore a simple collar woven of vibrant threadlike vines and a blissed-out expression; no doubt she made her owner incredibly happy, even if I felt a pang of jealousy at the sight.

Whether the improvement in the quality of their product was down to the quality of the compiled ingredients or their newfound enthusiasm for the skills they'd mastered for the sake of surviving the miserable machine they'd been born into, I couldn't say — but the coffee was much better. I couldn't handle anything much more complicated than that, now that half my digestive system had been replaced with a series of phytotech support organs that helped my photosynthetic skin produce energy more efficiently, but that suited me just fine. Liquids had never bothered me the way solid or semisolid food had.

"It's finally cooling off a little bit," Karyon observed as we took a seat on the terrace outside the coffee shop — with the Affini-built transit systems in place and cars no longer a requirement to get around, half the streets in the city had been replaced with pedestrian malls, and local establishments had made good use of them. "I thought that summer would never end!"

"Usually, it wouldn't be this nice out until November at least," I said. "The climate engineers know their stuff, I guess."

"They do, at that," she replied amiably. One of her vines coiled around in the little bowl of water she'd ordered, slowly drinking it down. "I was a bit worried, what with how damaged this planet's climate was, but they seem to have it well in hand."

"Yeah, who knows, maybe we'll see snow here again someday. Imagine the luxury!" I'd seen pictures of what Vancouver-Victoria used to look like, of course, back before the Collapse, before the Punchbowl's massive seawalls went up, before the algae blooms and the deforestation, before urban sprawl ate the entire region. It still felt impossible that, someday, it might look like that again, but if anyone made the impossible possible, it was the Affini. "So how are things at the office? Been a while since you've called me in."

"Oh, very well, very well," Karyon said. A few of her vines twisted around my ankles under the table. "Some domestications, mostly voluntary, and some of the shorter-term wardships have come to a close. Your clients are all doing fine either way, I'm happy to report."

"And I'm very glad to hear it," I said. "So no unusual issues vis a vis old Terran bureaucracy or anything? No need for connections with the bar? Anything like that?"

"No, we have things well in vine by now," she said, squeezing one of my calves gently. "Thanks in large part, I should add, to all the help you provided us for those first few months. You made things move much more smoothly than they otherwise would have, judging from some of the reports I've seen from other branches via Neoxenoveterinary Archeobureaucracy. Everyone very much appreciates your efforts, I assure you."

"Mmm. Glad to hear it," I repeated, slowly turning my coffee mug on its axis, a quarter circle at a time. "Is it okay if I admit I feel a little... stir-crazy isn't the word, anxious isn't the word..."

"...jittery?"

I nodded. "Jittery is good, yeah. I haven't argued anything in months, you know? I haven't had to clear any paperwork, I haven't had to do anything. Some of that, obviously, I spent in recovery, and learning a new routine so I could get enough sun to keep my caloric production high enough to not need supplementation, but-" I paused, shook my head, and took a sip of coffee. "I'm bored," I finally added.

"Have you tried pursuing one of your hobbies?" Karyon asked, a note of concern in her voice that nevertheless also carried a bit of encouragement. "I find that many sophonts struggling with post-capitalist life discover new passion in skills or crafts they never had the ability to fully devote themselves to before."

"You should see my garden," I said, laughing — it had grown to nearly twice the size it had been at the beginning of the year. "You're not wrong, of course, it's just that, well... being a lawyer was my passion. It was hard, miserable, grueling, and required a lot of moral and ethical compromises on my part, but it needed to be done. It mattered. It changed peoples' lives. I miss that. I miss helping. And that's part of why I wanted to meet you today."

"Oh? Only part?"

"Well, there's also the part where I just enjoy spending time with you," I added, grinning. Her vines tightened around my legs again, and if they climbed any higher they'd be infiltrating my shorts. "I love game night, but I also just like...this." I gestured, first to her, then to myself. "I feel like you get me in a way that my other friends might not."

"I see," she said, her voice as warm as ever, her touch comforting and gentle. "And the other part?"

"...what would you say if I told you I wanted a job?" I said. "That I wanted to come clerk at Transitional Decarceralization. Not like when Anthemis brings Sammy in to sit on his desk and look cute, I don't want to be some kind of office mascot. I mean to really do actual paperwork."

Karyon thought it over for a second, and it filled me with relief to know she was taking the request seriously. "Well, I don't see why not, at least in principle," she finally said. "But you are aware, of course, that most of the forms and such are written in Affini, not Standard English or any other terran language."

"I'm aware," I admitted. "And..." I paused, and switched to Affini. «I've been learning. Slowly. Watching Affini-language programs. Reading. Things like that.»

Karyon's eyes lit up so much I had to make an effort not to be drawn in by them. «That's really quite good! Your pronunciation is a little off and your cadence is choppy, but nothing that practice won't fix! How's your written Affini?»

«Better. I think. Still shaky. Better at reading than writing. Better at writing than speaking.» It was a beautiful language, musical and bright, but stars, it felt embarrassing to speak it so poorly across from someone who made an art of it by comparison. At least I could understand everything she said. That gave me some hope — even if I couldn't do it right, I at least understood enough to know what someone doing it right was saying.

«Well, more exposure will certainly help on both counts,» she said, smiling. Her vines were definitely under the hem of my shorts now. «I'll bring it up with the others, but they all appreciated your deliberate and focused approach to all the tasks we asked of you, so I can't imagine they'll have any serious objections.»

«I'm very glad to hear that,» I said, reaching out and taking one of her trailing vines in my hand. I switched back to English, just to make sure I was clear: "It means a lot to me."

"Would it surprise you to know that I feel much the same?" Her vine coiled back around my hand and began to entwine itself between my fingers. "You are a fascinating sophont, Tam, and I look forward to being able to see you more often. Oh, but do you have a solution for Judy?"

"She's used to having the day to herself from when I had to work," I said. "And it gives her time to stream. She's actually streaming right now," I added, pulling my tablet out of my bag. "You want to watch a little?"

"Oh, yes!" Karyon said excitedly. "I love her cute little puppygirl avatar!" She didn't stand so much as simply slide around the table, pulling her chair with her, and leaned against me to peer down at the tablet in my hands. Her vines embraced me as I loaded up the stream just in time to watch Judy's avatar, its tongue blepping out just like her real tongue did when she got hyperfocused, bounce around excitedly as she absolutely broke a game's physics engine over her knee.

Stars, I thought as I leaned into Karyon, I've got the best pet in the whole world.

Chapter 8

Notes:

Content warning: experience of body dysphoria, identity denial, then some light lewdness and sexytime between Owner and pup as a breather.

"Metabolic numbers good, yes, good," Camassia said as she paced back and forth across her exam room, trailing her long vines behind her as she tapped away at the tablet in her hands. I was naked on her exam table, but then, I was pretty comfortable with nudity at this point, since I spent a good chunk of every morning sunbathing in my garden. "No signs of malnutrition or wasting. Phytotech organs have fully adapted themselves to your immune profile. Good, good." She paused, pivoted, leaned in close. "Does everything feel alright? You feel healthy, energetic, yes?"

"On a physical level, yeah," I said. "I'm not having any difficulties moving around, my energy level seems consistent. And you said my knees are looking better. They definitely feel better, I'll say that."

"Mmm, better, yes," Camassia said, nodding and going back to the tablet. "Not ideal, though. Better support, internal support, not just the Sixth Toe. Your species' knee joint is not what I would consider a particularly robust piece of engineering."

"Preaching to the choir, believe me," I told her. "I'm guessing you have suggestions?"

"Mmm. Multiple options. The best, of course, is simply to return to Mars, or to an environment of similar gravitational potential. I know this is not your desire," she said, anticipating my objection, "but it is an option nevertheless. We could also replace the joint, though that wouldn't totally solve the problem. Tendons, ligaments. None of them want to be dealing with the forces being put on them."

"So...replace those?"

She shook her head. "At that point, we may as well just replace your whole leg. Which would solve some of the issues with your ankles. Another less-than-robust mechanism. I can likely develop some kind of intracellular reinforcement to strengthen the tendons and ligaments themselves, but that will take time, both to test and then for your body to take up the changes once introduced. Similar to the photoautotrophic modifications, protein and genetic grafting. Of course, if you were-"

Now it was my turn to anticipate her. "No, Camassia, I'm not volunteering for domestication. Yes, I know the implant would pretty much solve this problem by healing microfractures and ligament injuries as they happen; yes, I understand that I'm doing this the hard way." It was not the first time this had come up in the last six months. She didn't push it but she didn't not push it, either. "I have responsibilities that I can't shirk, you know that."

"You are a very devoted pet owner, yes, yes, I know," she said, not looking up. "Very moving, very inspiring, very laudable. How is your dysmorphia? Feeling better with the photosynthetic augmentation in its final stage?"

Leave it to Camassia, I thought, to swerve from one topic to another like that. It was jarring, frustrating at times, but she knew her business, and I wasn't about to complain when what I needed to be doing was getting her on my side. "It helps, but the more time I have to sit with it, the worse it gets," I said, looking down at the deep green skin of my hand. It was still a hand — still meat wrapped around bone with a dusting of other disgusting meaty things added in. "You said once the biochemical changes were settled, we could talk about working in other augmentations."

"Mmmm." She nodded, a few of her eyes staring down at me, the rest still laser-focused on her tablet as data streamed across it. I wondered why Affini did that — pretended to look at things with their eyes when I knew full well their skinsight had to be miles better than my rudimentary experience of it. "Not having to include a phytochemical converter will simplify the process, though not having a haustoric implant — yes, I know you don't want to be domesticated — will complicate some of the things you expressed interest in. Significantly. Very significantly."

"Complicated is fine. You like complicated."

"...I do," she admitted, turning all her eyes on me. "But I do not like complicated when those complications will primarily impact a xenosophont rather than myself. I am, first and foremost, your veterinarian, Tam. I'm not going to do something that may harm you just because I would find the process of development and implementation gratifying."

She'd gone from Nerd Mode to Vet Mode. I bit my lip. So it was going to be an argument again — fine. I was good at those. "You know the program I was in, TerraPrep, the one to get fit enough to survive emigrating to Earth? It had a ninety-six percent drop-out rate. And that was after pre-clearance, psychological evaluations, the works. They only took people they thought could hack it, and ninety-six percent still dropped out. I spent four years of my life to come here, Camassia. I can handle this."

"Learning how to manipulate vines without the benefit of a haustoric implant will be significantly more taxing than developing your native musculature," Camassia said. "Your brain has no frame of reference for it. The amount of neuroplasticity-enhancing xenodrugs I'd need to give you might be potentially problematic."

"Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm willing, and it's a novel problem for you to try to solve. Let's do it!" Bite, I thought. Please bite.

Camassia was silent for a long moment, then switched off her tablet and set it down on her workbench. Then, she turned to me and leaned in again, one hand on either side of me on the exam table. I don't often feel small, even around Affini, but I felt small in that moment, and it took every ounce of nerve I had not to flinch. "Tam, I feel that you are not being entirely honest with me."

"...what do you mean by that?" I said. None of the unease I felt found its way into my voice, and as powerful as the draw of Camassia's cloud of eyes was, I stayed focused not on them but on my goal.

"You have expressed an interest in grafting foliage, vines, et cetera, for the purposes of alleviating dysmorphia. You have expressed an interest in the anatomy necessary to properly vocalize tones only Affini can produce, despite this being unnecessary to speak Affini."

"If I'm going to be working in-" I began, but she cut me off.

"You have expressed interest in various augmentations that would not, as far as I can see, meaningfully contribute to alleviating your dysmorphia. The biorhythmic prosthetics, for example — unnecessary for merely alleviating dysmorphia tied to mammalian biology." She leaned in closer, and I finally gave in just a little and leaned away, if only fractionally. "I am not a fool, Tam. I understand what you are trying to do, and it is not possible."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I breathed, my voice unwilling to make itself known.

"I cannot make you an Affini," Camassia said, as gently as she could, leaning into the kindly veterinarian persona she used with Judy. "I could make you look very much like one, certainly, but I cannot make you an actual Affini. That is not only not possible, but not something I would do."

Fuck. I felt like I'd swallowed a rock, like it was sitting, heavy and indigestible, in my stomach. "That's... that's not-"

"It is not something any of us would do," she continued. "Our responsibility is not one we would force onto others."

My fingers tightened around the edge of the exam table, and my jaw ached — had I been gritting my teeth this entire time? "You don't know what it's like," I hissed, looking down at the floor below. "To feel this wrong all the time."

"I did not say I wouldn't help you," Camassia replied. "I will certainly do everything I can to alleviate these feelings. I will even try to give you vines, though I think it's unlikely to work without a haustoric implant. But biorhythmic prosthetics aren't going to make much of a difference there, and in any case I very much doubt any Affini would fail to recognize them as artificial-"

"I'm not trying to trick anyone! I just... I need it." No. I had to lay all my cards on the table. I needed Camassia on my side to make this work. I'd kept it to myself because I was so sure it'd get the entire thing shut down. Sure, I would have had to tell her eventually, but I'd been hoping to save it for later in the process, when I had momentum and acceptance on my side. At this point, though, I didn't have any other option to even get started but to spill my guts and hope. "It's not just for me. I need it for Judy."

"I'm afraid I don't understand. Explain, please."

I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, taking a moment to compose myself. "I need a biorhythm like yours. Like an Affini. It's not- yes, I want it for me. I want others to see me that way. Obviously! But even more than that, it's for Judy." I forced myself to look up at Camassia, to meet her gaze — focused as I was at the moment, it was a risk I had to take. "Because that's the only way I can give her a haustoric implant."

Now it was Camassia's turn to be silent as she processed what I'd said, and I let her have the time she needed. Finally, her curiosity became too much to keep in, and she started talking to herself as she began to pace once more."You want. That's. No, that- well... no. No but-" She screwed up her face in a decent imitation of a Terran deep in thought. "Could I? But no, you'd need an artificial core, that's not- well, that is to say- but, no, no, that's not possible," she said, "because there's no way that's going to be allowed, you're not an Affini-"

"-not yet," I cut in.

"-and xenosophonts don't keep other sophonts as pets," she finished, stopping her pacing as if for emphasis.

"But I do," I insisted, finally managing to put a little steel back into my voice. "I do. I have a pet, and Sophont Wellness signed off on that. I have the paperwork to back it up — I'm a good owner." The paperwork in question had indulged in a cloud of other, less impressive terms, like "adorable" and "unbelievably precious," but "good owner" was in there, and that's what mattered.

"There is a difference between being a good owner and this," Camassia said.

"She deserves it, Camassia," I said. I could feel the confidence coming back. She might be a three-and-a-half meter plant from another galaxy, but I'd been spending a lot of time with three-and-a-half meter plants from another galaxy over the last six months, and I'd gotten pretty good at reading them. "She spent eight years having to hide who she was every time we went out. Now I can take her to the park and she can play with other florets — and she loves it! Just-" I felt an ache fester in my heart, and my eyes began to well up. Fuck. "She has so much fun with them, but I know my Judypup, Camassia. I know when she's hurting. And I know why she's hurting. She knows she's not the same as the other florets, that she's missing something. You've had florets?"

"...yes," she said. "I have."

I'm getting through to her, I thought, and my heart soared. "Then you know I'd do anything for her. I don't care how hard it's going to be — I would do anything for her. Even if I didn't want to be like you, I'd do this for her." I did want it. I wanted it more than I'd wanted almost anything else in my entire life. But I wasn't lying, either.

We stared at each other for a long minute before she finally spoke again, her voice perhaps the softest I'd ever heard it. "This will not be easy."

"Fuck easy," I told her, not wavering an inch. "I want to do this right."

"Please understand that there is a high likelihood that this will not work," Camassia went on. "Even if you are able to successfully adapt to having vines, even if I can cultivate a proper biorhythm in you, even if I make you so physically indistinguishable from an Affini that we are able to induce development of some kind of psuedocore... there is a very high likelihood that this will still be insufficient to support a haustoric implant. And that's if we're able to convince Sophont Wellness to permit it. It's one thing to modify your body, but a haustoric implant..." She shook her head. "I don't think it's ever been done. At least, I'm certainly not aware of it, and as you may have noticed, fringe cases in biology and augmentation are something of a fascination for me."

"Let me worry about that."

"I do not want to let you worry about it," Camassia said, a note of frustration creeping into her voice. "Xenosophonts should not have to worry. That is the entire point of everything we are doing."

"Then don't think of me as a xenosophont," I said, as evenly as I could. "Think of me as an Affini with a problem that requires a veterinarian's particular talents to solve. I mean, really," I added, laughing a little, "would a doctor have any idea what to do about this?" I gestured at my body and grinned.

"... no. No they would not." She didn't laugh, but the corner of her mouth did quirk ever so slightly. I relaxed a bit — I had her on board, or near enough to make no difference. "But we will proceed on my timetable. We will experiment, slowly, in iteration, subsystem by subsystem, to ensure this treatment poses no risk to your health."

"I can live with that," I said, nodding. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," she said, picking up her tablet and hunching over it. "I am very likely about to make your life extremely miserable without achieving your goals."

I snorted. "Camassia, I spent four decades in the Terran Accord. I call that Tuesday."

---

"Oookay, everyone, I think that's about my limit for today. Thank you so much for watching! I always have such a great time with all of you!" The little animated puppygirl avatar bounced up and down happily on the screen of my tablet as Judy said her farewells. I had turned the sound way down — leaning against the wall just outside Judy's den, I could hear every word anyway, and I didn't want to add an echo to her stream. "Byyyeeee!!" The little puppygirl avatar waved excitedly, her tongue lolling out and her tail wagging frenetically behind her for a few seconds before the stream cut out, and I heard a relaxed sigh and the sound of my adorable wife flumphing down on her pile of pillows and stuffed animals.

I bit my lip and let out a little sigh of my own, reflecting on how lucky I was to have Judy, and leaned around the door frame to peek at her. She was stretching, eyes closed and lower lip seized firmly between her teeth, and I took the opportunity to snap a picture — it was too perfect an image not to preserve it. "Hey, you," I called, setting the tablet down on one of her knick-knack shelves.

Her ears and tail perked up, and the rest of her followed not long after. "Tam!" Her eyes, wide and bright and happy, stayed locked on me as she scampered over and flung her arms around me. She clung to me, nuzzling into my breasts as I closed my arms around her and squeezed, letting her feel that wonderful crushing pressure she loved so much.

"I have a very good dog," I said, smiling down at her. "A very good dog, who got persimmon-clip on the first try."

That got her even more excited. "You were watching?!" she said, looking up at me with those pleading, needy eyes.

"I was," I said, letting go with one hand so I could cup her chin and stroke her cheek with one thumb — I felt her shiver and slacken, flirting with dropping already.

"I-it wasn't a PB," she mumbled. "Had a garbage water split."

"But you were very, very close," I told her, letting my voice fall into the tone of Owner Means Business. "And after you finished that run, you went right back and tried again, like a good puppy." I watched her squirm and gasp, watched her eyes half glaze over. "I'm so proud of you," I added, and she let out a soft moan as she slumped into me, letting me support her weight. She was warm, and soft, and perfect. "Good girl."

"Mmmmf." She began to gently hump my leg, her panties unable to disguise the firmness of her chastity cage against my bare thigh. Her long, wet tongue lolled out as she panted, hot against my hand. She stared through me as she fell deeper and deeper, little helpless noises emerging from her throat. What a marvelous pet I had, so ready to submit that she practically did it to herself with just the slightest nudge.

"You know what I'm going to do?" I purred. "I'm going to fuck my sweet little puppy right here in her den." My hand on her back slid smoothly down to seize her cute little butt, and I lifted her clean off the ground. Three long steps later, and she was on her back in her pillow pile, her panties around her knees and her arms pinned over her head. One of my hands was more than enough to lock both of her wrists together, leaving the other free to tease one of her nipples through her cami. "Good puppy," I whispered in her ear as she squirmed and moaned, unable to control herself.

Judy's den was her special place, but I had a single drawer all to myself for a few of the essentials, conveniently within arms reach — this was not, after all, the first time I'd had my way with my puppywife on her pile of cushions. Towels, gloves, lube, rope, vibes, everything a woman needed to absolutely destroy her lover. I straddled Judy, using my thighs to lock her in place while I prepared myself, and soon I had her wrists back in hand, the other wet and slippery and gliding into position between her perfect little ass cheeks. "Now relax, pet," I whispered to her. "You know what's coming. Three, two, one-"

---

It wasn't until I had her in the bath, wet and soapy as I scrubbed the sweat, lube, and sex from her soft, smooth skin that Judy put her thoughts together enough to ask. "So...how did the vet thing go?" She looked up at me, her eyes still swimming just a little, but I could see the hope hiding behind them.

I gave her a reassuring smile as I rinsed the suds away from her back. "I talked to Camassia, and I think she's on board, if only to see if it's possible. She doesn't think it is, but she's going to at least try to get us there."

"...so how long before I can get it?" she asked, turning to look back at me over her shoulder, wet hair plastered to her scalp. Her ears looked so funny, drenched like they were but still perked up.

"I don't know, Jude," I said, as gently as I could. "I'm probably going to have to pick a few more bureaucratic fights as we go along, and Camassia wants to go slowly because she doesn't want to do anything that might affect my health. It'll probably be years, still. I'm sorry, I wish I could make it go faster-"

"No," she said, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. "Ow, ow, ow."

"Pup, shhhh, here," I said, moving the shower wand and rinsing the soap from her face.

"I don't- ow! - I don't want you to be mad at yourself. You're doing so much for me, you always do so much for me-"

"And you deserve every bit of it," I said, cutting her off. I knew where that sentence was going, and I wasn't about to have her start digging into herself and accusing herself of being a burden. "What's the rule?"

She sniffled again. It wasn't just the soap that was making her eyes water. "If I want something, I have to tell you."

"And?"

"And if it's not bad for me, and it's something you can give me, I get it."

"Aaaaand?" I smiled and rubbed her back.

"...and I deserve it," she mumbled. She tried to hide her blush by looking away, but her bedraggled, dripping wet tail was wagging and slinging droplets of water every which way. She was even easier to read now than she had been before.

"You deserve good things, and you deserve what you want," I told her. "Do you want a haustoric implant?"

She nodded, sniffling again. "I'm sorry. I'm making you do all this-"

"And I do it gladly. Let's not forget, I'm getting something out of this too, you know."

She nodded. "You get to be a super hot Affini," she said, a smile finally cracking her face.

"I get to be your super hot Affini. Or as close as they can get me, and as much PT as I can tolerate in the process. But hey, I managed to endure TerraPrep, I can handle this." I reached up and stroked Judy's cheek, catching her gaze. "It's gonna be rough work, but you're worth it. I love you."

"I love you too," she said, finally relaxing just a little.

"Now let me finish washing you up, and then it's Judy-Treat time. You want the regular, or the Class-Z?"

"Mmmm, the Class-A only, I think," she said. "And lots and lots of petting."

I laughed and went back to rinsing her off. "Oh, Judypup, don't you worry. You're going to get all the petting you can handle."

Notes:

I LIVE. Updates should resume on a regular schedule now.

Chapter 9

Notes:

Content Warning for: Physical therapy being miserable and grueling.

April, 2555

 

Trust me when I say that there is no feeling quite like sunlight on your vines. The sun was always something incredible, intense, and even a bit numinous — here on Earth it was so much stronger than we saw it back on Mars — but I'd never realized how absolutely beautiful it was until I learned to look at it properly. Eyes are so easily overwhelmed, and don't reveal the true shape of the light, not the way that the ersatz ocelli in my foliage did. With my vines spread out across the floor of my greenhouse, I had a focal length much broader than my body could provide, and I could drink in the image of the sunlight with stunning clarity. There's no words for it in English, but in Affini? Oh, I could write a book on what the sun looks like in Affini.

Judy stirred next to me, draped and entangled in my vines like a heavy blanket, right where I'd laid her when I brought her in, still asleep, just before dawn. I smiled and, with a moment of focus, gave her a gentle squeeze. "Hey, sleepypup," I whispered.

"Mmmf." She yawned, her ears pinned back against her head for a moment as she stretched. "Mormblng." She snuggled up close to me and buried her face in my side. "Time t'get up?"

"Mmmhmm." I'd been lying on my stomach for a few hours now, and that was more than enough to keep me going for the day, even if I wouldn't be in the office with all the sunlamps. "Still got a couple hours before I have to leave, though. You want breakfast?"

"Mmm!" Her tail, encumbered as it was, wagged as much as it was able. "Pancakes?"

"Pancakes it is," I said. I braced myself and pushed off of the futon mattress I used to sun myself on, levering myself up first to my knees, then to my feet. The vines slowly followed me up, slithering across the floor and around Judy. This was the worst part — the strain of standing up after sunning myself. The vines were of various thicknesses, but all together added up to close to 25% of my body mass, and even if most of that was trailing on the ground, it still added quite a bit of weight. Once I was standing, the pain lessened, with the Sixth Toes taking up most of the load, but the exertion didn't stop there.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to focus on the image of my vines. I could feel at the back of my mind their gently movement as they explored the floor, the futon, and Judy, but even after five months of practice it was difficult to make sense of what I was feeling. There was just too much happening at once — I could focus on one or two clusters of vines, if I imagined them like long, flexible fingers, but not the whole collection.

The post-hypnotic training started coming back naturally. Camassia had put me under for hours after she'd surgically attached each cluster of vines, and provided some deep conditioning to help my brain consider them a part of my body. That and a daily cocktail of xenodrugs from half a dozen Classes — neuroplasticity enhancers, phytochemical infusions, hypnotic proprioception boosters, gene resequencing, and so on — was what made what came next possible at all.

First, I asserted control over the one group of vines, the ones grafted to my shoulder blades. They slowly, jerkily, gave up their autonomous exploration and began to shift, pulling themselves up my back, draping themselves over my upraised arms, and inch-by-inch coiling around them. The next group of vines, just below them, followed. Cluster by cluster, I worked my way down my spine, breathing a sign of relief as I reached the point where, instead of having to haul them up to my arms, I could begin coiling them around my legs — it was so much easier, even if I had to carefully thread them around the Sixth Toes. The added weight balanced itself out nicely as the vines around my legs began to bear more and more of it. Ten minutes later, I was finished.

That sounds like a lot of time just to stand up, I'm sure, but when I first started out, with just the first two clusters attached, it would take me nearly two hours to get them in place. Sure, I could just grab the vines and wind them by hand, but that would completely miss the point of learning to use the vines themselves. Ten minutes with five times the vine mass was a big improvement.

A delicate little hand touched my leg, brushing along the vines, along the bits of Earth foliage I'd begun grafting into them here and there. "That never stops being incredibly cool to watch," Judy said, biting her lip. "And hot."

"Well, I'm glad you appreciate the show," I said, smiling down at her. I disentangled one vine from my thigh and let it coil around Judy's wrist — it took a moment, but she didn't move a muscle. What a good pup. I could feel the smoothness of her skin, feel her pulse just beneath it, feel her warmth, taste the salt and skin oils. My vines told me so much about the world that my other senses never could, not with such fidelity. "Now then, I believe I owe a certain adorable little puppy pancakes?" I helped her to her feet, first with the vine, then with my hand, and pulled her into a hug, then into a wedding carry. Neither my back nor my legs complained as she squealed happily.

With my vines coiled around my limbs, they were easier to move — it was more of the same motions I was used to from before, just with an added twist, and it had only taken me about a month to get used to it. They weren't just dextrous, but strong. Their added heft made moving around so much easier, made Earth's absurd gravity so much more tolerable. I had always been able to lift and carry Judy, and I enjoyed doing it for her because it made her happy, but now it was downright easy.

My knees certainly appreciated the lightened load, too. Between the vines and the treatments Camassia had given me, which involved cellular-level augmentation that had made my tendons something like three times as resilient, I was moving around better than I had been in years. At some point, probably once I had more complex grafts in place, I would even be able to ditch the Sixth Toes entirely and rely on my vines to carry my weight, but that was probably another year away minimum.

Still, a year ago, I'd been a bog-standard Martian, biologically speaking. Now I was photosynthetic, and 20 to 30% non-mammalian by volume depending on where you drew the line. To call this an improvement would be the understatement of the century — but it wasn't enough. There were things I was still missing, a lot of them, and I felt their absence even if the vines were as much a comfort as they were a pain in the neck to train. But those things would come later, step by step. Camassia had been very clear that, regardless of whatever bureaucratic issues I might face when it came to my other goals, she was committed to making my body feel right for me. And we were getting closer to the real goal, step by step. As long as I kept that in sight, a few delays were, if not wholly acceptable, at least tolerable.

I settled Judy on the couch and let her watch the latest episode of Sabine & Selenipedium while I whipped up a quick batch of pancake batter and started baking a few rashers of bacon. This episode seemed to revolve around the perky star meeting a big, feathery xeno called a Yreeüt that looked a little bit, if my vague memories of a brief childhood obsession with ancient Earth animals was anything to go by, like a dinosaur with too many eyes. While the Selenipedium went, as ever, into exhaustive detail about the natural swampy habitats of the Yreeüt, and Sabine and her new friend did the usual frolicking, I put the finishing touches on Judy's breakfast: a stack of pancakes, drizzled in maple syrup and butter, cut into eighths and surrounded by bite-size bits of bacon. It wasn't the healthiest entree, and it was guaranteed to make a mess, but that just meant I would have the pleasure of cleaning Judy up again afterwards, and I'd balance it with lunch and dinner when the time came.

The way she came running, nametag jangling, when I tapped the bowl against her tray was nothing short of perfection. She skittered across the linoleum and buried her face in her breakfast, and I gathered up her hair and held it away while she chased down every little piece. My good girl cleaned her bowl, her long tongue lapping up every stray drop of maple syrup and diligently searching for more. "My perfect little pup," I whispered to her as I rubbed her back with my free hand. It gave me such joy to simply let her exist like this, to let her slip into comfortable dog-brain and to provide for her every need. How did it take me so long to realize what I am? I thought to myself as I cleaned the sticky syrup residue from her lips, her cheeks, her chin, her nose. In hindsight, it was so painfully obvious.

We cuddled together on the couch for a while after that, Judy's head in my lap as I stroked her hair and my vines idly explored her body. She squirmed happily as she watched the rest of the show. With another set of vines, I held my tablet — sure, I could have just leaned it against my leg to use it one-handed, but it was good practice for dexterity, endurance, and multi-tasking. I had to be slow and deliberate to avoid losing control, but I was getting better, bit by bit. That was the key to making it through TerraPrep, to be aware of your progress on a granular level and to respect every gain, no matter how small, you were able to make. So, while Sabine got a piggyback ride from a cheerful Yreeüt, I logged in to the work server and began setting up my workspace for the rest of the day.

I handled a lower workload than my co-workers at Transitional Decarceralization — there was just no way around that. Rehab and physical therapy following regular augmentation surgeries ate up a good deal of my time and energy, and while the nootropics I was taking to boost neuroplasticity had made it much easier to pick up the nuances of the regional Affini language I'd been missing, I was still more fluent than conversant. I still got a lot of use out of the software dictionary Karyon had given me, especially when dealing with the more complex forms — but, credit to my supervisor, Vanda, she had actually started to let me work on those even if she had to make time to double-check them after. Each one was a delectable puzzle, and it felt so good when I got them filled out properly.

My written Affini was improving much faster than my spoken Affini, in fact. One of the rules I'd set for myself was that all work writing had to be in Affini, to force myself to engage with it and build experience. My fingertips weren't tapping at a keyboard on the screen, but tracing Affini glyphs one by one. I had actually corresponded with several other Offices on a couple of cases, and at no point did the Affini on the other side express any difficulty in understanding what I meant. I doubt that it had ever occurred to them that they were speaking to someone they'd probably still read as human if we met in person, and that thought always gave me a little wave of euphoria.

I was still catching up on interdepartmental correspondence, including a memo from Neoxenoveterinary Archeobureaucracy about document preservation priorities given how quickly Terran hard drives tended to fail, when my messenger app pinged. I called it up, began picking apart the Affini glyphs, and smiled.

‹violetsprout› Ahem. My daily picture of Judy being cute is late.

I laughed — Karyon was so demanding when it came to floret pictures, and not just from me but everyone at the office. I swept back out of the messenger and opened up my gallery. After a moment's consideration, I selected a photo I'd taken yesterday of Judy entangled in my vines as she played a video game, tongue blepping out and eyes bright.

‹AcanthusIuridicus› My mistake! Here you go!

‹AcanthusIuridicus has sent a file›

‹violetsprout› Oh no. How is she so adorable?! You have to share that with everyone!

‹AcanthusIuridicus› You always say that. If you're always going to say that, why shouldn't I just post it in Floret Chat to begin with?

‹violetsprout› Tam, Tam, Tam, you have so much to learn about the logistics and procedures of sharing floret pictures with friends ;)

‹AcanthusIuridicus› Ah, well, in that case, I yield to the wisdom of my elder.

The smile on my face couldn't help but grow wider. Karyon had rapidly become a close friend over the last year, especially since I'd started working at Transitional Decarceralization. By now, of course, I knew what flirtatiousness from an Affini meant, yet Karyon was also adamant about treating me like any other Affini (albeit in a gently condescending way, given how young I was by Affini standards). I'd made it clear to her that I wasn't looking to be domesticated, and she respected that, but the flirting continued nevertheless. Maybe she couldn't help it — all Affini were, in my experience, at least a little flirty — or maybe there was something else going on.

Well, either way, she was a great friend I very much enjoyed having in my life. Anything else was details. I switched windows to the special chat channel our branch of OTD had set up for sharing floret pictures (because if we didn't have one, I'd been told, said pictures quickly took over the main work chat), entitled My Floret Is Too Cute, and dropped the picture of Judy there. The response was almost immediate.

‹fashionisperrenial› Tam, I am hereby serving you with a Notice to Tell Judy That She is in Possession of Unlicensed Levels of Cuteness.

‹AcanthusIuridicus› Receipt acknowledged, thank you. What form should I file on her behalf for the appreciate licensing?

‹fashionisperrenial› I think you'll need an Intent to Receive Headpats at the very least, probably a Scritchies Requisition Notice, and possibly an Exuberant Wagging Zone of Interest form.

‹toomanycooks› Absolutely adorable! And speaking of Exuberant Wagging Zones of Interest, my Judy Tailthump status is dangerously low, Tam. I fear I may be forced to rebloom early if not supplied with more!

‹AcanthusIuridicus› A dire prophecy of ruin!

‹toomanycooks› Indeed! We should organize another intradepartmental play date as soon as possible!

‹LibertéÉgalitéSensualité› Thank you for sharing this, Tam, Judy is an absolute treasure. While I have your attention, are you planning on swinging by before you and Karyon go to clear out your old office?

‹AcanthusIuridicus› I wasn't planning on it, no, but I can if need be.

‹fashionisperrenial› Boo! Bad form, Vanda, no work stuff in floret chat!

‹LibertéÉgalitéSensualité› It's just a brief aside, Ophrys. And don't worry about it, Tam, I just wanted to know when to set aside time to go over that wardship review you submitted yesterday (and lest you think this is cause for concern, you did very well on it!)

‹AcanthusIuridicus› Glad to know! I should be around by 2 or 3 at the absolute latest, and then we can figure out when that play date is going to happen. ;)

‹toomanycooks› Ah, excellent, the natural order is restored and we are once again focused on the real priorities around here!

‹fashionisperrenial› Hear, hear!

‹LibertéÉgalitéSensualité› Well, Lysander will certainly be excited for that!

I was halfway through composing a response when the tablet slipped from my vines, bounced once on the sofa, and tumbled to the floor. ‹Dirt,› I grumbled, unwinding my vines a little further and reaching out with them. This was another rule of mine: anything vines dropped, vines picked up. It was a rule that I really, really hated. Certain things, especially flat things, were incredibly frustrating to pick up with vines. Thankfully, the tablet had landed screen-up, so I could brush a vine across the text entry field to erase what I'd written and instead send a brief "Sorry, dropped tablet" before I set about trying to coil a vine under the edge to lift one side.

I had it up to about a fifteen degree angle before it one vine got distracted and moved the wrong way, and the tablet slipped off again with a soft thud. ‹Dirt!› I dug my vines in and tried again.

"Do you want some help?" Judy said, lifting her head to look up at me.

"No, sweetie, it's okay," I said, scritching her behind her ear and making her tail go thump-thump-thump. "I've gotta learn how to do this, remember?"

"Okay," Judy said, pouting even as she leaned into the affection. What a sweet little thing she was.

"Jude, sweetie....I know it's probably rough to have to watch me go through this, but it's nothing I can't handle, okay? TerraPrep was so much worse than this." The tablet slipped again, but this time I caught it before it fell flat. Well, me or the vines — it was tough to tell sometimes what was my reflexive action vs. something the vines were doing on their own.

"I know," she said, burying her face in my lap. "I just feel bad because mine were so easy..."

"No feeling bad because you got what you want," I told her, smiling. "I'm just glad you don't think all these vines hanging off me are gross." It was my one real concern over what I was doing: would Judy still find me attractive throughout the whole long piecemeal process, let alone on the other side of it? Sure, she adored Karyon (and the feeling was certainly mutual), but who knew what I'd come out looking like? I wouldn't have 80-plus years of practice at shaping my foliage in aesthetically pleasing ways to fall back on.

"You look hot," Judy mumbled into my foliage-wrapped thigh. "And it smells nice, too. Like, you but plant-y."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," I said, a genuine, if temporary, feeling of relief washing down my back like a cool shower. "Because I have no intention of stopping anytime soon."

Chapter 10

Notes:

Content Warning: A jerk says mean things about florets (and gets appropriately told off for it).

«And that,» I said, levering the cardboard box marked 'Evidentiary Hearings, 2549-2550' into the last little empty space in the postal cube, «is the final piece of the puzzle.» I dusted off my hands theatrically and gave the postal cube a little pat with a few of my vines. «Last box of documents. Everything else is furniture, and we can just haul that over to the municipal compiler over on Prideaux Street.»

«A job well done!» Karyon said, dialing in a few commands on her tablet. The postal cube sealed itself and flitted into the sky. «Off to Neoxenoveterinary Archeobureaucracy for archiving!»

The office felt empty, even with the furniture still in place. Of course, I hadn't practiced law out of it for a year — after the Affini had arrived and completely dismantled the Accord's legal system, there hadn't been much call for defense attorneys. I'd done some work out of here, mostly support for the Office of Transitional Decarceralization, but even that had been lonely work, as my paralegals had by and large moved on to finding new ways to occupy their time in the work-free utopia we now all lived in. We still had Game Night, of course, and other fairly regular get-togethers, but nevertheless, it was a big shift from seeing each other on a nigh-daily basis.

And now, of course, I worked at OTD, and had for months. Keeping the office around was pointless — it was just a place to store documents that, frankly, belonged at Neoxenoveterinary Archeobureaucracy anyway, and as the Affini's urban renewal program slowly swept outward from the twin urban cores of Vancouver and Victoria, Nanaimo was rapidly approaching its own deep renovation. Someday soon, this office would be decompiled and rebuilt into something else, something with tall ceilings where Affini and Terrans could cohabit; maybe a public building, maybe a workplace, maybe a residence. I would have to look in on it, once the work was done, but right now all I felt were quiet pangs of nostalgia, of an era coming to an end.

Karyon must have noticed, though whether she read it in my face or my shifting vines I couldn't say. Hers entwined with mine, a feeling I was still getting used to but that I very much enjoyed, like holding hands but far more intimate. «You seem to be feeling some very powerful emotions,» she said softly. «Would you like a moment?»

«I'll be fine,» I said, my voice betraying me as it caught just a little. «Well. Maybe I'll take a sit behind the old desk. Just for a little while, one last time.»

«I think it would be good for you,» she agreed. «And not just emotionally, but to take a rest after all that lifting. I can go and compile some equipment to help move some of the bulkier pieces of furniture, if you'd like to be alone.»

«That might be useful, yeah.» Sure, Karyon could easily lift any piece of furniture in the place, but I wasn't quite that strong, and some of the larger pieces would be pretty awkward to carry aloft even in her vines. «See you when you get back!»

«I won't be gone long,» she said, smiling and giving my vines a last riffle before she separated hers from mine, a slow and trailing disconnection as she walked out the door — my vines were reflexively clinging to hers, which was a little embarrassing, but this was far from the first time it had happened. She knew I was still getting used to voluntary control over so many limbs. The subtle sounds of her biorhythm faded, and the office grew quiet, save for the hum of the air conditioning, the buzz of the refrigerator in the breakroom, and the soft sounds of my vines against one another as I coiled them back around my arms.

If loneliness had a sound, I thought, this must have been it. Loneliness, bittersweet memories, and change. But as much as it hurt to say goodbye, it was for the better. I worked in a nicer office now, not for money but for the reason I started my practice in the first place — to help people thrive. My friends were no longer dependent on me, but could do whatever they wanted with their life. Everyone could do what they wanted with their life. The sadness I was feeling was just the end of a bond I'd forged with a place, with an identity that had felt comfortable at the time but which no longer fit.

Funny. As I walked back to my office, I let my vines brush along the walls rather than my meat-fingers, and realized I was literally experiencing parts of the building I'd never sensed before through them. The texture and the taste of the walls, the three-dimensional shape of the space my mind built from skinsight — I was seeing it through new eyes with every inch, even with the lights off. Even as I relaxed in my old chair behind my old desk, they were new to me, or rather, I suppose I was new to them. I was the thing that was changing, after all. The parts that had stayed the same were the parts that were no longer necessary, the parts that would become nothing more than a memory.

I heard the door swing open, and called out, "Karyon?" by relex, but the moment I heard the footfalls against the thin carpet I knew it wasn't any Affini. The steps didn't have the heft, the unique sound of root and vine compressing on contact, that Affini footsteps did. No, whoever had come in was human, and walking quickly from the sound of it. Before I could stand up — a much easier task than it used to be, thanks to the strength of my vines — they had come round the corner and into my office.

He was a man, heavyset and slightly disheveled, his greying hairline receding just a bit, wearing a very nice tailored suit that had clearly been worn for just a little longer than it was intended to. A bit of stubble graced his chin, and he looked as though he'd been out in the sun too long, red and sweaty. "You!" he said, glaring as he leaned up against the door frame. "I knew you'd come back eventually!"

It was the voice that dredged the name up from the deep archives of my memory. "...Mr. Argall?" One of my trillionaire clients, the ones whose retainer fees for financial skullduggery kept my defense practice afloat before the Affini arrived. He'd been the very last one I'd seen, in fact, the day before the fleet arrived in Sol. "I... didn't expect to see you. Please, sit, you look...tired."

"Tired?" His eyes nearly popped out of his skull. "Tired is the least of my problems! You were supposed to protect my assets, Slaine! You were supposed to get me through this! You were supposed to keep those alien bastards from stealing my property!"

For a moment, I didn't quite understand what he was saying. Then, slowly, the old ways of thinking, the old habits of capital, began to clarify it for me. When I spoke, I tried to make it as gentle as I could. "Listen, Mr. Argall, I understand the apprehension you must have felt when the Affini were approaching — I was there, I remember — but it's been a year. Surely you're not still concerned about the outcome of all this? About material wealth especially, when literally every possible desire you could have is easily indulged."

"Of course I am!" he hissed, marching over to the desk. "They stole my highrise in Alert, they stole my McMurdo compound, they stole my hypersonic shuttle, they- oh stars," he muttered, his eyes darting to one of my arms, "what in the void happened to you?" I suppose it was dark enough in the office that he hadn't noticed the green cast of my skin or the vines until that very moment.

I laughed and lifted the offending hand. "Oh, this? Well, you know how it is, you start getting closer to 40, you start thinking 'I should have some work done.'" I'd been asked the question often enough at this point that I had an entire portfolio of seemingly-off-the-cuff jokes practiced as responses. "I'm photosynthetic, and the vines are part of a support system. Like the Sixth Toe prosthetic, remember?" They were for a lot more than that, but I didn't need to get into the details.

"You mean you wanted this?" he said, his eyes tracking back up to mine. I held them with a firm stare, watching his face twitch as he tried to resolve the emotions he was feeling. There was the anger, of course, obvious, but also a strange kind of pity, and shock. "You're not one of those..."

I raised an eyebrow. "Florets? No, I'm not a floret." I knew there were still people uncomfortable with the idea of humans being pets — it had only been a year, after all — but he couldn't even bring himself to say it?

"But you've got plant parts growing out of you, that's how they get you-"

"You're talking about the haustoric implant, which I don't have," I said, sighing. "Believe me, it'd make things easier for all the work I'm having done, but domestication isn't an option for me. Seriously, sit," I added, and with enough force that he actually did, pulling up the chair on the far side of the desk. "Look, you're clearly having a hard time adjusting," I went on. "And that's okay, lots of Terrans are. I've been working with the Office of Transitional Decarceralization for a while now, and I see this kind of thing often enough." This was a little bit of a white lie — none of the ex-prisoners I'd worked with were former trillionaires angsting about the loss of their material excess — but Argall needed to hear something comforting just now.

"We shouldn't have to fucking adjust," he grumbled. "Fucking weeds had no right to do what they did! They even stole my house in Longyearbyen!"

"The fifteen-hundred square meter mansion?" Having handled his financials, I was well aware of the man's various properties and their absurdly unnecessary size.

"I earned that house!" he spat. "And they just... stole it! Tore it down and put up fucking apartments in its place! Like the hole in the wall they've shoved me into!"

"First of all, Warren," I said, dropping the courtesy of using his surname, narrowing my eyes at him, and putting on the most exhausted expression I could, "you inherited the vast majority of your wealth from your father, who inherited it from his father, et cetera, et cetera. You made a big number get slightly bigger, that's all."

"Slightly?!"

"Second — having seen the standard Affini apartment hab, I feel comfortable saying that 'hole in the wall' does not accurately describe what is a vast improvement for ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine percent of former Accord citizens."

He was on his feet before I finished, slamming his hands on the desk in the toddler-like way that only someone accustomed to having his every whim indulged can. "Don't you fucking feed me that communist bullshit! It used to be everyone got what they deserved, it was a fucking meritocracy! Now it doesn't matter what the fuck you do or who the fuck you are, you get the same shit as everyone else! Do you know how many people I employed? How many people I gave a purpose? What the fuck do you think they're all doing now, hmm? Jerking off and playing video games, that's what! Or getting their brains sucked out because the fucking weeds decided they wanted a new toy!"

"Do not talk about florets that way," I said, my eyebrows furrowing.

"Oh, hitting a little close to home, am I?" he said, sneering down at me. "You say you're not a floret, but look at you! Fucking vines growing out of you, following a weed around-"

"Karyon isn't my owner," I interrupted. "I don't have an owner. I do have a pet, though, who I love very much, and who would be very hurt to hear the things you're saying." I'd heard people say rude things about florets — less so, of course, after I'd had the vines put in — and it always made my blood boil. It had been the same before the Affini came, whenever I heard uptight, puritanical assholes use kink as a punching bag. There was something about punching down, especially against those who weren't there to defend themselves or couldn't even if they were, that that set me off.

He ignored me. "You know, I wouldn't be surprised if you were working with them even before they landed — it would explain why they were able to find and steal everything I owned!"

"They were able to find all the things you were hoarding because they're very good at what they do, Warren," I said. "And no, I wasn't working with them before they got here, but frankly, that's only because I didn't know what they were intending to do. If the Accord hadn't restricted information to the point where no one knew anything about the Affini, I think the war would have ended a lot sooner than it did."

"Bullshit! Sure, we had the odd fifth-columnist traitor, there's always types like that in every war, but you seriously think most Terrans would just surrender?!"

"Yes," I said without hesitation. "Enthusiastically. It's not as if we ever stood a chance. If we'd realized that sooner, things could have gotten better sooner." Some, of course, still hadn't realized that, and judging from the way his face was reddening up again, Warren Argall was one of them.

"Better? You call this better?!" He swept a hand theatrically behind him at, well, the wall of my office. "Weeds walking around with Terrans on leashes? The destruction of a market economy that was on the verge of being worth quintillions?! The united government of mankind being completely dissolved?! And stars help you if you complain about any of it to them! One step out of line and, fft, melon-baller to the brain stem, instant drool-happy vegetable where there used to be a person!"

Did I choose to stand up at that moment, or did my vines do it of their own accord? They certainly unwound themselves from my arms in a hurry, coiling and bracing themselves against the chair, the desk, and the floor to push me to my feet. I felt warmth in my face and tried not to be sick at the thought of the blood moving around inside me. "Do not," I hissed through clenched teeth, "talk about florets that way."

He was still for a moment as, I think, he finally remembered how much bigger I was that him. I watched his eyes get wider, watched his anger crumble away, watched fear rush in to fill the vacuum. "Oh stars," he whispered, a shudder running through his body. He whispered one thing more, forcefully, like he was trying to scream but his voice wouldn't obey, then turned and bolted for the door. I didn't react. I heard the front door swing open and shut, and I just stood there, paralyzed by what he had said and the twin feelings it had kindled banging up against each other in my head.

"You're one of them!"

Part of me was elated, of course. Yes, yes I was. I was an Affini, and he had seen it, unprompted, understood precisely to whom he was speaking in a way so few did. It was one thing to have a body that felt more right than it ever had before, to know that it would only get better as time went on and Camassia developed new augmentations, but it was something else entirely to have a Terran, sight-unseen, realize what was going on. I wish I could have bottled that feeling and saved it up, to take little hits of it whenever I felt lousy or when dysmorphia got the better of me.

But then there was the other part. He was terrified of me, I thought, and at first I didn't understand why that bothered me so much. I'd intimidated others before, usually men, and it had never hit me like this. What was different? The vines? They were still spread out like a pair of wings, some of them coiling around the arms of my chair, others around the legs of my desk. That might have been a little frightening.

But no, he'd been looking right at me when he said it. "You're one of them." He was afraid of me not because of my vines, but because of what they meant. He'd finally internalized what I'd been telling him the entire time, that I wasn't a floret, that I didn't have an owner. He was afraid of me because I was an Affini.

And that felt wrong.

By the time Karyon returned, not long after, I'd reasserted control over my vines and pulled them in around me in a tight, cocoon-like hug. «Tam?» she said as she walked into the office. «I have the- oh Everbloom, what's wrong?» She was next to me in a flash, faster than my eyes could track (but not, I noticed, faster than my skinsight could follow, even in the dark like this). Her vines slipped easily into the hug with my own, and she added her arms to a tight embrace. «I'm here, Tam. What's happened?»

«I just- it's complicated,» I said, leaning into Karyon. She'd hugged me before, of course, but she'd never held me like this, and it was immensely comforting. «I met someone I used to know, and it didn't go well, and I think- no, I know that I scared them.» I took a deep breath and listened to Karyon's biorhythm, full of shades of care and concern, through my ears and especially through my vines. It was so easy to read others, I'd found, once I'd picked up Affini and listened for the right cadences.

«I'm sure it wasn't as bad as you think,» Karyon said, projecting a powerful wave of reassurance. «We can go and try to reconcile with them, if you like. Would that help?»

I shook my head. «It's not about him specifically, and to be honest I don't particularly care to maintain that relationship. He was a former client from the money side of things, he's mad that he's not treated like he's better than anyone else anymore, and he was mad at me specifically for not magically out-paperworking all of Neoxenoveterinary Archeobureaucracy.»

Karyon couldn't help but giggle. «You're joking, right?»

«No, that's about the level of entitlement we're working with here,» I said. A smile had cracked my face — Karyon's giggle, both on the audible level and the biorhythmic, was far too cute not to smile at. «Anyway, he said something really awful about florets, and I got mad and told him to stop, and he got scared and ran away. Not scared,» I corrected myself, «absolutely terrified. And I feel awful about that.»

Karyon nodded and began to stroke my hair. «I understand. I actually had something similar happen during my kitchen safety training. I was working with a very sweet little Rinan, and — well, I don't know if you know Rinans but they're very curious, and this one wanted to play with the stove, and when I said no!-» Her entire biorhythm tensed up and spiked for a moment as she half-pantomimed the action. «-I ended up scaring the absolute daylight right out of them! Of course everything was alright afterwards. My instructor gave them a nice dose of Class-Es and we cuddled and they were perfectly settled in moments, but it stuck with me. I'm very conscious now to be as gentle with xenosophonts as I can given the circumstances. I think it's a lesson we all probably have to learn, one way or another.»

«Yeah?» I sighed and let my eyes fall shut. «I still feel awful. Like a-» I grasped for the word with just the right connotations in Affini, and couldn't find one. "Like a heel," I muttered in English. "You know?"

"... the back of a Terran foot?" she said, clearly puzzled.

I chuckled and shook my head. «Never mind, it's not important. Thank you, though, it does help to know it's not just me.»

«It certainly is not. You are very new to being an Affini, you know, and you have a lot of unlearning of Terran things to do, but I think you're doing a fine job so far.» She laughed again. «It's funny, I never expected to be the one in this role quite so soon. I thought I had a couple of blooms ahead of me before I had to worry about being the responsible one.»

«Am I to understand that you think I'm irresponsible?» I said, grinning up at her. «Ma'am, I'll have you know I am very responsible.»

«Well, at least you're smiling,» Karyon said. «Are you feeling better? Think you're ready to load up the last few things and say goodbye to the old office?»

I paused for a moment, feeling Karyon against me, warm and comforting. The room around me was gloomy, small — it wasn't where I belonged, not anymore. It was a part of the Tam I used to be, the Tam who thought she was stuck with her humanity, the Tam who thought that, even if real change wasn't possible, she'd do her damnedest to make a dent anyway. But I didn't have to be that Tam anymore.

«Yeah,» I said. «Let's go.» But I lingered when we reached the lobby, where the big rectangular platform was drifting silently in the air, waiting for its cargo. Karyon immediately began the work of loading it while I wrestled with what had just happened, and the conversation we'd had in the aftermath.

Karyon had screwed up like that before, and she implied that most Affini had that experience at least once early on, as they were learning where to draw the line between the desire to protect other sophonts and the need to understand that, to them, we were often more like forces of nature than people. That was the lesson I had just learned — to be Affini, to be visibly Affini, meant being in control, presenting a stable face to the xenosophonts around you, to not give them cause to read your size, your power, your presence as dangerous. Losing control like that, putting such terror into a stray sophont, was antithetical to everything the Compact stood for. Karyon had taken responsibility for her mistake, and taken that energy forward into every interaction with a xeno she had from then on. I needed to do the same, especially as I became more and more outwardly Affini.

Argall, of course, was long gone, and even if he wasn't I didn't have the requisite anatomy or grafts to deliver the dose of Class-E he probably very much needed. He was an asshole, and responsible for a lot of suffering prior to the arrival of the Affini...but that was all behavior in the wild. I knew well enough from my work with OTD that what happened in the wild didn't really matter — it was how you reacted once the pressures of survival were lifted that mattered most. History was, at best, context for the present. I had to set aside his old entitlement, his old wastefulness, his old sneering self-aggrandizement. I had to approach him as he was, in the moment, if I was to judge his behavior with the compassion that he, like all sophonts, deserved.

And having done that — or at least, having made the attempt — it wasn't difficult to see that he was having trouble adapting. He probably needed some degree of help to adjust, and might even need specialist assistance to get there — but that was well above my pay grade. I worked with a very specific group of sophonts, whose issues I was well versed in and whose experience under the Accord I understood better than my co-workers. That was where I could help. Someone else, someone who knew how to assist a former trillionaire with learning that he wasn't the center of the universe anymore, would have to step in here.

And so, before we even left the office, I used my tablet to submit a request for a check on Warren Argall to the Bureau of Xenosophont Wellness and Care. Someone who knew what they were doing — better than me, certainly — would step up to see that he received the aid he needed, and I could feel a measure of relief knowing that, having made a mistake, I had done my part to see it corrected.

Chapter 11

Notes:

Content Warning: Talk of cranial surgery, brain implants, etc.

July, 2556

 

I must have drifted off, because the first time I noticed the floret trying to get my attention, he'd already moved up to tugging gently on my vines. I was sunning myself in the office's atrium, topping up my caloric load before my appointment with Camassia, and when my brain finally stirred enough to begin making sense of my skinsight again, Sammy quickly swam into focus.

"Miss Tam?" he said. "Hello? Master says you got a memo-thingy. Miss Tam?" His eyes were slightly glazed over, the pupils big and black and half-hidden behind a curtain of long blonde hair — sweet little thing must have been high as a kite.

"Mmmmmhey Sammy," I murmured, my vines tensing and pulsing as I stretched them, then pulled them in to wrap them around my meat. "A memo-thingy, huh?"

"Special notice, Master said," he added, nodding and still tugging on my vine.

"And he sent you to get me, hmm?" I smiled. Anthemis loved to give Sammy little tasks when he brought his pet into the office. Watching him stumble around to pass notes was dangerously precious.

"Uh-huh!" A big grin began to split his face. He knew exactly what was coming.

"Good boy, Sammy!" I said, ruffling his hair with a vine and winning a giggle for my efforts. "You want a ride back to Master?"

"Yeah!" He flung his arms into the air in the universal floret sign language of "Uppies!" I happily obliged him, picking him up as I got to my feet and carrying him under my arm, keeping him tightly secured as my vines remembered how to be feet again. I hadn't used the Sixth Toe in months, and I was still getting used to letting my vines carry all the weight. It had been a week since I'd last taken a tumble, but if I was carrying such precious cargo, I was going to be extra careful about it.

Sammy kicked and squirmed happily as I made my way back into the office proper, a large round room that elegantly blended a very modern-looking office — desks, computing terminals, file storage, and the like — with the aesthetic of a rainforest, moss-covered rocks and flowering fallen logs serving to divide up workspaces from one another, and tall trees providing shade from the open skylight. Under one such overhanging tree, which came from a planet I couldn't quite remember the name of, Anthemis was lounging next to his low desk.

After two years and change of experience, I felt comfortable labeling Anthemis Circinatum the comfiest-looking Affini I had ever met. He was big, broad-shouldered, nearly three and a half meters when he stood up (which was rarely), his foliage vibrant and fresh from his recent reblooming. If he were human, I'd say he had a swimmer's body gone to pot, his long torso sporting a big, soft, mossy belly. "Ahem," I said as I walked up to him. "I believe I have something here that belongs to you, Anthemis."

"Oh?" He looked up from the file he'd been reading over, one hand stroking his long beard. "Well, whatever could that be?" His biorhythm was full of playful notes that danced all along my vines.

I hefted a still-squirming Sammy and held him up. "A certain floret of yours?"

"Hiiiii, Master!" Sammy said, laughing and waving.

"Aaaaah, yes, I do have a certain floret," he said, grinning and reaching out with a vine and slipping it under the defenseless Sammy's colorful shift to tickle him. "A tiny, adorable little floret named Sammy, who is a very good boy!" Sammy's squirming redoubled, and he made his usual high-pitched yelps as he flailed. He loved being tickled. "Mmmm, that certainly seems like Sammy, doesn't it?"

"I think you might be on to something there," I said, playing along. "But there's only one way to know for sure, of course."

"Ah, yes, aerodynamic testing. Well~" He laid his file down on his desk and reclined further, arms behind his head. "Fire when ready!"

"Standing by to deploy Sammy!" I said, backing up and swinging him to and fro. "One... two..."

"Aaackpth!" Sammy desperately tried to escape, still giggling uncontrollably, but my vines had him locked up tight as I rocked him back and forth, miming what I was about to do to him.

"Three!" At the end of the last motion, I released my vines and let Sammy go sailing through the air to land right in Anthemis's big, soft belly. He went in with the swish of disturbed foliage as it gave way beneath him, and before he could even rebound little vines started to coil around him and hold him fast.

"Oh, that was a very Sammy trajectory," Anthemis said, reaching down to pet his floret. "Well, that settles it, this is definitely my perfect little good boy Sammy, then!"

«Thanks for the practice,» I told him. Sammy struggled helplessly, less to escape and more to lean into Anthemis' gentle strokes. «Definitely getting better, I think.»

«Oh, much better,» he rumbled. «I'm sure Camassia's very proud.»

«I don't know if proud is the word,» I replied, «but I suppose I'll find out in about an hour or so. I hear I have a 'memo-thingy?'»

Anthemis chuckled. «Ah yes. The pretext.» He reached back up to his desk and picked up a sealed envelope, marked with a series of floral glyphs that identified it as official interdepartmental correspondence. Standing out amongst them was a series of phonic glyphs I recognized as my name, written in Affini. «Came in just now. Seems to be some kind of special request for assistance on a wardship.»

«Really?» I took the envelope and glanced over it. «Well, that's what it says. Xenosophont Wellness must have picked up one of ours without realizing it, I suppose.» It had happened a few times since I'd started working at OTD — given how massive and sprawling the Compact's bureaucracy was, the left vine often did a share of the right vine's work, and vice versa. «Hmm. It's not marked urgent, just special attention. I suppose it'll keep until after my appointment, then.»

«I think so,» Anthemis said. «Your health is important too, you know. And, of course, your ongoing effort, as well. How's your head feeling, by the way?»

«It's fine.» I'd been fielding that question non-stop ever since Camassia had removed the back of my skull, both to make connecting the phytocortex easier and to give my brain room to expand as it grew and developed in response to the demands I was placing upon it. Everything was still carefully protected by pytotech, which Camassia had assured me would protect against impact better than bone ever could. It was very visible, though — the back of my head was now a good six inches further back than it had been before. I devoted one of the vine clusters anchored there to helping support my head, and after a brief learning curve my balance recovered, but Affini were Affini, and even among their own they were going to be concerned.

Assuming, that is, they considered me one of their own, but that was an uncharitable thought. Anthemis had always included me in conversation and was extremely diligent about trading floret teasing strategies with me (several of which I had used on Judy to great effect). At worst, I think he probably saw me as a weird Affini with lots of medical issues, and again, Affini were Affini — it's in our nature to worry about others.

«I'm very glad to hear,» he said. «And just to confirm, Game Night is still happening, yes?»

«How else am I supposed to break in the new place?» Having finally moved to one of the new Affini highrises, I now had a common area big enough to house more than one or two Affini at a time, and was at long last able to not only host all my work friends at once but also cleanly merge my two friend groups. There was even a place for the florets to all have fun together, since I'd requested an exact copy of Judy's den for the new place to keep the disruption to her routine as minimal as possible.

«Marvelous! Sammy's been really looking forward to it, I know. Haven't you, little guy~?» He gave the floret, still half-embedded in his belly and squirming, a good scritch, and Sammy responded with a long moan. «That's a yes, I think.»

«Well, if I don't see you when I get back to the office, I'll see you tonight! And thanks again for letting me know about this,» I added, holding up the envelope. It found its way to my inbox, where it and a few low-priority files were waiting to be cleared.

It was probably for the best that I didn't read it right then, or I'd have been distracted the entire time I was at Camassia's lab.

---

I'd spent the entire train ride from the central admin district over to the waterfront rehearsing my argument for why we should proceed with the next phase of implantation. There was almost always a little give and take with Camassia. She'd spent the last year and a half being pleasantly surprised at what a biologically human brain could do to itself given the appropriate stimulation via xenodrugs, and at how quickly I'd learned to handle detail work with my vines. They were still a little clumsy as far as I was concerned, but I was getting better with practice.

As it turns out, I needn't have bothered. «Good, good, adaptability on curve, yes, yes.» She was leaning over me, poking and prodding from virtually every angle with one instrument or another, and the funny thing was, I could see everything. It wasn't just the phytocortex making visual processing easier, but I was actually getting used to the skinsight, having multiple focal angles at once, being able to perceive three-dimensional space as a matter of course.

Perception wasn't the only thing the phytocortex did for me, of course. It served as a distributed extension of my neurology, adapting to my needs and helping my original brain-meat maintain a healthy structure as it developed and changed under the influence of the xenodrug cocktail I was on. So far, if the scans Camassia had shown me were anything to go by, it was still mostly in a shape recognizable as Terran, the phytocortex just a lump nestled along the backside. It shared no few features with the haustoric implant, ironically enough, but instead of integrating with my meat's nervous system, it focused exclusively on maintaining and managing the phytotech aspects of my body. It had already developed its own peripheral motor neuron system, which had greatly improved my dexterity. Was it a little scary to think about my brain, the seat of my consciousness, the material manifestation of everything I was, changing so radically?

A little, yeah. But I knew that every step I took was a step in the right direction, and I was in good hands with Camassia. «Everything up to spec, I take it?» I said cheerfully.

«Mmm. Good neuronal connections, intercranial pressure exactly where it should be. Phytocortex seems to have fully assimilated. We can start fixing your endoframe today, I think. Yes.»

«Wait, you want to do the surgery today?» I asked, incredulous. I couldn't believe my luck — she'd never sprung a procedure on me like this before. «Is there any way to put that off? I have Game Night tonight.»

«No no no,» Camassia said, waving a vine. «No surgery. Well. A little, technically, but functionally I'm just starting a graft. Easy, easy, outpatient. Nothing to do with the internals.» A.K.A., my meat body. Her bedside manner might have left something to be desired, but she was at least scrupulous about not labeling me as human. «Additional support, better locomotion, less stress on vines, less likelihood of injury. Balance much improved.»

«Well, I will appreciate that,» I admitted, still a little thrown by the idea that I'd progressed to the point where more augmentations didn't necessarily mean surgery, recovery, and long-term physical therapy exercises. A little closer to the ideal. But I held fast to that feeling and continued, lest Camassia change her mind. «Getting a little tired of being so wobbly, here. Well, let's get started, then!»

She showed me each piece of the endoframe, a lovingly carved and polished piece of engineered living bark, its undersides teeming with mossy microvines and hollows. For the first few, she walked me through the process, as I endured the little stings of my own microvines being clipped and bound one by one to the bark, and as my larger vines found their way into the hollows to secure them. After that, it became almost routine very quickly — snip snip snip, graft graft graft, then hold it close and let the dull ache fade slowly. My phytotech healed much, much faster than my meat, and by the time Camassia finally finished the last piece of the endoframe, a broad piece that rested entangled in my vines between my shoulder blades, I was already beginning to gain some feeling into the first pieces she'd added.

I now had two skeletons, I realized — one buried in the meat, a thing of bone just a little too lightweight for Earth gravity, and one of wood, anchored to my vines and bound in place in a way that supported the meat and the vines far better than the bones ever had. When Camassia told me to stand up, I let my vines reach out, carrying bits of the endroframe with them, and began to puzzle out just what that meant now. It took me a moment to work out how to arrange things, but in the end I maneuvered two pieces of the endroframe into position, replicating the arrangement of the ball and heel of Terran feet, and shifted my weight down onto them.

It was so much more stable, and so much less effort, to stand with something firm bracing against the floor. It reminded me of how the Sixth Toes had felt, back when I still used them, how much my body relied on them to keep me upright. Standing on just my vines, I'd relied on constant shifting of force across dozens of them to hold my balance, but now I could simply let my weight rest naturally. That wasn't what threw me for a loop, though — that was settling comfortably against the endroframe and realizing that the room seemed significantly less tall. The endoframe had added maybe a third of a meter to my height, and my meat-feet were nowhere near my actual feet but covered by the 'musculature' of my vines. "Holy shit," I muttered in English, purely by reflex. «I think it's a little big,» I added, laughing a little as I took a careful step forward, then another.

«By design. You're going to have to grow into it, your internals aren't big enough for everything I'm going to have to do. Can expand it later, of course. Will probably have to. Easy enough.» She tapped a few notes into her tablet and watched me walk around the room, my gait slowly sorting itself out into something approximating stability. «How does it feel?»

«Good!» I said, and it did. The vines had done the work of protecting me against gravity, but the endoframe made that work so much easier. The vines had made moving around on Earth easier than it had been in years, but the endoframe made it, if not effortless, the next best thing to it. With a little bit of practice, I might even get back to the kind of mobility I had back on Mars. Now there was an intoxicating thought. «This is really amazing, Camassia. Thank you.»

«Mmm. This was easy,» she said, most of her eyes shifting to focus on the tablet. «Similar applications for injured Affini, replacement parts, that sort of thing. Just needed to ensure compatibility for you. Easy. Too easy, really, but I have other things to focus on.»

«Oh?» I paused and turned back toward her, and while I almost overbalanced it felt almost completely natural — if there was any difficulty, it was that I couldn't feel the entirety of the endoframe yet, sort of like trying to walk on a foot after it's fallen asleep. «What's that? Are you working on the psuedocore?» I didn't want to get my hopes up, but at the same time, if there'd been movement forward on the most important part of the process, I wanted to know about it.

«No, no, no,» she said, and I tried not to let the disappointment show. «That's still... theoretical at best. Have ideas, not hypotheses. Yet. No, no, the thing I was talking about is this.» She reached over and tapped the wall, and a panel slid out of the way to reveal what I'd come to recognize as a nutrient tank — I'd seen several of my phytotech implants suspended in a liquid medium in one of these prior to them going in my body. What was inside of this one, however, wasn't a vine or even an organ.

«Is that... a face?» I said, crossing the lab and staring at the arrangement of bark, moss, thorns, and incredibly fine vines. It certainly looked like one, eyeholes and cheekbones and soft tissue unarguably shaped like lips.

«Your face,» Camassia said. «Modeled on yours, anyway. Most Affini create their own, of course, but most Affini also have more experience and skill with fine manipulation and readaptation of foliage than you do, so think of it like a prosthetic. I specifically designed it as a single, integrated piece, with a nervous channel layout identical to that of Terran facial musculature. That should make it much easier for you to get used to emoting with it.»

I was speechless, staring up at the facial prosthetic in the tank and realizing that I was, functionally, looking at myself in the mirror for the first time. Someday, hopefully not too far in the future, that's what I would look like. I felt a shivering feeling in my chest, the kind of meat-feeling I was still all too accustomed to. Would it always feel like that, when emotion overwhelmed me? Would I always feel like someone had a hand around my heart and was squeezing?

«If you want aesthetic changes, you should probably mention that now, of course. It should stay mostly Terran-aligned, I think, for your own comfort and ease of mobility acquisition.»

«No... no, it's amazing,» I said, still staring at it. «What about the eyes?»

«Mmm. Still haven't figured those out,» Camassia said. «I have a functional lens assembly, of course, but the trick will be routing a connection to your optic nerve. I know you're learning to see with your foliage very well,» she added, preempting my question, «but I think it's best you retain a familiar mode of sight.»

«...they're not going to work like your eyes, are they?» I said, and this time I was unable to keep the disappointment out of my voice. «One of those 'limitations of phytotech vs. naturally occurring Affini tissue' things, I take it?»

«Partially. The lenses will probably fascinate particularly susceptible sophonts, especially if they're already florets, but I wouldn't expect them to do much more than that, especially since you don't have the biorhythm prosthetic. And, to be honest, that's probably for the best right now, because giving you those capabilities would likely prompt certain questions neither of us want to answer at this point in time.»

In other words, if I was as naturally hypnotic as my fellow Affini were, someone less well disposed to the change in my status (and certainly to my giving Judy the implant she deserved) might notice before I was ready to make a bureaucratic stink about it — which, at the moment, I wasn't. «Fair enough,» I said, nodding. «You're probably right. How long until this can go in, then?»

«I would say... two months, perhaps three. This is your optic nerves we're talking about. I'm not going to....» She paused. "Play fast and loose with them." «Did I say that right?»

«You did, very good!» I said, grinning and giving her a pat on the back (which was significantly easier to reach, now, and much less likely to end up in an ass-pat situation).

Camassia looked pleased with herself. «Well, I have been getting a lot of practice as the locals finally relax a little about coming in to see me. Terrans have some very interesting idioms. Anyway. Remember to do your exercises. I've included a new set for manipulating the endoframe, so be sure to include that and log everything.»

«I will. Thank you, Camassia.» I hugged her — again, much easier than it used to be, my head resting easily against her torso. She hugged me back, and our vines did a little bit of casual touch-and-go before we released one another. «Keep me in the loop about that face, alright?»

«Of course! I'm as eager to see it in use as you are.» I found that hard to believe, but I appreciated the sentiment nevertheless, and nothing was going to bring me down right now, not with the endoframe in place. My steps were still a little hesitant as I walked out of Camassia's clinic and into the bright midday sunlight — hot, certainly, but bearable, something I never could have said of July a scant two years ago — but I gained confidence with each one. Soon, my gait was, if not perfect, at least recognizable as someone walking without having to think about each and every step they were taking.

And then I got a wild idea in my head. I still had a block or so to go before I got to the transit station, a short enough distance to test something but a long enough one for the test to be a real one. And so, with only a moment of apprehension, my next step pushed me harder, faster, and the next more so, and more so, and more so.

I began to run.

I hadn't run anywhere in over a decade, since the first year of TerraPrep when I was still living in Martian gravity, the year I placed 17th in the Marineris Marathon. Isolated drops or jumps were one thing, but no Martian ever ran on Earth if they could avoid it — no matter how much muscle we built, no matter how good a weight distribution prosthetic we hard, it would completely destroy our knees in short order. There was just no way to cushion the blow sufficiently in the crushing gravity of Earth. But my knees weren't taking that force anymore, weren't taking any force. The endoframe and my vines were doing all the work now, and my meat was just along for the ride.

Stars, but I had almost forgotten how good it felt to run. I used to run all the time when I was younger, had even competed in high school and university in the 400-meter and 800-meter, and I was damn good at it — but I'd given that up to fulfill my dream of moving to Earth and actually making a difference in peoples' lives. I considered it a price worth paying, but now I'd been issued a full refund.

I nearly fell three times, of course, over the course of that block or so to the station. They aren't kidding when they say you should learn to walk before you try to run, after all. I managed to avoid disaster, though, and rode the train back to the office with a wide grin on my face.

«Oh! I like the new look!» Senna greeted me with a smile and a wave, their only-vaguely-humanoid bush of a body nestled tightly behind their wraparound desk near the entrance. «Very snazzy!»

«Thanks,» I said, pausing for just a moment next to their workspace. «It's just an endoframe, though, does it really make that much of a difference to look at?»

«Oh my, yes,» Senna said, reaching out and patting me on the shoulder affectionately. They had never quite gotten over treating me like this, but then, they were practically obsessed with anything Terran-shaped; they'd collected no less than four florets over the last five years, and were still on the lookout for more. «So much more solid, gives you more angles and such. Dynamic, that's the word for it!»

«Dynamic, huh?» I laughed. «Well, I've got to go dynamically get some work done. See you at Game Night tonight?»

«Oh, I wouldn't miss it, and neither would my cuties!» they said eagerly. «So many Terrans all in one little space? I might wilt from sheer adorableness overload.»

«Well, just remember, not every Terran wants to be a pet, okay?» I replied, winking at them as I walked around a massive fallen log and settled in at my own workstation, a desk made of dozens of thick roots that merged together into a single, polished desktop that housed a terminal, my inbox and outbox, and a collections of other essentials, like the dedicated display that served only to show my Judypup's stream whenever she was live. I watched for just a moment — ah, she was ahead going into Exarchate Prime! Good girl, I thought, reaching out and lifting the special notice letter from the inbox.

I paused for a moment, a mental image popping into my mind, a trick I'd seen Karyon do once. With a bit of effort, I extruded one of the thinner bits of my endoframe from my right arm. This should work, I thought, and slid it into the open end of the envelope. Tensing my vines to near-rigidity, I applied leverage, and with a soft riiiiip the envelope tore open right along the ersatz letter-opener I'd made of my endoframe. I shivered happily as I reintegrated it, pulling the memo out of the envelope and unfolding it. Alas, the happy feelings faded quickly, replaced with confusion as I read the memo in full.

"Warren Argall?"

Chapter 12

Notes:

Content warning: Mild experience of dysphoria, and a formerly-rich jerk trying to use an identity as a shield (and getting rapidly shut down for it)

As the hypersonic transport descended through the lower layers of the atmosphere, I caught my first glimpse of Greater Reykjavik. I'd never been there before (roots, I'd never been on a hypersonic transport before, either, though I probably would have found ones built with Terrans in mind uncomfortable) but I'd seen the occasional photo or video, and it looked quite a bit different now that the Affini had had two years to work with it. The shining towers of the metropolis were still there, but were dwarfed by Affini highrises that climbed to two or three times their height, and the seawall brimmed with verdant growth and bright coral that shored it up and made it from a brutalist necessity into a work of art. Most cities were going that way these days, and it was a welcome change.

That wasn't really what was on my mind, but it was a nice distraction and it held my attention through the landing pattern and ultimate descent — and then I was at ground level, and the municipal transit center was so active that I scarcely had time or room to think as I made my way through a sea of Affini, florets, and independent sophonts. No few of them, of course, were thoroughly distracted by me, but then I assume one doesn't see a two-and-a-half meter ostensibly-human woman covered in vines every day.

I could have taken the train, but I was in a hurry, so I'd reserved a pod for personal use. Again, I had a lovely view of the city, but I also had the space to think for a brief moment — a pod flight, even in a new city, didn't have the advantage of novelty like a hypersonic flight between Vancouver-Victoria and Reykjavik did.

Why me? I kept coming back to that question. It wasn't as if the last conversation I had with Argall had gone particularly well, what with him running off in a panic when he realized what he was talking to. That had been a year ago, and though I'd flagged him for a wellness check afterwards I hadn't heard anything about it, and assumed he'd passed it. People can have off days, something I was acutely aware of thanks to my work at OTD — just because someone was dysfunctional for a day or even several days at a time, or because they had a negative reaction to something and either lashed out or emotionally withdrew, it didn't necessarily mean they were unable to care for themselves or a threat to themselves or others. Many of my OTD clients had days like those, even after two-plus years of life in the Compact — trauma didn't just go away because the source of the trauma had been completely dismantled, but even sophonts living with trauma could still care for themselves the vast majority of the time. Part of my job was fixing them up with the resources and assistance they needed to do that, whether it was therapy, social connections, or whatever else was needed to fill the gap.

Sometimes, of course, that meant a wardship, which could either represent a more intensive effort to assist the sophont in developing a mental and emotional equilibrium, or it could represent deeper observation of a sophont suspected of needing domestication. The memo on Argall, sent from one Vita Clematis, Second Bloom, didn't go into detail — it was little more than a request to get in touch as soon as possible, preferably in person. Thankfully, Affini transit technology made that something I could do in the time I had left before I needed to get home to Judy and prepare for Game Night.

The pod landed at one highrise, about 400 meters up, a platform cunningly revealing itself as massive leaves spread aside, then closing up behind the pod to block the wind. A short elevator ride later, and I was standing in front of an apartment door very similar to my own, reaching up with a vine to tap the call button.

"Just one sec, cutie!" the door said.

«I prefer Affini,» I told it. It was not the first time I'd had to correct a housing AI, but their rate of guessing correctly when they saw me was starting to trend the correct way.

«...my mistake!» it said. Regardless, it had been correct about one thing: the wait wasn't a long one. Shortly after, the door opened to reveal another Affini, her brilliant pink-and-lavender blossoms pinned back in a thick mane.

«Vita Clematis, I presume? I'm Tamara Slaine. She/her.» I watched her vines shift in confusion for a moment as she tried to figure out exactly what she was talking to — it wasn't just hab AIs that I habitually confused.

«Ah,» she finally said. «Well, thank you for coming so quickly,» she went on, giving no indication of whether she was reading me as an Affini or otherwise. «Perhaps you can shed some light on this situation. I must admit I'm a bit confused — I'm just a social worker, I don't really understand a lot of the deeper intricacies of Terran culture.»

«It can be a little confusing,» I said reassuringly, «even for those of us born to it. May I come in?»

«Oh, certainly!» She stood aside, and I stepped in. Her apartment was laid out in a fairly standard configuration — she must have been new to the planet — but she'd begun putting her own touches on it by adding thick stands of broad-leaf grasses along the walls, and indeed the entire place smelled richly of them. «Can I get you anything?» Vita asked. «Have you eaten?»

«I don't eat,» I replied, «but I won't say no to a bit of mineralized water. Where is Mr. Argall?»

«Ah, well, he's in his room and refuses to come out,» she said. «That's sort of the problem, he, uhm... he's very uncooperative, which isn't new to me, of course, I've dealt with uncooperative Terrans in the past, but I've never had one make the kind of demands he has, and I thought it might be for the best to have someone who could explain what it all means to me.»

«What's he asking for, specifically?» Argall could certainly be demanding, but I'd seen plenty of that myself from others. Once Terrans worked out Affini could give them anything they wanted, some took that as license to up the stakes, not realizing that they didn't need to act out to get it.

«Well, he insists that I am 'holding him illegally' and that he 'has the right to counsel,' which he explained meant that I couldn't talk to him without him having a 'lawyer.' I asked him what that was, and he really didn't explain so much as insist that he needed you, specifically.»

I had to laugh a little to myself. He'd actually invoked his right to speak to an attorney, a right the Accord frequently let slide, at an Affini, whose government had no legal system to speak of, and certainly not an adversarial one. «Well, I see where the confusion comes in. This is sort of a Terran cultural practice. Thankfully, I'm well versed in it. I'd like to speak to him now — alone and unmonitored, preferably, that's part of the cultural ideal — and if possible I'd like a copy of his wardship file so I can familiarize myself with the case.»

«Of course. I'll compile one for you along with the water,» Vita said. «Warren's room is right over there,» she added, gesturing with a vine. «But, uhm, before you go, may I ask...»

Took her long enough. «I was born Terran, yes, but I no longer consider myself a member of that species. If you'll just consider me an unusually shaped Affini, I think we'll get on fine.»

«...I'm sure others have told you that's quite irregular, but alright,» she said. «And, again, thank you for coming. He's a very confusing one.»

«Oh, believe me, I know,» I replied. The door to Argall's room opened as I approached — the interior was fairly plain, with a bed, a chair, and a desk, all of which had been rearranged into a sort of defensive wall around one corner, where I could see Argall hunkered down, staring at a tablet.

"I told you, I refuse to answer any questions without my attorney present!" he snapped as I walked in and the door slid shut behind me. "I have rights!"

"I'm not your warden, Mr. Argall," I said, and he finally looked up. His eyes went wide as he saw me, and he dropped the tablet on the floor.

"... Slaine?! Stars, you're getting worse..." He slowly stood up, never taking his eyes off me. He was still wearing the same suit I'd seen him in the last time we'd met, and it was getting pretty tattered around the edges.

"I would say better," I replied.

"Are you... are you fucking naked under that?" he stammered. "Fucking covered in vines..."

"I'd like to see you try and get a bra around all of them," I said, rolling my eyes. My vines were more than enough to preserve my modesty. The only part of my meat you could even see like this was my head and part of my shoulders. Still, I thought, maybe I should look into some more fashionable grafts, like the kind Karyon had. If I could take the endoframe so easily, there was no reason I couldn't take something like that.

"But what is it all for? You can't possibly need all of that just to keep you upright, Martian or no!"

I sighed. How the hell was I supposed to explain this to him when even Affini struggled to grasp it sometimes? "Look, I'm... when the Affini arrived, I realized some things about myself, and I needed to change. You may not be able to really understand this, but I'm an Affini. What you see is just part of the process of fixing biological incongruence with that fact. Do you follow?"

"... I get it," he said, his body suddenly tightening up. "Void take me, I get it now. It's fucking brilliant, why didn't I think of it?! That's the way out of this!"

"...what?" I blinked, totally confused. What in the world was he going on about?

"You're making yourself into one of them!" he cried, almost seeming elated as he climbed over his desk. "I thought it was some weird perverted pet thing when I saw you before, but I get it now! You're making yourself into one of them so they can't fucking domesticate you! Ha! Leave it to you to figure this shit out! I always knew you were the catch of the day, didn't I always say that?!"

The revulsion I was feeling was a very physical kind, the kind that always made me feel even more revolted because it grounded me in my meat, made the rest of my body feel alien. Leave it to Warren fucking Argall to say exactly the thing that'd land like a gut punch. "No," I said quietly — I wasn't going to fume and shout, not this time. I'd made my one mistake with him, and I had learned from it. "No, that's not that this is about, and if you're even a little clever, you'll never say anything like that again, not to me or to anyone else."

"What, you don't want someone horning in on your idea?" he said, his eyebrows furrowing. "Well, tough luck, sister, your friends did away with the concept of intellectual property, so I'm free to swipe whatever idea I damn well please! Get out the way, I'm going out there and telling that bitch to give me the vine treatment!"

"No," I repeated, with a little more edge in my voice. "I will do no such thing, and neither will you." I took a step forward, emphasizing the difference between our size. "This is not some kind of scam or hustle that I'm running, Warren. This is who I am. I have had somewhere around twenty surgeries to graft all of this, and I'm nowhere near close to done. I had a series of grafts done today, so as you might imagine my patience for your bullshit is just a little thin right now. Sit down." A few of my vines lashed out, wrapped around the chair in Argall's ersatz barricade, and pulled it up behind him; another vine gave him a gentle push as I slid the chair in beneath him, the seat bumping his knees out from under him. He sat, whether he meant to or not.

"Wh-? Hey!" Somewhere between that old righteous indignation and animal fear, now.

"Not another word on the subject out of you." Learning how to teach simple commands to recalcitrant Terrans was one of the first things I'd learned from my co-workers, but I'd never felt the call to actually use that knowledge until now. "To me or to anyone else. Now-" I pulled the desk out of Argall's barricade and dragged it over to take a seat on it — at this point, such a low desk was more like the seat of a bench to me anyway. "I'm told you've asked for a lawyer."

"Y- Well, look," Argall stammered, his eyes wide and staring again. Maybe I'd gone a little too hard on him, but honestly, it was probably for his own good. "They weren't satisfied with stealing everything from me, now they've fucking abducted me and locked me up in here and that bitch outside is practically treating me like I've got a-" He paused, swallowed. "Like I'm her fucking pet," he grumbled, trying to put a little edge back his voice.

"I haven't seen your wardship file, but Vita's running me off a copy right now, so I'll have a look at it in a moment. And don't call her a bitch, she's doing this for your benefit."

"Bullshit!" He was trying to get to his feet, but I intercepted him with one of my vines almost before his butt left the seat and held him there. "G-get off! And it is bullshit! I know what this is all about, I'm not completely stupid!"

"Why don't you tell me, in your own words, what happened," I said, opening my briefcase and pulling out my tablet to take notes.

He paused. "...you mean you'll help me?"

"Warren, I need you to understand that the Affini don't have a legal system like the Accord did. The Compact isn't concerned with punishment or anything like that. All that matters is that, if you need help, you get it. Clearly, someone felt you needed help-" He didn't need to know that that someone may well have been me. "-which is why you've ended up here. There isn't a place for a defense attorney in any of this process, because this isn't something you need to be defended against — nevertheless...I did take an oath, even if the Bar no longer exists, and I do have some experience with wardships, so if you want my assistance and advocacy throughout this process, then yes, I will help you."

He seemed to relax a little. "Oh, thank the stars," he mumbled to himself. "I can't.... I can't end up one of those... those drugged-out perverts."

"Don't call florets drugged-out perverts," I said. Sure, lots of florets were high the majority of the time, and plenty of them indulged in pastimes that the Accord would certainly have called perverted, but there was something mean-spirited about the way Argall had said it, and that made all the difference. "Now, from the beginning. What happened?"

In fits and starts, with frequent pauses for editorialization, Argall told me his story — how the Affini had turned up at his McMurdo Compound, how they'd been all smiles and reassurances, how they'd immediately began resettling "undesirables" from Wellington, Melbourne, and other cities there; how, when he tried to flee, he'd found people already living in the mansion in Svalbard, and that his highrise in Alert had been converted to housing, and that in fact all of his extraneous assets had been appropriated for use by others. His narrative wandered, but I pieced together that he'd ended up trying to hide out in Reykjavik under an assumed name, convinced the Affini were after him and that they were trying to gaslight him into domestication (an executive summary that, rather than his own words).

Argall did, at least, understand that going fully hermit-mode would have brought the Affini down on him in the form of wellness checks, so he'd kept up a scant social life, all the while trying to figure out how he could get "his" things back. He described it in the same kind of language that you'd expect from a spy movie, and while I doubt the Affini had ever lost track of him, I looked forward to finding out what kind of cutesy language his case worker had described his behavior with in his wardship file. His attempt to track me down had been part of that, though it had not gone the way he'd hoped; he was still convinced, even now, that if he could "get his hands on the paperwork" he could somehow outwit the Affini and reclaim "his property."

"Can I ask a question?" I interrupted him, once I had a good sense of his life over the last two years. "Why in the world are you wearing that suit?"

"What the hell do you mean?" he said, squinting up at me.

"You do realize you could just get a new one out of the compiler at any time, don't you?"

He scoffed. "You think I want some cheap off-the-rack shit? This suit was tailor made."

"So put it in the compiler, let it decompile it, and have it produce an exact copy," I said, not wanting to get into the logistics of hand-made vs. compiled. That was a common enough argument around the office.

"You have any idea how much this suit cost? I'm not disintegrating it!"

"Well, if you keep on wearing it like this, it's going to disintegrate anyway," I said. "Have you considered looking up your tailor to see if they're still working?"

"...why the fuck would he do that?" Argall said. "And even if he were, it's not like I can pay him, thanks to your creepy fucking friends stealing everything I own!"

I felt my vines shift uncomfortably. "How in the name of the Everbloom have you spent two years living in the Compact and not noticed that people still do things even if they're not being paid for them?"

"Fucking coffee shops and shit, sure. Nothing good. Why would anyone would put in the kind of effort a suit like this takes for nothing?"

"Because they enjoy it? For the sake of the art? Why do you think artists make art at all?"

"So someone like me will pay forty-six billion for it so they can take a tax writeoff," he replied matter-of-factly. I was honestly surprised he'd managed to evade being placed on wardship for so long. There was no way I was the only Affini who'd noticed and flagged him for a wellness check.

"Well," I said, putting my tablet away, "I think I have enough to work with for now. I'll look over your case and figure out how best to move forward. For now, you're going to cooperate fully with Vita."

"What do you mean, cooperate?!" he said, horrified. "You want me to play along with this sick nonsense?"

"Do you want to get out of this without a haustoric implant? If so, cooperate. The more you fight, the more they're going to view you as intractable, and the sooner you become a happy little drugged-out pervert." I tried to put as much joy and lightness into the phrase as I could, specifically to clear the air from the way Argall had said it. "I'm going to ask Vita to loop me in on all official wardship paperwork and formal discussions as an interested party, and I think she'll agree. I'll probably be back out here again in a few days, so we'll follow up then."

"Wait, you're not leaving?" He tried to put up a show of blustering anger, but the fear inside shone through clearly. "You can't leave me alone with that-"

"Don't," I interrupted him. I knew full well what he was about to call her.

"I got you here to get me out of this, not to... not to fucking handhold me through going along with it!"

"Warren," I said, kneeling down to look him in the eye, "the only way out is through. It's been two years since the Compact arrived, and you're still displaying deeply feral behavior. Either you learn to adjust, or you will be adjusted. Don't look at this as a step towards the status quo ante. The status quo ante is gone and is never coming back. You will never be a trillionaire again because there is no longer any such thing as trillionaires." I reached out with one vine and laid it gently on his shoulder. "You're just Warren Argall now, and that's enough."

He shuddered at my touch. "You really are one of them," he muttered.

"Glad you finally realized it," I said, smiling. "Behave, alright? I'm going to ask Vita to go easy on you because you're going to cooperate, but if you don't cooperate, she's not going to go easy on you, you follow?"

"So you're still helping me, even though you're on their side?" he grumbled, looking away.

"You asked for my help," I said. "Of course I'm going to help you. And you know what? If you'd been paying attention the last two years instead of trying to claw back something you didn't need, you'd have already worked that out."

Chapter 13

Notes:

Content warning for: A bit of light crush play, reference to offscreen masochism (and a little bit of onscreen masochism, as a treat), and smoochin'!

"And a distribution center here... overnet linkage... and, last but not least, cultural accommodations," I said, playing one token after the other on the big map of the Local Bubble. "And that'll do for us, I think?" I glanced over at Karyon, and she nodded. "Okay, end of turn."

"You put a distribution center on Aldebaran?" Rebel complained, leaning back against the nest of pillows they were sharing with Rio as their skin shifted into a striated canvas of frustrated blues and purples. "Now I'm going to have to restructure my entire Hyades network!"

"But think of the efficiencies!" I said, winking at them.

"Yeah, that you'll get the points for! Ugh! Damn your Affini paperwork brain, you're too good at this game!" They added a flush of yellow, and to make it extra clear they were kidding, they stuck out their tongue for emphasis.

"You think this counts as paperwork?" Karyon said, laughing. "This reaches memo levels of complexity at best."

"If you want that kind of complexity, we could play Sections & Signatures next time," Senna chirped. "I play it with my florets all the time, I certainly don't mind facilitating!"

Jill looked up from her playsheet at her partner with confusion written all over her face. "What the hell is Sections & Signatures?"

"It's a game about office culture, paperwork, and getting things done!" Their leaves rustled happily. "Oh bother, Tam, what's the English word for the kind of game it is?"

"It's a LARP." I knew the answer mostly because this was not the first time Sections & Signatures had come up in conversation with Senna; it was one of the few non-Terran-shaped things they were fixated upon. "It's a paperwork LARP."

"Yes, LARP! You collaboratively create a department of the bureaucracy, outline its responsibilities and practices, generate official memoranda, track relevant issues, and so forth. It's great fun!"

"Let me get this straight," Jill said, "you work in an office doing paperwork all day?"

"Mmhmm!" Senna nodded, which for them mostly meant moving their entire body up and down in a little hopping motion.

"And when you get done with that, you go home and for fun, you do... fake paperwork?"

"Exactly!" They reached down and ruffled Jill's hair — which, given the amount of product she'd feathered it with, didn't mess it up too much. "You've got it exactly!"

"... Affini are weird," she said, shaking her head and smiling.

"Sections & Signatures is a very old game," Ophrys said, her musical voice providing a counterpoint to Senna's — one of those little subtleties of Affini language that didn't translate terribly well, and that most Terrans probably didn't pick up on. I was only just starting to understand how melodic linguistics worked myself, and trying to make it work in English was well beyond me. "In fact — and correct me if I'm wrong, Senna — there are actual offices of the bureaucracy that started out as Sections & Signatures games, right?"

"Absolutely! I always get a little tickle when I come across a circular that includes the Department of Floret Intramural Entertainments," Senna said, their leaves shifting with remembered delight.

"Oh, to have that kind of dedication to your game," Ophrys said, the brilliant multicolored blooms on her head spreading out to display even more incredibly vibrant hues — she'd discovered the bird-of-paradise flower a few months ago, and had redesigned her entire aesthetic around them. "Oh, and we're running Interdepartmental Cooperation for the next three cycles," she added, turning one of the cards in her play area sideways.

"Oooh, good play," I said, making a quick evaluation of how much that'd affect my logistical network — Ophrys and Elena were clearly aiming for procedural primacy in the near rim. Karyon and I spent the next two cycles trying to secure a variance to keep administrative control of my network from being commandeered upstream, but Ophrys and Elena had done their setup too well. There was a brief threat from Anthemis, who, after having seemingly puttered around putting together little micro-networks for most of the game, suddenly managed to connect them all in a last-second bid for an expansionist win, but he came in a close second.

"Yeah!" Elena shouted when the win became official, pumping a fist and holding her other hand up to Ophrys. "High five!"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, I know this one, high fave!" she replied, holding up a hand for Elena.

"... close enough, I'll take it!" She reached up and slapped Ophrys' hand, and was promptly swept up into a massive vine hug.

"You'll take what?"

"Gah!" She squirmed, laughing and trying to extract herself, the latex leggings she was wearing making occasional squeaking noises as they rubbed up against one another. "Woman, what the heck?!"

"Maybe I'll just take you as the spoils of victory, hmm?" Ophrys purred.

"Daaang, Tam, your girl Ophrys moves fast," Rio said, snickering and rolling over in Rebel's lap. "They met, what, like three hours ago?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said, leaning into Karyon as I watched the display. "I find Ophrys to be very methodical in her approach."

"Why thank you, Tam!" Ophrys said. "Anyway, time is meaningless in the face of a cutie like Elena." She gave the squirming Terran a squeeze.

"I'm not your dang floret!" Elena protested lightheartedly, trying in vain to untangle herself. "We just played a game of Link It! together. I'm an old fashioned girl, I expect dinner and a movie before the clothes come off."

"You're wearing clothes?" Rebel's wry jab was on-target — Affini material science left Terran applications of latex in the dust, and Elena had constructed a wardrobe that left very little (if anything) to the imagination over the last two years. I could feel her nipples getting erect in my skinsight, let alone see it with my eyes. I couldn't help but feel proud of her — she'd blossomed so beautifully, not just since the Affini had come, but in the time that I'd known her. I couldn't claim credit for all of it, of course, but I had certainly done my part.

"And don't knock being a floret!" Clara added from Vanda's lap. She and Vanda had played a quiet game, aiming for an office culture victory, but alas, Ophrys and Elena's command economy had beaten them to the punch.

"You think I should I let the little cutie go?" Ophrys said, pouting theatrically. "She hasn't asked to be let go."

"Let me go!" Elena said immediately.

"Awwww." Her vines loosened as she set Elena down. "Fine, fine. But Petal, next time you're this cute around me, I'm not going to be able to resist giving you a little bit of Class-A to see how much cuter you can get~"

"Yeah, yeah," Elena said, smiling and swatting away the last of Ophrys' vines. "You're just lucky I have years more experience than most Terrans when it comes to dealing with grabby Affini."

"I'm not grabby," I protested. "I just like hugs!"

"You like to mash womens' faces into your tits, you mean."

"In my defense, they usually like it," I said primly. "Speaking of florets, I'm going to go look in on the den and make sure they don't need anything. Short break while we figure out the next game?" After a round of general agreement, I rose, a process of slowly disentangling my vines from Karyon's.

I'd always had to duck a little to enter Judy's den, even at the old townhouse, but with the new endoframe I really had to bend down to squeeze myself in. Inside, perfectly replicated, was the soft carpeting, colorful LED wall panels, shelves full of knickknacks, and an entertainment center that shamed even the one I'd spared no expenses on for her before.

There was also, of course, an embarrassment of florets. Sammy was sprawled out on the pillow pile, staring with glazed eyes up at the screen and sandwiched between Lysander and Roman, who were playing some kind of cartoonish fighting game. It was good to see Roman being taken care of — he'd been an OTD case, years of incarceration leaving a mark that not even wellness checks and assistance had been able to help him with. Senna had taken a personal interest in his case, then promptly fallen for and adopted him when it was clear he wasn't getting better.

Senna's other florets were in a pile of their own nearby, Luke and Grace snuggling into one another, Grace still all hard edges even after a year of domestication off a feralist destroyer but sweet as sugar beneath all the bravado. She liked being in shape, and from what Senna had told me fitness was actually part of how they'd broken her — they'd taken charge of her workout routines and used them to entrance her on her own endorphins. She had Luke wrapped up in her arms and was squeezing him, and from the look on the little softie's face the Class-A in his system meant he felt every erg of force in the most erotic way possible. He was a little bit of a masochist, but then, everyone felt like a little bit of a masochist next to Clara, so maybe I was a touch biased.

Then there was Celeste, Grace's polar opposite, all soft curves in every dimension — Class-G xenodrugs and a steady diet of something besides Synthcubes had done wonders for her, and even when I had first met her two years ago her military bearing was already all but worn away. Now, she was a happy little cuddleslut, and was indulging herself by playing with my wife. Judy was sprawled on her back between Grace and Celeste, tummy bared, and Celeste was giggling to herself as she rubbed it. I'd given Judy a slow-release Class-A treat of her own before our guests had arrived, and she was still riding the high, squirming and whimpering and bucking gently, her chastity cage keeping her deliciously constrained.

I couldn't help but sigh happily as I watched. It wasn't just Judy being played with, though obviously my own floret commanded my attention, but just how content everyone was. This was what the Compact offered — ease, tranquility, and happiness — and it felt so good to see so much of it all in one place. They all seemed quite fine, so I let them keep playing, backing out slowly so as not to disturb them.

We played a quick game just to change things up after that, a deckbuilder about staffing a domestication center and ensuring good matches for all the cute little sophonts that came in looking to find an owner. The art was all incredibly adorable, and there was an awful lot of cooing and wibbling over it (and not just from the Affini, either). Once that wrapped up — it wasn't the sort of game where anyone really won, the experience was the point — we ate dinner (hand-prepared, of course; I wasn't going to compile things for my friends), then settled in for another long game.

"Oh, Everbloom, look at this cutie!" Vanda said as she perused the playsheets. "Like a pointy beeple! Oh, and they have a little story about them, too. They travel faster than light by...flinging themselves at....oh my." She trailed off, her vines going still. "No, no, absolutely not. Domestication for all of them."

---

«I think tonight was a wonderful success,» Karyon said as she fed a stack of dirty plates into the compiler — she'd volunteered to help me clean up as the evening wound down. «Everyone got along so well! And the florets definitely had a good time,» she added, punctuating her sentence with a giggle and a squeeze from the vines she had wrapped around me.

«You think so?» I grinned and passed her another stack with my vines. «Well, if everyone got along so well, it's just because I have great friends.»

«I'll take what credit I can there, I suppose,» she said, smiling down at me as she loaded the last stack of plates and shut the compiler. «All done! Which means-» She suddenly turned me around and pulled me in close with both vines and arms, and while I might have gotten taller recently, Karyon still had a head and then some on me. This must be what it was like for Terran women I flirted with before. «Oh, I like you at this height,» she said, her harmonic undertone a warm and inviting trill.

«I like you at any height,» I replied, looking up at her, «but I have to admit this is a pretty good angle on you.» Karyon had sculpted her body to look more or less Terran when I'd met her, but she'd refined it further over time, and by now she'd developed a very good eye for detail — her breasts weren't just vague shapes suggestive of mammalian anatomy, but sufficiently realistic that she'd taken to wearing a mossy shawl draped around her shoulders to cover them. Mostly cover them, anyway. I'd tried to explain the concept of 'underboob' to her, but she laughed it off every time and joked that her eyes were literally anywhere she had foliage, same as me.

«I can think of a better angle,» Karyon said, her vines tightening as she lifted me off the ground and kissed me. Her lips were flower-petal soft, and her scent was thick and sweet enough to make me inhale reflexively, my body craving a deeper experience of it. It wasn't the first time she'd done this, but it was the first time she'd done it when others were around, even if they weren't in the kitchen with us. I let my eyes slip shut, purely by reflex, but her beauty still filled my skinsight.

For someone who claimed not to have any practice, Karyon was a good kisser; when her mouth opened, her psuedo-tongue explored my lips gently, the wet and drippy sap coating it leaving a floral bitterness in my mouth when my own tongue rose to meet it. When we broke the kiss, a long and sticky strand of it stretched out between us for a half-second before snapping under gravity's weight.

«That was...really nice,» I said, feeling my face flush just a little. I wasn't any less a top for having Karyon around, but I will admit she had a knack for taking my breath away from time to time.

«It was, wasn't it?» Her vines began to tangle up in mine; were I any other Affini, I'm sure she would be going for my core, but unfortunately all I had inside me was a bunch of useless meat. If we were alone, I might have gone for hers, but that felt like something I should save for when I had time to really explore her interior. It would be a big step forward in our — well, to even call it a relationship would be a step forward, really.

«If you like it so much, we should do it more often,» Karyon said. «And, well....if I were to, say, share your hab, we could do it whenever we wanted.»

Oh. Dirt. She must have sensed the sudden stiffening in my vines, because hers relaxed immediately, and her confident demeanor immediately folded.

«Th-that's only if you want to, of course, I just... maybe that was a bit much all at once, it just seemed like-»

«No, it's fine, you just surprised me a little,» I reassured her, my vines chasing hers down as they withdrew and clinging to them. «And it's not- look, I like that idea, I really do...»

«I sense a 'but' coming,» Karyon said, unable to disguise the somber notes in her harmony.

«I like you a lot, Karyon,» I told her, stretching my vines out to gain just another few centimeters of height, so I wasn't completely face-to-tits with her while trying to have a serious conversation. «And, in a perfect world, I'd leap at that, I really would. But-» I smiled awkwardly, and we shared her silent 'told you so.' «But I can't not think about how others would see it. What they'd say. You understand, right?»

«I'm afraid I really don't,» Karyon said. Her harmony shifted ever so slightly, a hopeful note awaiting conclusion — if there was a reason, an insecurity, I'm sure she felt she could solve it, and things could proceed unhindered.

I really hated to dash that hope. «If we move in together, with me the way I am, everyone will look at me and say 'Ah, there we go. Knew that one was a seed.' They'll look at me and they won't see an Affini — they'll see your floret.»

«...ah.»

«And, Karyon, if I was going to be anyone's floret, I'd want to be yours, alright? I mean it.» I enfolded several of her vines with mine and squeezed them, even as my hand found hers. «But that's not who I am, and we both know it.»

«I worked that out fairly quickly, yes,» she said, smiling weakly down at me. «Though, for that first month or so, I was thinking about it. Can you blame me? I meet this stunning sophont the very day I land on this planet, who promptly throws herself right into the very same work I'm here to do, and she's brilliant and funny and fascinating and loves the work and- well. Look at you, is what I'm saying.» She reached up with her free hand and cupped my cheek. «But of course we connected at once. I simply didn't recognize that it was the Affini inside you, waiting to show herself, that I was seeing.»

My cheeks betrayed me with a deep flush, and I couldn't help but look away. Frosting dirting roots, I thought. How dare she be so suave? «Y-yeah, well... you see the problem, anyway.»

«I do. I think you're overstating the likelihood of others reacting that way, but your comfort is important to me — to be entirely clear, not because I see you as a xeno in need of care and protection, but because I care about you. I am more than willing to wait until you feel comfortable and secure enough in your identity, socially speaking, for us to move forward.»

«That's just for moving in together, mind,» I told her, taking back the conversational initiative. «Everything else is still on the table and up for negotiation.» I snuck one of my vines between hers, slipping it into her midsection — no more than a few centimeters, and certainly nowhere near the thrumming heart of her biorhythm that I knew had to be her core, but enough that she'd feel it, and I'd get a response out of her.

And oh, what a response: she let out a chord of surprise as her vines practically lost cohesion for a split second. «You little-!»

«That's what you get for trying to top a top,» I said, giving her a wink.

---

«You have some very interesting Terran friends,» Vanda said as she waved goodbye to Senna, who was carrying all four of their florets in their vines as they stepped into the elevator. The central atrium of this floor of the apartment tower was a beautiful, vaulted space with artificial skylights that showed an enhanced version of the night sky over Vancouver-Victoria, the light pollution stripped out and the colors enhanced. The Milky Way was a brilliant swathe across the southern sky.

«I think they're pretty neat, yeah,» I said, stroking Judy's hair. She was still coming down off the Class-A treat, squirmy and giggly, especially when Clara reached over from Vanda's lap and ruffled her hair. She and Vanda had really bonded after they'd been paired up for the first game, and Lysander certainly didn't seem to mind sharing lap space (of course, from the look of him, Vanda had loaded him up with something that made him good and spacey in the last few minutes, so it was a fair bet that Lysander wouldn't mind anything right now). «You had a good time?»

«Oh, yes, very much so. Your hospitality is always impeccable!» We were close enough together on the bench, grown in that shape from a single piece of glossy, polished wood, that our vines were casually intermingling — not in an intimate way, just the way that vines did sometimes. «Though it's a very different experience with so many sophonts in one place at one time.»

«I like having others around,» I replied. «And I'm glad I finally got to introduce you to everyone, and vice versa.»

«Mmm. I will admit, I was curious to see what you're like around Terrans you're not on-the-job for, given your history.» She was delicate about it when she brought it up, at least. «I expected there to be a certain amount of code-switching. Imagine my surprise when you were simply you with them.»

«Who else would I be?»

«Perhaps that's not the best way to say it,» she said, squeezing a soft, very baked 'meep' out of Lysander. Under the stars and in the dim, silvery lamplight, the white sprays of her little flowers shined with surprising brilliance. «What I mean is, you're in the middle of something that is, if not unprecedented, so rare that we have no established procedure for it. One would expect that to influence your behavior at the office, for example, to make you feel as if you had to be perfect at all times, to force a certain persona, the you that I see at the office, or when we socialize via messenger. I expected to see that persona drop, even just a little, in the presence of old Terran friends.» She laughed and shook her head. «I am, instead, coming to realize that you may just be this way.»

«Only took you, what, two years?» I said, gently ribbing my supervisor. A risk, maybe, but she seemed to be opening up a little. A friendly poke might entice a little more.

She didn't seem offended, but she was quiet for a moment, looking up at the stars. «That's something else, of course,» she went on. «Two years is a long time for you, I'm sure. To me, it still feels as if I just got here. But, you know, despite your youth, I am very happy to have you at our office. You do good work, you learn as quickly as any other sprout, and you come pre-trained on interacting with the local xenosophont species.»

Was this acceptance Vanda was offering? «That...means a lot to me. Thank you.» She'd never been so open with me; usually, she was all business, quick to point out errors but just as quick to show me the right way to do things. I'd learned a lot about the bureaucracy's methods from her, more than from any other Affini probably, but I'd never felt as if I really had her in my corner for the inevitable bureaucratic scrum I knew I'd have to fight way my out of at some point in the not-too-distant future. «I am probably going to end up causing a lot more problems than I solve,» I added, and I didn't have to wonder if she knew what I was talking about.

«You're a sprout. Sprouts are like that,» she said, very matter-of-factly, and as much as it was a gentle dismissal it also felt incredible. «You'll shake out your branches and find your shape soon enough.»

«Not soon enough for me.»

«That's also a very sprout thing to say,» Vanda replied, a note of polite teasing working its way into her biorhythm, a very Affini way of making it perfectly clear that the sentence she'd just said should be read with "you absolute dork" at the end of it.

«Well, as we used to say in the Accord,» "guilty as charged." «Good thing it's literally our job to make sure carceralism isn't happening, huh?»

We shared a laugh at that. It wasn't long before the elevator door slid noiselessly open again, revealing another Affini, tall and long of limb with red-tinged leaves. I waved with one hand and gently prodded Clara with a vine. "Hey, guess who's here?"

She perked up in the most adorable way imaginable, going from relaxed ease to alert, excited pet in less than a second. "Maestro!" she said, a big grin breaking out on her face.

"Hello, my perfect little instrument," Tecta said, crossing the courtyard at what I would have called a dash at one point in my life but now recognized as the natural magnetic attraction between pet and owner. Xe lifted Clara from Vanda's lap and swung her around before pulling her in close and squeezing her, earning first a laugh and then a soft gasp as xer thorns dug into Clara's skin. "Did you have a good time, petal?"

"Mmmhmmm," Clara moaned, her eyes already glazing just a little as she stared up into Tecta's.

"Good girl~" Tecta cooed, stroking her hair gently. «And my thanks for looking after her, Tam.»

«Always my pleasure,» I replied. «Oh, have you met Vanda? We work together at Transitional Decarceralization.»

«Vanda Thryptomene, Third Bloom,» Vanda added, inclining her head just a little. «And this tuckered-out little cutie is Lysander.»

«Tecta Gethyllis, Fourth Bloom. Lovely to meet you!» Xe chuckled and lifted Clara's chin with a vine, and added, «Sorry to leave the moment I arrive, but this beautiful little creature needs her rest. She has a lot of screaming to do tomorrow.» Xer biorhythm sang with harmonies of pure anticipation and predatory need, and if I didn't already know and you told me in that moment, I'd never have believed that xe was a veterinarian.

«Oh, I understand,» I said. «Don't let us keep you.» Clara really had found the perfect owner, and I felt such joy on her behalf to know she was being taken care of so well — even as I also felt a pang of frustrated jealousy at how easy it was for Tecta to make a proper floret of her. My vines coiled just a little tighter around Judy.

«Have fun!» Vanda added. «And again, nice to meet you! Let's exchange pictures of these little cuties sometime!»

«What a lovely idea! I'll have to do something really special for that, then, won't I, little one?» Xe squeezed Clara again, the thorns digging in deeper, and the whimper that Clara let out sent shivers up my vines and right into my phytocortex. They lingered, even after Tecta left with Clara, and even after Vanda made her goodbyes, leaving me alone in the atrium with a slowly-sobering Judy in my lap.

"Mmmm....Tam?" she mumbled as she finally realized she was only getting attention from me. "...everyone gone home?" She blinked and looked around. "Oh, we're outside..."

"Mmhmm. Lovely night, isn't it?" I smiled down at her and tried to ignore the longing feeling, the empty need inside me that I desperately wanted to fill with a biorhythm just like Tecta's, eager and hungry. How could I feel so strongly and yet not be vocalizing it? "Did you have fun with the other florets tonight?"

She nodded and buried her face in my chest. "They were nice," she mumbled. "I like Celeste."

"You looked like you were having a good time," I told her, stroking her hair. "Should I arrange more playdates for the two of you?"

She hesitated for a moment before nodding, and when she did, I tasted the salt of her tears landing on my vines. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?" I said, lifting her chin — sure enough, her eyes were brimming over. She tried to blink them away, shaking her head, but I held her firm. "Peopletalk, Jude."

"Mmmmf." She screwed up her eyes, squeezing out all the tears at once to roll down her cheeks. "Just... I feel bad. Like... like I'm bad."

"You're not bad, love," I reassured her. "You're good and sweet and wonderful and the best pet anyone could ever hope for." I had a feeling I knew what this was about, but I wanted to let her talk her way through it.

She sniffled and nodded. "But... you look like this. And that's good!" she added quickly, looking right up into my eyes. "That's good and it's hot and I like it! But...I'm still the same." She sniffled again, and wiped her eyes. "I have a tail and I love it and I love my ears and I love my tongue but I'm still just me. And it's not fair, and I get jealous, and I get mad, and...and that's being a bad girl."

"Flower," I whispered, brushing the tears from her cheeks with one vine, "Having feelings doesn't make you a bad girl. I understand this must be so frustrating for you, seeing how much I'm changing while you still have to wait. If I could skip all of this and just give you the implant, you know I would, right?" She nodded again, and I squeezed her close with arms and vines. "But every step forward is a step closer to giving you what you deserve — and you do deserve it, because you are a good girl. The very best. Understood?"

Through sniffles and tears, she whispered, "Yes, ma'am."

"Good pup," I told her. "Do you want a little Class-E to calm down?" She nodded again, and I opened up my vines to tug her inhaler free. I'd compiled a sleeve for it that looked like a flower, so that when I held it, it almost looked like I had a proper graft and everything. "Deep breath now, pet," I whispered, squeezing the button with my vine and delivering a hefty dose of xenodrugs, which Judy obediently sucked down. I felt her tension slacken, felt the exhausted sigh of relief slip out of her, and pulled the inhaler away. "Better?"

She nodded once more, sniffling to clear her nose and clumsily wiping her eyes dry. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"You have nothing to apologize for," I said firmly. If I didn't stop her now, she'd apology-spiral all night. "Now, take a few deep breaths, and then we're going to go inside, and then I'm going to make you forget all about this, okay?"

"...I thought you weren't allowed to use Class-Bs?" she said hesitantly.

She was right, and it hurt a little, but nevertheless, I grinned down at her. "I'm not using Class-Bs, pet," I said, pinching her jaw just a little with my vine and leaning in close to purr in her ear. "I'm going to make you forget the old-fashioned way."

Chapter 14

Notes:

In which a meeting happens!

Content Warning: Skepticism regarding chosen identity (i.e., Tam confuses a bunch of Affini)

Two days later, I was back in Greater Reykjavik, having an argument with Warren Argall again.

"Absolutely not!" he insisted. If he'd stamped his foot, he couldn't be any more the stereotype of the whinging feralist.

"Warren, take the suit off, it looks wretched and it makes you look like a mess." He had groomed himself, at least — he'd shaved and had done what he could with his hair — but his threadbare old suit dominated his image. "Trust the former defense attorney here, alright? Appearances are extremely important for this kind of thing, probably more so than they used to be." I had even put in some work on my own appearance, having visited a very confused Affini florist for a few fashion grafts. The vines trailing down from the back of my head now boasted morning glories, their flowers twisted into gentle cones to give the effect of hair ornaments. I'd also worked a few cuttings of nandina in, and their red leaves provided marvelous highlighting once I'd woven them properly into my vines — the warm colors shone through gaps here and there, breaking up the green of my phytotech body. It was a start.

"I'm not letting this out of my sight. The minute this comes off my body, that-" He caught himself just in time. "This minute this comes off, I know it's going right in the fucking disintegrator."

"And you can make another one just like it, and I will happily walk you through that process, but Warren? We are not trying to appeal to human sensibilities here. Your judge and jury are Affini, and if there's one thing we like, it's cute sophonts wearing cute things."

"I would really appreciate it if you didn't refer to me as 'cute,'" he replied with a bitter look on his face.

"What's wrong with being cute?" I had a pretty good idea of what his response would be, but I felt like playing along for a moment, and right on cue-

"It's not the kind of thing you say about a man!" Bingo, I thought. I had a feeling his reason started with miso- and ended with -gyny.

"You clearly need to meet some of the guys I know," I said, rolling my eyes theatrically. "And on the actual subject of this conversation, they wouldn't have any trouble wearing a colorful shirt either."

He actually looked puzzled. "You know men?"

I sighed. "Warren, just because I'm a lesbian doesn't mean I have a fatal allergy to men. I just don't want to have sex with them. Yes, I have friends who are men, including one very close friend, and he wouldn't think twice about wearing that shirt." This was not precisely true, but I didn't really want to get into the issues of color matching with complexion, and I figured Rio would forgive me for broad-brushing his preference for blues and violets instead of the brilliant orange and yellow of the shift that Vita had compiled for Argall.

"Okay, well... I'm not whatever flavor of gay this friend of yours is! That's... not a serious thing to wear!"

"It might not have been under the Accord, but thankfully we haven't lived under the Accord for several years now. Wear the outfit. Not optional. If you want, I'll even hold onto your falling-apart suit for you and you can have it back after." Anything to make him stop digging in his heels at this point.

"...you better not backstab me here, Slaine," he grumbled, unbuttoning his suit jacket.

"Warren, I'm here to help you, why in the world would I backstab you?"

"Because you're one of them," he hissed, staring right up into my eyes with a fervor that told me he absolutely believed it, that he lumped me in with the terrible space plants that had taken away all of his special privileges.

The look on his face when I thanked him for saying that was worth all the effort I'd expend on this case and then some.

---

The meeting room, an elliptical space with a long table running down the middle, was Affini sized, meaning Argall's legs dangled over the side of the chair and he could only just see over the tabletop. It was a bit large even for me, admittedly, but the nice thing about having vines was I could adjust myself to the chair at least a little. "Still can't believe you made me wear this," Warren muttered, his arms crossed and a sour look on his face.

"I think you look very fetching in it, Warren," Vita, seated to his left, said, smiling and patting him gently.

"I look like an abstract painting threw up on me," he growled.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, silly," Vita said, laughing. She glanced up at me and added «However did you get him to wear it? I feel like I tried everything short of Class-Ms!»

«Well, I have a bit more experience with Terrans,» I said, smiling. «And with this Terran in particular. You've just got let him feel like he's winning a concession so he can convince himself he's still in control of the situation.»

«Ahhh, I see,» Vita said, nodding. «I'll keep that in mind, thank you!»

«Happy to help,» I said. The other Affini in the room were finishing up their side conversations, and the one at the far end of the table began calling the meeting to order, so we left it there.

"This is the preliminary wardship meeting for Warren Argall, Terran," the broad Affini at the head of the table said in standard English as he paged through a bundle of forms, "Compact ID RP-1-TRN-36500043438. Is the sophont in question present?"

"I have him right here, Dictyanthus!" Vita said cheerfully.

"Good, good," he said, nodding. "We also have sitting in with us a Ms. Tamara Slaine. Ms. Slaine?"

"Right here," I said, raising a vine to wave, and every eye in the room was suddenly on me. From the jangle of overlapping biorhythms I picked out notes of confusion and curiosity in equal measure. "Tamara Slaine, Office of Transitional Decarceralization — I have some experience with wardship hearings, so feel free to get nice and technical with me!"

It took a moment for Dictyanthus to continue. "And you're here because-?"

"Mr. Argall requested my assistance both to help him better understand the process and to serve as an advocate on his behalf. Also, I worked with him prior to the Compact's arrival, so I can offer context on his history." I refused to let the stares get to me. Even when they made a show of looking away after a moment, I could tell every other Affini in the room had their attention focused squarely on me. It was something I'd picked up at the office, the tells extremely subtle — the way they shifted in their chairs, the way their vines moved just a touch slower when they'd provide a good focal angle on me, things like that.

"I see," Dictyanthus said. His attention swept around the room — likely gauging the collective mood — before he added, "Before we move on, there is one thing I'd like clarification on."

I had a feeling I knew where this was going. "By all means."

"You are a Terran, yes?"

"I have some Terran biology still, but no, I'm not a Terran. I think things will be simpler if you just treat me like any other Affini."

That frosted up practically the whole room. "But you do, biologically, originate from this planet?" another of the Affini, a graceful one studded with purple flowers that peeked through their vines, asked.

"I'm from Mars," I said, keeping my voice calm and level. "You want to know what high school I went to? None of this has any bearing on this case, which is about Mr. Argall. I'm here to serve as his advocate, and I'd like to keep things focused on that issue, if we can."

Maybe I'd been spoiled by OTD — maybe I'd just managed to luck into the most open-minded gaggle of Affini I could have. The worst I'd ever had to deal with at work was a bit of gentle condescension from Senna, Vanda's critical eye, and Ophrys' inability to stop flirting for even five minutes. The atmosphere in this meeting room was different, and my presence was inciting a response that I'd never really experienced before, that left me feeling self-conscious and off-balance. Still, I'd been in worse situations. You don't come up as a defense attorney in the Terran Accord without learning how to deal with being on the back foot.

The meeting was a long one, but similar enough to wardship meetings I'd attended previously on the job. The prosecution's argument was straightforward: Argall was failing to adapt to life in the Compact, and close observation would surely determine that he needed domestication in order to have a fulfilling existence. They spiced it up, of course — prosecutors always do.

"Objection," I cut in when the subject of feralist sympathies came up. "Mr. Argall is not an avowed feralist, nor does he have any contacts with any known feralist group or organization. We shouldn't be referring to him as a feralist simply because a lifetime of capital accumulation has primed him to associate safety with material wealth."

"We have him on record stating his intent to, quote, 'take back what the weeds stole from me,'" Dictyanthus said, wearing a very unamused expressed and casting a glance at Argall — who, credit to him, was staying quiet even if he was visibly fuming. He knew to let his lawyer do her work.

"Which is hardly ideal, of course," I agreed, "but very understandable from the perspective of someone who's developed a serious phobia of the Affini. I'd like to call your attention to my report, Appendix C, where you'll see the efforts Mr. Argall went to prior to the Compact's arrival..."

It was a fight, to be sure, and an uncomfortable one, but I did my job. In the end, I convinced them that a long-form wardship would both satisfy the need to ensure Argall's well-being and provide him an opportunity to learn the skills he needed to thrive independently. Argall himself, of course, was less than pleased.

"You were supposed to get me out of this, not get my sentence increased!" he hissed at me after the meeting concluded. The other Affini were milling around, most of them still staring at me in a way I'm sure they thought I wasn't noticing. "What the hell is the matter with you?!"

"Warren," I said, kneeling down to look him in the eye, "this is not a sentence. We don't do punishment. You're being given the opportunity to demonstrate that you can adapt to life in the Compact, and you're going to have an extended period of time to manage it. This is good for you; if this had been a default wardship, you'd have to completely turn yourself around in a matter of months at most. Now you've got a full year with an option for extension if you're starting to show progress, so instead of berating me, consider thanking me."

"This is bullshit," he insisted, crossing his arms and turning away in a huff. Spoiled little Terran — he was lucky I was on his side.

"Mind your language," I told him, "and do what Vita tells you." I straightened up and gave him a gentle push towards Vita, who was still in conversation with Dictyanthus — she gave me a smile and wrapped a vine around Argall to hold him in place, much to the little Terran's consternation. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm as gay as they come, but it was really cute watching him try to struggle free.

"Ms. Slaine?" It was the purple-flower Affini from before — Viscaria, if I recalled correctly, who it turned out was Argall's assigned veterinarian. "Do you have a moment?"

"Of course," I said. My vines continued gathering my things and placing them in my briefcase, even as I turned the lion's share of my attention to them. Never miss a moment to make a point when you know there's going to be an argument. "How can I help you?"

"For starters, I just want to say that I'm very impressed. Never seen a floret argue like that. I assumed when you said you work for Transitional Decarceralization that you simply accompanied your owner to work, but I can see that you thrive in the sea of bureaucracy."

I felt my vines coil tightly around my meat. «That's very kind of you to say, but for clarity, I don't have an owner. I'm not a floret.» If they were going to pull that kind of shit out and throw it at me, I was going to lean in right back.

Viscaria looked surprised. «And you speak Affini. Very well, too! And, yes, you certainly didn't introduce yourself as a floret,» they admitted. «But...» They waved a vine up and down my body. «I simply assume your owner gave you permission to do so. All of this must have required a haustoric implant.»

«It didn't, in fact,» I said, smiling as pleasantly as I could as I closed my briefcase and pulled it to my waiting hand. «I'm on about a dozen different xenodrugs to help my brain adapt, and I have a phytocortical prosthetic that my veterinarian tells me has similar functions to one, but it's only serving to network the vines and allow me to develop additional motor and sensory functions more easily.»

«...what?» Viscaria stared at me. «That's... that's nowhere in the standards of care!»

«No, it's all very experimental,» I said, maintaining a calm demeanor. «Experiments to which I eagerly consented, being fully aware of the potential risks and difficulties associated with the process. I know I'm taking the hard road, and your concern is appreciated, but I can handle it. So please, don't treat me like I'm incapable of making informed decisions about my own morphology. Now, if you'll excuse me?» I turned on my heel, the tightly-wound condition of my vines making it perfectly clear I had no intention of continuing the conversation.

Dirt, what a blighted knothole they are, I thought to myself. It wasn't really a fair appraisal. I knew they were just concerned for me, but that concern felt deeply insulting. Sure, I wasn't anywhere near done with the process, and some of my meat was even still showing — hopefully, that would change soon, at least — but at at this point, I should think it would be clear to any Affini who interacted with me for more than a minute or two that I was one of them. Everbloom knows I worked hard enough to push that image.

I really needed to get my ducks in a row. If this meeting was any indication, I was rapidly running up against the point where I could no longer rely on my fellow Affini having a willingness to bend the rules. Sooner or later — if I was unfortunate, maybe later today — someone was going to flag me for a wellness check. I'd pass it with flying colors, but it was the kind of official notice that might well start the bureaucratic fight over whether or not I could even do what I was doing. I needed to be ready for that. I needed to be able to prove, not just to my own standards, and not just to my co-workers or to Camassia, that I was an Affini, and more importantly, that Judy deserved to receive a haustoric implant from me.

«Everything alright?» Vita asked. «You look a bit...wilted, I suppose?»

«I'm fine, it's just a little root-versus-stone,» I replied. Stone was harder to sink roots into than soil, sure — but roots would still crack a stone wide open, given time. «Dictyanthus, thanks for letting me sit in. I hope I wasn't too disruptive?»

«...no, no you were fine,» he said, looking down at me with a wall of curious vines. «Very determined, I will say that.»

«I spent a long while in an adversarial legal system,» I said, rippling my vines in a shrug. «Old habits have deep roots.»

«Indeed.» He nodded and stroked his chin. «I'm still not entirely sure what to make of you.»

«Oh, please, I'm just a sprout,» I said, laughing. «I'm sure you've met plenty of clerks thornier than me.» I knew perfectly well what he was talking about, but frosted if I was going to let him steer the conversation in that direction so casually.

«Well...if nothing else, you certainly put a lot of effort into designing a wardship regimen for this little cutie,» he said, petting Argall with a vine.

"F-fuck off!" Argall snapped, trying to swat it away. Vita only pulled him closer, and though he continued to protest and try to escape, it was in vain.

«He has a long way to go, but he deserves a chance to get there,» I said, smiling down at Argall. Everbloom, he needed to be careful or he was going to make himself a much more attractive prospect for domestication. It was a rare Affini who could resist that kind of squirming. «He just needs to apply himself, and I'm sure Vita can get him to.»

«I certainly hope so!» Vita said, her vines twisting with a bit of awkward embarrassment. «This is a bit more than I signed on for with him, but of course I'm happy to have a chance to work so closely with a single Terran. Usually, they're in and out of my hab one right after the other!»

«Long-term care does present a different set of challenges than short-term observation,» Dictyanthus mused.

«You'll do fine,» I reassured her, adding a bit of casual vine contact. «He may be a bit rambunctious, but he's still just one Terran. If I could handle him before I looked like this, he won't be any problem for you.»

«I appreciate the confidence you have in me,» Vita said. «This has certainly been...interesting.»

«Interesting is definitely a word one could used to describe this, yes,» Dictyanthus agreed. «I trust you'll be attending the follow-up meetings?»

«Oh, I wouldn't miss them,» I said. «Like I said, old habits have deep roots, and while lawyers might not be a thing we have around anymore, I still feel obligated to uphold the best ideals of my former profession. I took an oath to see to my client's needs, and I intend to do just that.»

«...well said,» Dictyanthus replied. «I look forward to seeing where this goes, if nothing else.» The way his vines flexed told me he wasn't just talking about Argall's wardship.

«Trust me,» I told him, «I'm just getting started.»

Chapter 15

Notes:

Content Warning: Identity denial (extended argument over whether Tam is or is not ontologically Affini). After that, a traditional Kana-wrote-something-heavy palate-cleanser, which is to say on-screen sex between Affini and floret. If the former gets to be too much for you want you want to skip right to the latter, simply CTRL-F for "Hey, beautiful."

January, 2557

 

Somehow, even after nearly three years of them being around, my fellow Affini still find ways to surprise me. If it wasn't for the fact that emoting still required a conscious effort for me, I'd have been goggling the entire time I was aboard Hesperoxiphion. The command ship that was hosting the Symposium on Terran Wellness Logistics was enormous, the curvature of its habitat rings so gentle that it was almost difficult to believe that the rising arch above was connected to the 'ground' that one stood upon. The top of that arch even faded into atmospheric invisibility, the expanse of air and the brilliance of the sunline running down the cylinder's central axis scattering the light so that not even my foliage could pick out details from it.

And then there were the urban centers — multiple! — of the ship. I was accustomed to seeing a blend of Terran and Affini styles, the essential character of a Terran city preserved even as the buildings were replaced and the parking lots torn up for new parkland. Here, things had been built along the Affini model from scratch. There weren't any odd turns or roads that seemed to go nowhere here — everything was connected in a logical manner by transit and footpaths. I seemed to be no more than twenty minutes from anywhere in the entirety of Hesperoxiphion at any given time.

My co-workers, of course, thought it was amusing that I was acting like such a tourist. They'd arrived on Earth in ships like these — to them, it was nothing special.

The symposium itself was held in what I would have called a convention center, if convention centers were entire towns unto themselves rather than a single massive climate-controlled building with mazelike interiors and only a few entrances and exits. Some presentations filled entire auditoriums and had dedicated multimedia experiences associated with them, while others consisted of no more than a handful of Affini resting on a grassy commons talking shop while their florets played around them.

Regardless of the setting, it was all endlessly fascinating and very informative. I felt as though I'd been drinking from a firehose of information for the past two weeks, and more than once I'd woken up in the night from a strangely vivid dream where I'd been reliving one or more of the presentations from the previous day. Maybe it was the nootropics, or maybe it was just the relentless pace of learning, or maybe a combination of both, but the experience of living, working, and learning in a purely Affini environment left me feeling like my brain was being turned inside out.

Not in a bad way, mind you, and not even a surprising one — I'd felt twinges of something like this before over the last year or so, ever since the phytocortex went in and joined the nootropics I was on in reorganizing the way I thought, and even the physical structure of my brain. Camassia had shown me a scan at my last checkup, and the inside of my head looked nothing like what it used to. It was hard to tell where the meat ended and the phytocortex began. It still gave me a happy little shiver right down to the tips of my vines to think about it.

But alas, all good things must come to an end — much as I'd loved the symposium, loved simply being part of the flow of countless Affini all gathered for the sole purpose of figuring out how better to ensure maximum wellness for every Terran, eventually we all had to get back to doing that vitally important work. That last day, as I had every day after my schedule of presentations was done, I called at the daycare kennel near the town's outskirts where Judy had spent most of the last two weeks in a blissful haze of xenodrugs. Every evening, I'd come to pick her up, and she'd greet me with a sweet, mindless gaze and a flurry of puppykisses, not a single worry or thought in her adorable little head. Every night, I'd bathe her, play with her, and bed down with her, and she'd nuzzle into my vines and fall asleep on top of me; every morning, I'd feed her, groom her, and drop her off at the kennel again, where she got to spend the day playing and cuddling with the florets of other visiting Affini.

This time, I had to wait around a bit — the kennel's vet, a very kindly Affini named Nyctalia who didn't ask too many questions of me, had to finish administering the counteragent to the Class-J cocktail Judy had been on — and that's how it happened. One minute, I was sitting in the public-facing side of the kennel, giving some much-needed affection to the handful of Terrans clustering around me, and the next my boss walked in with another Affini in tow.

"...and so I said to her- oh, Tam!" Vanda smiled and waved. "Here for Judy?"

"Mmhmm." Part of me vocalized using the meat's old trachea, though Camassia had reworked that significantly; the rest of me used the phytotech biorhythm prosthetics she'd grafted into my vines once they'd grown to a sufficient degree. The effect was remarkable — I sounded so much more like an Affini when I spoke the language, now, able to generate and modulate harmonies just like anyone else. "She's in back getting the counteragent. I take it you're here for Lysander?"

"Just so. Have you seen him?"

"I think he's on that Terran tree over there," I said, pointing with a vine at what might have been the scruffy mop of his hair just visible from the cozy little spot on top of the soft, carpeted climbing structure he was napping on. Once I got my eyes focused on it, I was even more certain.

"Ah, yes, there he is. He likes to feel tall," she added in an aside to the other Affini. "Oh, but I'm being rude. Tam, this is Ardisia Rhexi, Fifth Bloom, they/them, Deputy Director of the Terran Protectorate Sub-Regional Branch Office of Transitional Xenolegal Management. Ardisia, this is Tamara Slaine, she/her, one of my subordinates at Transitional Decarceralization."

"Very nice to meet you," I said, keeping a tight lid on my reaction. Transitional Decarceralization was but a small part of the broader umbrella of Transitional Xenolegal Management; Ardisia wasn't just my boss's boss, but more like my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss, with responsibility over the whole system. (Boss, of course, was a very Terran way to look at it, I told myself. Nevertheless, Ardisia was significantly superior in the bureaucratic ranks, with much greater and broader responsibilities.)

"Likewise," Ardisia said. There was a note of curiosity underlying the word, and I could sense their vines shifting to get a good, long look at me. I returned the favor, watching the brilliant sprays of flowers in virtually every color turn with their foliage. They maintained a scrupulously Terran-like appearance save for the extra pair of eyes, foliage coiffed to give the impression of something like a pixie cut,

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I see a very good boy who needs to come down and get a snuggle," Vanda said, stepping away. Almost at once, Ardisia's eyes, all four of them, focused on me. I looked right back up at them, and tried to feel for their biorhythm to get a sense of how this encounter would go — so far, at least, no one at the symposium had said anything untoward. I learned nothing from the effort, for their biorhythm was like a drumbeat, endlessly steady, perfectly controlled. I was honestly jealous. I aspired to that level of self-control.

They broke the silence first. "What manner of sophont am I speaking to, precisely?"

I made my face smile — it still took conscious effort, but it was getting easier by the day. "Why don't you tell me what manner of sophont you think I am?"

"Please don't play games," they responded. "I'm quite serious."

"So am I," I replied. One of the Terrans at my feet whined, and I resumed the petting that I'd let trail off in my distraction. "But to answer your question, I'm an Affini, same as you."

"If that's true, you have the weakest biorhythm I've ever felt," they said, "and you should probably seek medical attention because you're probably unwell. But something tells me this is more complicated than that."

"Life is always complicated. But, if you're curious-" With a bit of concentration, I unhinged the jaw of my mask and let the mouth yawn wide, exposing my face and the network of vines surrounding it. "-I can show a little skin."

Finally, I felt a waver in their biorhythm — I'd shocked them, just a little. I watched their attention flicker back and forth across my face, no doubt staring at the little microvines running to the corners of my mouth, up my nose, in my ears, and especially in and around my eyes, traveling through the tear ducts to access my optic nerves. "That's-" They paused, collected themselves, their biorhythm coming back into time. "And you're not a floret?" They said it like they knew the answer.

"I'm not, no. No implant. I had to learn to use all of these the hard way." I gave an extra scruffle to each of the Terrans surrounding me, for emphasis, and Everbloom, the noises they made were absolutely lovely. I needed to spend more time in Class-J cuddle cafes.

"I recognize your name, you know," they said. "You're not the only Terran working as a clerk, but it's rare enough that I keep tabs on them. I had no idea that- who did this to you?"

"My vet?" I said. I was a bit surprised that someone as highly placed as Ardisia recognized my name. In any other situation, I'd have been flattered that my work had been noticed. "With great care and deliberation, I assure you — if it were up to me, we'd be going significantly faster. And, for the record, please refrain from referring to me as a Terran." I closed the mask back over my meat-face. I'd made my point, and I didn't need to leave that hanging out.

"My apologies there," they said, inclining their head ever so slightly. There was a ring of honesty underlying her voice, there — she wanted it perfectly clear that it was a genuine apology. "But...you cannot be an Affini."

"I think I do a pretty decent job of it, personally." A bit of movement caught my attention — Nyctalia, coming back into the playroom with Judy in her arms. "Ah, excuse me." I disentangled myself from the Terrans around me and stood, arms wide. "There's my girl!"

"Waaah?" Judy still had a dazed, not-quite-there look in her eyes, but she recognized me after a moment. "Awaaaah!" She laughed and reached out for me, squirming, and Nyctalia handed her over to me. My vines coiled possessively around her, squeezing my little pup happily.

"She should come down completely in a few hours," Nyctalia said, "so she'll still be nice and cuddly for a bit. You know the drill, I'm sure."

"Oh, no, this is Judypup's first Class-J vacation. Isn't that right, pup?" Judy, for her part, was too busy giving me eager puppykisses to reply. Also, words were still well outside her wheelhouse.

"Really?" Nyctalia said. "Well, I suppose that makes sense. We're going to miss her, you know! She's just such a sweetheart, so docile! Do you have the implantation scheduled yet?"

"Alas, that's a work in progress," I said. "We're still not sure how to make that happen."

"Make that-?" Nyctalia stared at me for a moment, then made a show of blinking in confusion. "Oh," she said. "I... I hadn't noticed."

"Don't worry about it," I said, smiling. "We'll get there eventually. Won't we, Judypup?" I lifted her up and nuzzled into her soft, bare tummy, setting her giggling uncontrollably.

"Right, well... I have to go get Lysander ready to go, so..."

"Don't worry about me, I know the way out," I said, winking at her. "And thanks for taking care of Judy for me."

"Of course," she said, excusing herself. Her biorhythm was saturated with confusion that hadn't been there before, let alone her body language. The depth of expression available to an Affini was nothing short of astonishing, once you learned to watch for it, and in every way I knew to look, Nyctalia clearly had no idea what to do about me.

"What, precisely, is this?" Ardisia said from behind me. There was that drumbeat again, keeping perfect time, and their vines were tense like they expected something terrible to happen any minute. I turned to face them — if I could have reversed myself on the spot, like I'd seen some Affini do, I'd have done that just to prove a point, but alas, the meat didn't bend that way.

"This is my pet, Judy," I said, turning the little Terran to face the other Affini. "Cute, huh?"

"Very, but-"

"Greenlit by Xenosophont Wellness, before you ask," I interrupted them. "They came and checked me out very shortly after the Compact arrived, and while they had some pointers, which I happily accepted, they agreed that I was responsible enough as an owner that we could continue. I can even show you a digital replica of the paperwork, if you like."

"That...won't be necessary," Ardisia said. "Not right now, at least. But Tamara, you didn't look like this when they did that inspection, did you?"

"I did not," I admitted. "And please, call me Tam."

"Because if you had, things would have gone quite differently," they continued. "It's one thing for a xenosophont to play at ownership of another xenosophont — we accept that sort of thing all the time, provided it's healthy and there are emergency procedures in place in case things go poorly, but it's quite another for a xenosophont to try to ... to intrude on the Affini-floret relationship."

"By definition, an Affini cannot intrude on an Affini-floret relationship," I said. My biorhythm might have been weak, but it was surely perceptible enough that she could read the cool anger I was radiating.

"There is a significant difference between an Affini and what you are," Ardisia responded. "I am not judging you, but I am concerned, both for you and Judy and for other sophonts. This goes beyond just the two of you."

"I'm well aware of that, I assure you." I thought of Argall, and of how the minute he'd worked out what I was he'd tried to claim the same privileges for himself. It wasn't hard to see why Affini so jealously guarded their unique status in the Compact — without it, the Compact would never work. Someone had to assume that mantle of ultimate responsibility, and to ensure that no one was ever in a position to misuse it. "Nevertheless, I am an Affini. I have known this with absolute clarity my entire life; I simply didn't know what an Affini was, didn't have the words or the concept for it, until the Compact arrived, and until I met another Affini. We often overawe xenosophonts, and we work quite hard to be pleasing for them, but I feel comfortable in saying that most xenosophonts, when they see an Affini for the first time, do not think 'Everbloom, I wish that was me!' I have had so many surgeries, Ardisia, to try to correct the things that are wrong about me, to try to achieve even a little bit of peace and comfort with my own body. I'm not done yet, either. This isn't some lark — this is who I am."

"Very eloquent," they said, "and of course I'm pleased you've found a way to better align your body to your self, but that is entirely beside the point. Do you realize that many Affini probably assume you are also an Affini? The veterinarian here certainly did!"

"If they assume that, they happen to be correct."

"But you are not an Affini. Not in the same way that the rest of us are, at the very least. We have the necessary training to look after xenosophonts, and our minds have been shaped by billions of years of evolutionary imperative to care for them. You do not have these thigns, surgical augmentation will not give them to you, and to pretend otherwise is actively dangerous to xenosophonts who may be placed in a position of reliance on you as a result."

"I'm sorry, is everything alright over here?" Vanda had returned, and she hadn't failed to notice the tense atmosphere.

"Just a little disagreement about whether I possess certain ontological qualities of being Affini," I said, wavering my biorhythm in a dry staccato.

"Have you been encouraging her?" Ardisia said, their attention turning to Vanda.

"No!" Vanda insisted. "That is- at first, I was very skeptical of her, yes. She was a very driven sophont, apparently Terran, who wanted to work at Transitional Decarceralization. I let her have low-end, non-critical work to start, and she proved she could more than handle it, so I began to give her more important work and kept a close eye on her to make sure it was done properly-"

"I'm not talking about her clerking," Ardisia interrupted. "I don't care about that. Every bit of paperwork I've seen from her has been exemplary. That's not the issue." I couldn't help myself; even in the middle of an argument over my nature, I got a little excited when I heard that someone as highly placed as Ardisia had seen enough of my paperwork to form a good opinion of it.

"I'm coming to that," Vanda said. "Yes, what she's doing to herself is...unusual. I grant you that. But her commitment to it, and to Judy in particular, does quite a bit to offset my worries. Yes, this is potentially problematic, I understand that, but, well... it's the kind of problem that's well above my station, she's never once given me cause to doubt her ability to care for her pet or her devotion to the task, and I didn't want to stifle a young clerk's career by getting everyones' vines in a knot over her!"

"So you just ignored the issue entirely?"

"As opposed to what? I'm not even sure what office I would bring this to the attention of, had I elected to do so!"

"...yes, well, that is a point," Ardisia admitted. "This...really isn't in the remit of any particular office I can think of. Xenosophont Wellness, maybe..."

"'Cute pet' really doesn't describe me," I put in, emphasizing the word xeno with a biorhythmic flourish to make it entirely clear what context the word should be understood in.

"That's debatable," Ardisia said. "But I take your meaning nevertheless. For now, I'll take point on this matter. I'm highly placed enough that I can coordinate with multiple branches of the bureaucracy and see if we can't cultivate a process to deal with this."

"To deal with me, you mean," I said. I clutched Judy just a little tighter. I'd known this fight was coming, but that didn't make staring it in the face any easier.

"Please understand," Ardisia said to me, "I carry no animus against you. I'm simply concerned for your welfare, for Judy's welfare, and for the welfare of other sophonts who may be affected by what you've done."

"I understand that," I told her, "but I'm not going to stop being me."

"And I would never demand that of you. But there must be a structure in place to... to give context to this." They gestured at me and Judy with a vine. "We have no procedure for what you're doing. It's not supposed to happen."

"I assure you, I would rather have bloomed naturally," I said. "But then, being born the way I was let me meet Judy, so I suppose I can't complain too much." I smiled and rocked my wifepup gently, and she made the sweetest, most adorable little sound, her eyes fluttering as she looked up at me. "She's worth everything I've had to endure and quite a bit more besides."

Surprisingly, Ardisia relaxed just a little. "Regardless of the issues at stake... I can see she's in good hands for now. And I have Vanda to keep an eye on the two of you, so we'll put this off for now. I'm going to need to prepare, to do some research, before I begin to tackle this officially. May I have the name of your vet?"

"Camassia Lathrys, Seventh Bloom."

"She's our veterinary liaison for Transitional Decarceralization," Vanda clarified.

"I'll check in with her, then." They shook out their vines, something like a frustrated sigh. "And I'll be in touch with you to schedule a formal meeting on this subject, Tam," they added.

"I look forward to it," I replied. "Until next time?" They nodded, made their goodbyes to Vanda, and left as quickly as they'd arrived. "Well," I said, taking a seat and cuddling Judy in my lap. "That was unexpected."

"I'm so sorry about that," Vanda said, sitting down next to me and draping a few vines across my shoulder. "I had no idea they would react that way."

"It's alright," I told her, leaning into the touch and letting my own vines entangle with her hers. "I knew this would happen eventually, and I'm ready for it. That's all I can do, you know?"

"I suppose," Vanda said. "For the record... yes, it's a bit odd, what you're doing, but to be perfectly honest, from what I've seen of you over the last couple of years, you're more of an an Affini than a couple of Affini I've known."

"I appreciate that," I said, forcing a smile. "It means a lot, really." Judy stirred in my arms, and I gave her a few gentle scritches behind her ear. "She's coming around. I should probably get going."

"Are you sure? I can keep you company if it would help."

"No, I'll be fine. You'll have Lysander to look after in a moment, anyway." I stood up, slowly and gently disentangling myself from her. "I'll see you back at the office, I suppose?"

She nodded. "If you need to take a sabbatical to deal with this, just let me know."

"I don't think it'll be necessary, and I'd hate to miss out on all the good paperwork, but I'll keep the offer in mind, thanks." One last little touch, vinetip to vinetip, and then I was out the door, thrumming a gentle biorhythmic ballad to my floret. My floret. All mine, and frost what anyone else had to say about it.

We were nearly to our temporary lodgings before Judy achieved any kind of awareness of her surroundings. «Tam?» she mumbled, her eyes finally managing to focus on me for more than a second.

"Hey, beautiful," I said, giving her the warmest smile I could. "Welcome back. Did you have a good time?"

She giggled and buried her face into my chest. «Stars, it's really hot when you speak Affini.»

Behind the mask and the lenses of my artificial eyes, my half-lidded eyes fluttered, a reflex born of confusion. "Did I-" Oh Everbloom, I thought. «I'm sorry, love, I didn't realize,» I went on in English. «I've been speaking nothing but Affini for two weeks, you know?» It felt weird to be speaking English again, like I had to think before I spoke or I'd slip back into Affini again. My brain must have just gotten used to it. «Did you enjoy yourself?»

«Mmmmyeah,» Judy said, glomming onto one of my vines with her mouth and laughing. «Ih wazh greah.»

«Did you have fun playing with all the other florets~? Did you enjoy being extra puppybrained~?» I tickled her with a few of my vines, setting her giggling and squirming as I waved the door open. The temporary lodgings were much like any habitat — a bit smaller, since they weren't intended for long-term living, but still much nicer and more complete than any Terran hotel room I'd ever seen in the inside of. «Should I arrange for you to be on Class-J more often~?»

«Mmmmmaaaaybe~» Judy squirmed, but I held fast to her as I lowered her gently to the ground, holding her so her toes were just skimming the tiles. With one vine, I gently took control of her head, and made her look up at the full-length mirror in front of us.

«What do you see, little pup~?» I whispered. I'd carried her to the bathroom, like I had every night of the symposium, but tonight would be a little different — tonight, Judy had enough of a mind that I could tease her, and I was so pent up from her being a soft little cuddlepup for two weeks.

«Us...?» She tried to look up at me, but I held her head in place firmly. I seized her arms and held them up above her, a gentle stress position.

«Details, pet. What do you see?»

«Nnnf... a Terran? She's, uhm... wearing short-shorts a-and a halter top...?»

«And a very cute little chastity cage, too, don't forget,» I whispered, tracing it with a vine. She shivered and squirmed and let out a little whimper. «And some very, very cute puppy ears, and a wag-wag-wag tail~» Her tail was wagging excitedly — she knew what was coming, surely. «What else do you see?»

«You,» Judy whimpered, licking her lips and gasping. «Tam, please-»

«Describe me.» I slipped a vine into her halter top and delicately pinched a nipple.

«Mmmmmf! Big! Tall! Hot! Affini!» She had to feel the shiver that ran through me, all the way from my meat to the tips of my vines.

«Good girl,» I purred, flexing my biorhythm in a heady tremolo — it wasn't much, certainly nothing equal to the kind of biorhythm my peers could produce, but it was enough for her to feel it, and for her to shiver in time with it. «You see an Affini and her floret.» Judy whimpered, struggling in my vines as I teased more and more of her body, her toes brushing the tile as she tried in vain to gain purchase and leverage. I hooked a few vines into the waistband of her shorts and, in a single swift motion, tugged them down to her knees, twisting and knotting them to serve as a makeshift restraint. I could see, through her panties, she was beginning to strain against her chastity cage. That would need to come off, too.

In the mirror, I watched myself pull the key from inside myself, where it still rested on a chain around the meat's neck. An Affini and her floret. That was what Judy saw, and it was what I saw, too. There was nothing about me that was remotely Terran in this moment, the meat buried under a thick sheath of vines and foliage, under fashion grafts of colorful leaves and perfectly sculpted flowers. Down came Judy's panties, and off came the cage with the soft click of a lock turning. One vine teased her backdoor, while others gently enfolded her length as it began to stiffen just a little.

«You see an Affini,» I whispered, bending down to whisper in her ear, «who is going to fuck her floret silly.» I tightened my vines around her hungrily, and she gasped out loud, then moaned as I began to stroke her. I tasted every inch of her, the scent of needy Terran filling the air, and watched myself in the mirror as I brought her, moment by moment, to the screaming peak of ecstasy, eyes rolling in her head as she struggled helplessly, unable to grind, unable to seek release as I held every part of her body tightly in place. I knew how to read Judy's body before; now, with my vines able to feel the subtlest twitching of her muscles, the blood pumping in her veins, I could bring her right to the brink and leave her there, whimpering and begging for release.

And I did. Over and over and over and over. Every touch was as gentle and as firm as it needed to be, no more and no less — she'd end this night without a mark on her skin, but her body would be wrung out like a limp noodle. "Watch yourself fall to pieces, little floret," I murmured to her in Affini as she approached climax once more. "Even if I spoke in English, you're beyond words again, aren't you? Who needs Class-J when I can do this to you, hmm~?" She let out a moan that became a scream, then settled back down into a moan once more. I squeezed her breasts, pinched her ass, stroked her thighs — I expertly teased each and every one of her most sensitive points. «Are you a good girl, Judy?»

«Yyyyyyeesss,» she whimpered, eyes only just managing to focus on mine in the mirror — two shining points of hammered gold, the centers marked with dark pits. Everbloom, I loved my eyes, even if they weren't quite standard.

«Are you mine, Judy~?»

«Yours!» she gasps. «Yours forever! P-please, I...I need it!»

«My Judypup needs it~?» I laughed and bore down on her. It was time to give her release, but I was going to have my fun right up until the last moment. «She neeeeeeeds it~? Helpless little puppy wants to come~?» She didn't answer with anything more than a long, keening cry that might have been a long-drawn out 'please.' «Well, I know there's a very important rule we always have to follow,» I purred. «What Judy wants, Judy gets.» I squeezed her tightly all over, bearing down on her as she bucked against my vines and pushing her up against the mirror. «Now, Judypup, watch the little floret come her sweet little puppybrains out~» Her body seized as she crested, and she left a long, dripping smear of translucent issue on the face of the mirror (not to mention my vines). I kept her there for as long as I could, teasing her nipples as she moaned, relaxed, then stiffened again in turn as I coaxed orgasm after orgasm out of her limp little body. «Good girl, Judy. Such a good puppy!»

«Aaaah... mmmmmfuuuuuck!» Everbloom, what beautiful noises Terrans made. I cuddled her back up into my arms and stood, stroking her hair and letting the gentle wash of my biorhythm soothe her.

«What a good girl you are,» I whispered, smiling down at her. «I'm so proud of you, and I love you so, so much.»

«Love...you...too...» She was sweaty, her hair plastered to her head, red in the face and utterly wiped out. The fingers of her left hand just managed to close around one of my vines. «So hot...»

«You definitely look a bit overheated, yes,» I said, winking. «I think it's Judypup bathtime.» "Hab, run a bath, 30 degrees, and compile a light Class-A shampoo, please."

"Working," the hab replied politely. Water began to rush into the tub, the sound filling up the relatively small (but still palatial by any Terran standard) bathroom.

«Are we...going home after?»

«In the morning, pup,» I told her. «You've had a very long day of being dangerously adorable, and you need your cutie sleep. Bath, then Judy-treat, then sleepy-time, okay?»

«Okay,» she said, letting her eyes slip shut. «Thank you.»

«Darling, it is, as it has ever been, my pleasure.»

Notes:

For clarity: Up to now in Sui Generis, English has been enclosed in "quotation marks," while Affini has been enclosed in «brackets.» From here on out, that's now reversed; English will be in «brackets,» and Affini in "quotation marks."

Thanks for stickin' with this very weird story, so far, y'all!

Chapter 16

Notes:

Double-size chapter for y'all today!
Content Warning: species misidentification (a la misgendering), legal wrangling over identity, & self-denial of identity for tactical legal purposes

February, 2557

 

The offices of the Terran Protectorate Regional Sub-Office of Transitional Xenolegal Management were not, to look at them, that much different than what Transitional Decarceralization had to work with — tall, curved ceilings, lots of natural light, perfectly polished wood, greenery everywhere. They were, however, significantly larger, since Transitional Xenolegal Management was supervising such a broad swathe of the bureaucracy's efforts on Earth, including Transitional Decarceralization. For a moment, I considering calling in on Asarum Hexalis, the clerk at TXM responsible for cross-checking OTD's efforts against other branches. I'd seen their name on a number of memos, and met them briefly last year. I decided against it, simply because I already had far too many plates spinning in my head for polite conversation with a colleague.

And that was before I realized that everyone whose desk I walked past knew exactly why I was there. Whether via office gossip, my weak biorhythms, some combination of the two, or something else entirely, every Affini in that room knew precisely what I was. They weren't quite staring, but I was very much aware of their attention, of how they all shifted to get a better look at me.

Well, it wasn't like I could turn back now. I kept my chin up, composed myself, and gave them my best Murderwalk. I hadn't had a reason to use it in years (and I could never call it that to them, of course. Maybe it needed a new name. Frostwalk? I'd have to think on it.) I projected what any Terran would recognize as pure Don't Fuck With Me energy, and if I had a biorhythm worthy of the name I think I'd have scared the whole floor rootless. No one bothered me as I made my way through the sea of desks, my eyes focused clearly on my destination: the office at the end of the chamber. Ardisia's office.

The old saying goes that an attorney who represents herself has a fool for a client. Alas, this wasn't something I could turn to anyone else for. It had to be me. I'd given the matter a tremendous amount of thought and planning, and I'd constructed what I felt was a very strong argument — but I was the only one who could make it. I was the only one who could provide the immediacy and the context, who could open myself up and let my truth be spoken, core to core. Sure, strictly speaking, I didn't have a core, but nevertheless, only pure honesty would get me through this.

Pure honesty, and an Affini-sized load of confidence.

"Ah, Tam, there you are," Ardisia said as I stepped into their office. "Go ahead and close the door, and have a seat. How are you feeling, how are your legs?"

Rapidly atrophying, I thought. My vines did all of the work of keeping me upright at this point — they were stronger than my muscles had ever been. I did take the offered seat, though. "I'm fine, Ardisia. You don't have to worry about me. How are you? I know I've dropped about the thorniest possible issue right in your vines."

They stared at me, very intentionally. "I'm still not used to hearing that sort of resonance come out of a Terran's larynx," they said, shaking their head.

"Well, only some of it comes from my larynx. A lot of that is happening down here, too." I put a hand to my chest and unwove the tight net of vines to reveal some of Camassia's work. The organelles just below the surface, little nodules along specialized vines, glowed a gentle blue. Beneath them, beneath them, still hidden, lay the meat, patched over and run through with dozens upon dozens of vines that supported the few Terran organs I still needed.

"...exactly how much of you is still your original body?"

"Right to the chase," I said, smiling. "By mass, I'd say about 40 percent, but a lot of that is dead weight. By function, there's my brain of course — most of my head is still there, minus some skull that had to go to to make room for it to grow, and for the phytocortex. Down here..." I tapped my chest again. "The heart's been modified to make it work better in this gravity, but it's still mostly a heart. The lungs still do a bit of gas exchange, but only one way, since all the CO2 in my system gets taken up by my phytochemistry. They're mostly serving as a resonating chamber for my biorhythmic prosthetics, now. My digestive tract is pretty much gone, but I have a few of the organs associated with it — Camassia still finds them useful for now — so the liver, kidneys, and so on."

They nodded, looking me up and down — again, obviously, and purposely. Either they were still treating me like a Terran, or they was simply in the habit of using Terran gestures from interacting with Terrans. Their biorhythms were tightly controlled, like a drumbeat, so no answer there. A cool customer, I thought. Just like before.

"I know from speaking with Camassia that this was all voluntary. You said as much yourself. Yet, this is sufficiently extreme that I feel the need to confirm it with you once more: you chose this, and you are happy like this?"

They were afraid that Camassia had pushed me into it to satisfy her lust for biohacking. To be fair, said lust was overpowering, and probably the only reason I'd been able to convince her to do what I asked for. "Happier than I've ever been," I said, pushing as hard as I could to let my vines and foliage say what might be dismissed from my voice's harmonics alone. "But there's always room for improvement."

"And that's what concerns me," Ardisia said. "Please don't misunderstand, I am very relieved that you are happy and able to feel at home in your body. I don't think what Camassia did was wrong, per se — though I think it would have been better handled in a domestication context, of course."

"Alas, out of the question," I said firmly. Bait the trap, my lawyer's brain whispered, and let them walk right into it.

"Well, we'll come to that," they said, evading the trap for now. "I'm more concerned with the consequences of the particular direction you've taken. I saw you be mistaken for an Affini at the symposium. You must understand the problem this causes."

"I wouldn't say mistaken," I replied, my voice as calm as I could make it, its undertones providing a cautious but harmonious counterpoint to Ardisia's own.

Again, they stared at me for a long moment. When they spoke, their voice was softer than I'd ever heard it. "Tam, you can't-"

"-be an Affini?" A calculated risk, interrupting them here, but this was lawyer-sense again. There was an opening, a chance to press my narrative rather than hers. "Obviously, not in a legal sense. I'm not a fool, Ardisia, even if I'm representing myself here. I know what a can of worms that'd be opening, especially in the context of the ongoing domestication of Terra." Their drumbeat biorhythm faltered, and I recognized a tremolo of confusion. "Can of worms means a complicated, messy situation caused by a single, simple action."

"Ah," they said, nodding. "Why worms, though? What's wrong with worms?"

I riffled my vines in a shrug. "I honestly have no idea. On Mars, worms are practically worth their weight in gold. It's an old idiom, maybe it loses something in translation. My point is, I understand. Even if there's fewer and fewer actively feralist Terrans out there, there's still more than enough who are afraid enough of domestication that they'd probably try to do this to themselves to avoid it." If I still used my lungs to breathe, I would have taken a deep breath to steady myself for what came next. This was the most dangerous and hardest part of the entire affair, the point where everything might go horribly wrong, but this was the way it had to be. "That's why I have no intention of pushing to be legally recognized as an Affini. I have the recognition of the people who matter in my life, my friends and my coworkers. They treat me as an equal, more or less. I know they certainly enjoy the pictures of Judy I share in our My Floret Is Too Cute chat."

"That's another issue," Ardia said. "But before we move on, I want to be sure: despite this," they said, gesturing at my body with a vine, "you don't intend on pursuing legal recognition?"

"The work of the Compact is too important to gamble with like that," I said. "I know I've only been a part of it for a few years, but that's enough for me to know, and to internalize, that what we're doing is the single most important thing to ever occur in the universe, and the best thing that's ever happened to the universe. Please don't misunderstand me: I am an Affini. It took me a long time to really accept it, but I know it deep in the meat that passes for my core. I was born for this, even if it was in the wrong body. All my life, I've grasped for it, done the best with what I had at hand to replicate the work you were doing elsewhere. It wasn't enough, but it was what I could do. And now you're here, and I can be a part of it, and I want to be a part of it, as much as I can be." I closed my eyes and let my vines hang limp: a little bit of acting, a little bit of honesty, and a little bit of channeling my frustration at giving up on an argument. "And that's why I know I can't frost it all up by insisting on this, even if I want it. I'm not in this for affirmation — I know I'm an Affini, and while it'd be nice to have the Compact officially agree, it's not what's important here, it's not why I'm doing this. I know there's no paperwork for it, and that such paperwork even existing would probably create more problems than it would solve, but if I could waive my right to be legally considered an Affini, I'd do it here and now. Will my word suffice on that score?"

"...I think it will," Ardisia said. "Again, very eloquent."

"Before you showed up, I made my living by being eloquent. Old roots run deep."

"I suppose. Well, even without that potential disaster looming, there is still the issue of you looking like an Affini," they went on, their drumbeat loosening up just a little bit — I could feel the vibrato of relief coming through. Good. The real fight hasn't started yet. "It's something we'll have to deal with, especially since I imagine you don't intend to stop here with your...modifications?"

"Oh, no," I said, brightening just a little. They were going along with it so far, but I wasn't out of the woods just yet. "We're not nearly done yet. Camassia's still got ideas she wants to play with."

"And I imagine you also wish to continue working with Transitional Decarceralization?"

"Of course. It's important work, keeping track of all the Terrans who were formerly incarcerated and making sure they're doing well — and, on a purely selfish level, I really love doing it." This was not a lie. Never mind that all my Affini friends worked at Transitional Decarceralization, and never mind that my experience in the old system was frequently useful, I just genuinely enjoyed the work. It was all the best parts of being a defense attorney without any of the worry that your client would get locked up even if you did everything right.

"Then you see the problem — you're already being mis-" They paused. "-seen as an Affini occasionally. If you pursue further changes that's only going to become more common."

Dirt, I hope so, I thought, keeping a close lid on my emotions — I might have had the world's best poker-face biorhythm, but this was too important to be casual about it. They'd only avoiding saying 'mistaken' out of politeness, I thought, but still, it was progress. The goalposts had been successfully moved, even if only fractionally. "That is probably true, yes. I know that's potentially problematic, but I can't help but want to be seen as what I know I am. I also believe that we can come up with an equitable solution to the problem. I know it'll take time, and if we're lucky a tremendous amount of paperwork, but I think that in the end we can work something out."

"Yes, well...in the meantime, we should proceed carefully. And I think it best you hold off on any further procedures with Camassia until we have a better idea of how we're going to tackle this. Is your body sufficiently acceptable to you at this point that you can tolerate some delay and reevaluation?"

"I would say that's...not unreasonable," I admitted. "But it does pose some problems for the ultimate goal of the project. Would oversight be acceptable? I don't want Camassia to have to stop her work entirely."

"It's negotiable, I think — we can discuss that in detail, if you like."

I nodded. "I wouldn't object, but it's not just me that putting a hold on things has implications for." Here we go again, I thought. Second bite at the apple.

"I'm afraid I don't follow," Ardisia said. "There's someone else who wants to pursue a like regimen of augmentation?"

"Not like this, no," I said, waving the concern off. "Not as far as I know, anyway, and certainly not in concert with Camassia. No, my objection here comes not on my behalf, but on behalf of my pet, Judy."

"...ah. I see." Ardisia leaned back in their chair and let out a sigh. "I did say we'd have to discuss that, so very well, let's do so. Quite simply, Tam, it's one thing when a pair of xenos play at an owner-floret relationship, but what you're doing is quite beyond that, given the current state of your body."

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet," I said, doing my best to project a sense of reassurance through what little biorhythm I had. It felt as thought my vines were braiding themselves. "My objection is that the project's aims have never been entirely about correcting my body's deficiencies vis-a-vis my inner self. That is a very welcome side-effect, of course, and one I very selfishly enjoy, but it's not the primary goal. That is, and always has been, to allow me to develop a pseudo-core and to generate a sufficiently powerful biorhythm that a sample of said pseudo-core can be used as the basis for a haustoric implant for Judy."

"... no. Absolutely not." Ardisia flowed to their feet, towering over me, their biorhythm slipping out of its drumbeat to become a confused, discordant mess of thoughts and emotions. "You can't seriously think we'd allow a Terran to keep a floret. We don't permit species who have been a part of the Compact for millennia to keep florets, we're certainly not extending that privilege to a species that is still in the early stages of domestication!"

"I may not be sufficiently Affini for you," I said, as calmly as I could through a rush of anger, my vines almost rigid, "but I'm certainly not a Terran."

"Your neurology is Terran."

"It has Terran roots,," I went on, "but I've been on a high-dose regimen of noogenic xenodrugs for nearly three years, Ardisia, and I've been interfacing with my vines through my phytocortex long enough that it's functionally a third lobe of my brain. I have an entire extra motor cortex in my distributed neurology, to say nothing of sensory, kinesthetic, and even linguistic processing. As time goes on, the meat in my head is going to be less and less important to my cognition — at least, that's what Camassia says, and I believe her."

"That doesn't automatically prepare you for the duties, the skills, the mindset needed for keeping a floret!" Ardisia countered, increasingly agitated. "It would be a grave dereliction of our duty to allow that!"

"And it would be a grave dereliction of mine to accept anything for Judy but what she wants most — and she wants to be a floret, just like any other." Step right up, I thought. The door is wide open.

"There is a relatively straightforward solution to this," Ardisia said stiffly, "and it's the one I'm in mind of recommending. If both of you were domesticated, then you could maintain your relationship with Judy in the context of you both having the care and supervision you require."

Bingo. "I find that solution unacceptable on its face," I retorted. "She wants to be my floret, with my implant. Domestication is not what is best for me — I am thriving, managing my affairs, participating in the bureaucracy, and caring for a floret, and none of this has ever caused me the slightest strain or difficulty, even during recovery from surgeries. Judy being domesticated by someone else robs her of the one thing she wants most. Separating me and Judy isn't what's best for either of us, and you know that. None of these are acceptable solutions by the Compact's own ethical standards."

"Tam, please be reasonable. Only Affini keep florets, and regardless of how either of us feel on the issue, legally you are not and cannot be an Affini."

"I'm being eminently reasonable." I steepled my fingers and interwove them, the little vines at my fingertips doing likewise. Everbloom, I love that feeling, I thought. "Sit. If nothing else, let me lay out my suggestion for a solution to this. Believe me, I've given this a lot of thought, and I have no desire to make a mess of things. Go on, sit," I repeated, nodding to their chair. "It's not complicated, but do me the courtesy of at least listening with an open mind."

"Whether or not my mind is open is the least of your concerns right now, I should think," Ardisia said — but they sat nevertheless.

"Try to keep one anyhow. This will be a high-level overview, so let me start from the beginning here: first, let's agree for the sake of this argument that I am an Affini. Not legally, of course, but in every way that I can be given the circumstances. I struggled for years to try to live up to a standard I knew was unrealistic, even impossible for the world I lived in. Then, you arrived, and changed the world, and changed me. The moment I met Karyon and discovered what I had been missing all my life, it became inevitable that I would do everything to cross that gap. Do you follow so far?"

"Inasmuch as I can follow a feeling, yes," Ardisia said, nodding. "Once again, I want to make it clear that, regardless of the bureaucratic snarl you represent, I am very happy for you finding yourself."

"Appreciated. Legally, I'm still a xenosophont," I continued, preempting what I knew would be their next sentence. "That's part two of this argument. Under the Human Domestication Treaty, which absent any official recognition that I've transcended the species barrier still covers me, I have a guarantee of welfare. I'm sure I don't need to cite article, section, or paragraph?" Ardia shook their head, and I continued. "Now, that's how I was able to convince Camassia to keep going once we hit a certain point in this process — it's very necessary for my emotional and mental well-being, even if it represents a taxing physical process. I did something very similar when I emigrated from Mars to be able to endure the gravity here. This part of the argument also applies to Judy and her guarantee to welfare. She is not best served by being denied my haustoric implant. She puts on a brave face about it, but it hurts her that thus far I've been unable to provide her with one, and that I can't keep her on xenodrugs the way other florets are. Camassia keeps us in any exogenous xenodrugs we need, but I can't control her intake or fine-tune her blood chemistry, and without an implant I can't properly address underlying neurological issues like intrusive thoughts, for example. The best I can do is a blunt approach through medication."

"Do you even know how to do that?" Ardisia asked, almost certainly knowing full well that I did not."It's not as easy as it looks, you know."

"I'm well aware. That's part three: I hereby acknowledge that I am probably the sproutiest sprout to ever sprout when it comes to the domestication of Terrans. I'm in my 40s, for the Everbloom's sake, while you're probably somewhere north of a thousand, right?"

They thought for a moment. "One thousand one hundred and eighteen. I think."

"That's quite the experience gap, and I don't blame you for doubting my ability," I said. "But the fact remains that, without any training or guidance whatsoever, I domesticated Judy well before the Compact turned up. Did I do it perfectly? Absolutely not — but I did a pretty frosted good job, I think, especially considering that I wasn't afforded the opportunity to study from the best. Here's a stipulation I would not only happily agree to, but actually actively want: Let me take the same courses every other sprout who wants a pet Terran takes. If you think I don't have the skills, teach me."

"...I don't suppose I have any objection, in principle, to you learning how to better care for Judy," Ardisia admitted. "But it's rather more work than you may think, I assure you."

"I thrive on heavy workloads," I said, winking. "Ask Vanda."

"And even if you do prove satisfactory at xeno care skills, it's a far cry from being licensed to graft and apply xenodrugs."

"But it's a step in the right direction, and considering you hand lightweight xenodrugs out like candy, it's not that big a step to allowing xenosophonts to apply stronger stuff so long as they prove they know what they're doing. I do want that approval, for Judy's sake, but I understand that you-" I used the plural Affini you, to make it clear I wasn't laying responsibility for the issue solely at Ardisia's roots. "-want to make sure that Judy is safe and taken care of. Of course you do, and so do I. That's where part four comes in: I am entirely willing to be observed, closely and intimately, if it will put others at ease. I welcome it, in fact, because every wellness check is going to be another tally mark in the Tam Knows What She's Doing column — and any advice I can get on the subject from my elders, I'll enthusiastically apply to doing even better."

"You propose observation as a solution rather than your domestication? I don't think that's going to get much traction, Tam."

"I don't expect it to be an instant panacea. I want it so that more Affini can see that I'm doing my duty with regard to my floret — more importantly, to see that I'm able to. That, more than anything, is going to make my argument for me."

"So, to sum up — because of your dysmorphia, and because it would be unethical to separate you and Judy, you feel that you should be allowed to study appropriate xeno care and pursue an owner-floret relationship without formal recognition of your nature?"

"Well, I'd sum it up a little differently, but close enough. I do have one piece of concrete evidence that I think will cast this in a slightly different light, though. May I take that you don't feel that my domestication of Judy counts as a 'real' domestication? That, apart from my inability to provide a haustoric implant for her, the process was somehow different, lesser, non-qualifying?"

"That would be an adequate elision, yes." Their voice was kind, but I felt the sting they were trying to soften nevertheless. Not even that could sap my spirits now, though. I was just about to reveal my pièce de résistance.

"Well." I smiled, loosened the vines around my midsection, and reached inside my body. When my hand reemerged, it held a sealed binder nearly an inch thick, which I offered to Ardisia. I'm sure they read the excitement and delight in my biorhthym, which was thrumming louder than it ever had, both out of hope for what would come next as well as the sheer joy of having been able to carry the instrument of what would, with any luck, be the keystone of my argument inside me the entire time we'd been talking. Everbloom, the sheer euphoria of it.

"What is this?" they said, opening the binder and riffling through the pages. "A contract?"

"A domestication contract," I said, smiling. "Or near enough. A copy of the controlling original, of course, notarized and dated. You're free to keep that for your records. I'm sure you're going to be referring to it often as we work our way through this."

"This is very sweet," Ardisia said as they perused it, "and very detailed. Even if it's nonstandard, it's certainly doing many of the same things the boilerplate version of our domestication contracts do. It's very clearly targeted and weighted toward Judy's benefit and welfare — I particularly like this stipulation, Section 4 of Article 8, 'What Judy Wants, Judy Gets.'"

"So long as it's not bad for her," I said, nodding. "I live by that document, and most especially by that Section. It's one of the most important parts of the contract."

"And that is extremely corewarming, but I fail to see the point, Tam. It doesn't add any legal weight to the relationship to emulate our domestication contracts."

"Check the date," I said, my grin growing wider.

"January 11th, 25...46?" Their vines went all slippery, along with their biorhythm. "That's eleven years ago."

"Well before you even knew we existed," I said. "Judy and I signed that contract purely for ourselves — we married for the easy access to legal protections, but this contract was always at the heart of the relationship. Now, we could have petitioned the Accord for recognition. Maybe we would have been denied, maybe it would have been granted, but it's impossible to know, since the Accord no longer exists. That leaves it in a sort of grey area, admittedly, but fortunately, the Compact's bureaucracy recognizes a like form of contract-"

"Tam-"

"-so, with that in mind, I believe you'll find an appropriately filled out Form R2311-CRL-5C at the back of the packet," I went on. "Petition to recognize a prior-to-domestication contract not in violation of the Human Domestication Treaty. Which, by the way, our contract isn't. I've checked."

"That's because your species doesn't- your species of origin doesn't do that," Ardisia protested. "You only engaged in ownership-oriented relationships on a cultural level via capitalism, not mutual agreement, and even if you did, the standards of care under the Accord wouldn't satisfy the treaty. It wasn't necessary to include that provision, because there wouldn't have been any such contract."

I simply shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, Ardisia, aside from that my domestication contract with Judy does satisfy basic requirements for sophont care as outlined in the HDT — barely, but it does. And, since I've waived any attempt to be recognized as an Affini, barring any other filings I am still legally a Terran and therefore covered by the HDT, so the prior-to-domestication contract petition still applies to me. Now, that being said, I am willing to redraft our contract or add a supplementary section bringing it fully into accordance with standards and practices of domestication as outlined in the treaty," I added. "I have no objection to that whatsoever — I didn't know the appropriate language at the time of the initial contract's drafting, but I think it's clear what the intent of the contract was."

"And the intent of the Human Domestication Treaty is just as clear," Ardisia pointed out.

"Which creates rather a unique problem, doesn't it? But listen: in Accord law, and in the tradition of common law that was incorporated into it, we had a concept called sui generis. That's Latin, a dead language. Lawyers liked to sound fancy. It means 'a thing in its own class,' a one-of-a-kind issue which requires a one-of-a-kind solution. A sui generis case is one that doesn't apply, for the purposes of precedent, outside of its immediate context, because its context is unique."

"You purport to be such a one-of-a-kind case, I take it?" Ardisia said. Their biorhythm rumbled with interest, but all they gave me outwardly was a raised eyebrow.

"For the purposes of my relationship to Judy only," I clarified. "I meant what I said — I'm not pushing on the species recognition issue. I only want to ensure that my long-standing ownership of Judy, as recognized by what is functionally a domestication contract, remains intact and is recognized under the new legal regime, and grants her everything she's entitled to as a result of that, including a haustoric implant."

"I appreciate that you care for Judy and want to stay with her, Tam," Ardisia said, "and we would certainly never separate you. You know that. I don't think anyone would object to you maintaining your relationship as it exists now; from what I've gathered, you clearly love Judy and care for her as much as any Affini does for a pet. That is not in question."

"...thank you for that," I said, my vines twisting involuntarily in a way that felt like a blush. "But, ironically, for our relationship to remain fundamentally the same as it always has been, in the context of life in the Compact and with respect to who and what I am, in reality if not legally, we have to make some changes. Judy is my pet, thoroughly domesticated, and very happy, but she is not being availed of the full range of options available to sophont pets. If I am able to generate a sufficient biorhythm and produce a sufficient core sample to enable the function of a haustoric implant — which, I should point out, Camassia isn't certain she can even do — then we can solve that problem without disturbing anything about the extant relationship or running afoul of the problems inherent in me being legally recognized as an Affini. I'm not asking for special treatment. I just want Judy to be happy."

"We all want that," Ardisia agreed. "We just disagree on how to get there."

"Well, she's my floret, and I think you know what that means."

"Enlighten me," Ardisia said, fixing me with a stare.

I met that stare with one of my own. "I would find a way to pull down the stars from the sky and dust her cheeks with them if it would put a smile on her face. Nothing is too good for her, and I don't care what it costs me — if she wants it, and it doesn't hurt her, she gets it. That's always been my rule, even before we put it down in the contract, and I know other Affini are the same way about their florets."

"She isn't your floret, though," Ardia pointed out.

"Only because Camassia is still trying to figure out the physiology of it. In practice, and in my core and her heart, Judy has been my floret for eleven years, and she will be for the rest of our lives. Nothing can take that away from us; all you have the power to do is to deny her something she deserves."

Ardia stared at me for a long moment. I stared right back. Finally, they let out very well articulated sigh. "You really don't do anything by halves, do you Tam?"

"Never have, never will," I replied smoothly.

"I can see why I've always heard consistently good things about your work at Transitional Decarceralization. Very well. Here's what's going to happen: for now, I'm passing this issue on to the Department of Sophont Protection at the protectorate level, so expect to hear from them shortly. My advice to you is to be ready for it, because they don't take what they do lightly."

"Nor do I, but the advice is appreciated," I said, nodding. If there was any way in which my care for Judy was deficient, I thought, it would only be because I was having to fight root and vine for the right to do it properly.

"I'll also be bringing this to the attention of my superiors, because we both know this decision is going to have to take place well above my meager stature. It may not be able to take place in the Protectorate at all — this is the sort of thing that may effect the Compact on a far wider scale."

"I expected that, and I'm willing to take the time to ensure this is done right — though, I would like to urge that it gets handled in a timely manner. You may have eternity to work this out, but Judy and I don't."

"Assuming what you want is even possible, but I sympathize. Finally, to return to the subject of oversight — I want to be involved in the process of your development from here on out. I want to know what Camassia is doing to you before she does it, and if I think it goes too far too fast, I will intervene with all the legal authority at my disposal. That's both for the good of the Compact and for you. If you rush ahead you won't be doing your argument any favors."

"...I suppose I can agree to that." It wasn't ideal, but I could read Ardisia well enough that I knew they wouldn't back down on that.

"Good. Well...that's a path forward, at least," they said, and their biorhythm relaxed fractionally as their vines loosened. "I can have that in writing by the end of the day."

"Alright. Thank you, Ardisia. I know this probably isn't what you came to Terra for."

"I came to Terra to help sophonts in need," they replied. "This is, shall we say, an unusual problem to have to solve, but it's still a part of the common task."

"Well, hopefully we can get this sorted, put this behind us, and get back to the more prosaic issues," I said, standing up. "Unless there's anything else?"

"No, I think we've about covered everything," Ardisia said. "Which is quite enough, to be perfectly honest, to cause an absolutely legendary tangle in a lot of people's vines. Give Vanda my regards, will you?"

"Absolutely. And... thank you, again," I said quietly, emphasizing the words with my biorhythms as much as I could. "For being willing to listen. This could have been a lot more acrimonious. I was worried that it would be."

She was silent for a moment, looking up at me. "You are doing what you believe to be the best thing for Judy, and to the best of your ability. If you'd bloomed Affini to begin with, no one would be surprised at a bureaucratic kerfuffle on your floret's behalf."

"You realize you just called Judy my floret," I said, grinning.

"Well, is she, or isn't she?"

Chapter 17

March, 2557

 

Something had changed.

It wasn't the hab — that was exactly the same as Judy and I had left it, my plants nice and healthy thanks to the hab AI's care. Everything was where it should be, all my things arranged on shelves and countertops, all of Judy's things tucked away in her den. The rhythms of life hadn't changed: we woke at the same time, I fed Judy at the same times, I worked the same hours with the same Affini attending to the same subjects. In every way, my return from the symposium was a return to normality.

But yet, something was undeniably different. Of course there was the knowledge that my fate, and that of Judy's implant, was no longer entirely my concern, but that had been a worry for some time. I'd never really expected to be fortunate enough for everything to come together perfectly, for Camassia to figure out how to coax a core out of the amalgam of my meat and phytotech, for her to give Judy her implant before anyone could object. Even the inspection I was waiting for on that particular day was something I'd expected for some time.

«I wanna streaaaaaam,» Judy complained, hanging off my vines as I cooked up her breakfast. «When's the inspection thingy?»

«Soon, pup,» I said, glancing up at the clock. We'd slept in precisely because I knew she'd be anxious — not even full-time life as my dog quite cured her appointment-brain problems. One more reason she needed the implant. «You've got just enough time to eat, so no dawdling over breakfast, okay?»

«Kaaaay.» She pouted and licked at my leg as I finished up her hashbrowns, which joined the sectioned honeydew and sausages in her doggie bowl. She waited like such a patient pup, eyes locked onto the bowl as I set it down on her tray.

«Okay, pup, go ahead!» Oh, how precious it was to watch her dig right in, totally un-self-conscious, her tail wagging happily behind her. Being able to give her this peace of mind gave me such immense joy that I could scarcely believe I'd ever lived without her in my life. She cleaned her bowl, and I cleaned her smiling face; then, I hoisted her up into a casual wedding carry and spun around as she laughed and laughed.

And that's how I kept her distracted until the inspector arrived. Like most Affini, she had at least a head of height on me — an Affini-sized head, at that — and carried herself with a confidence that perfectly matched her no-nonsense fashion grafts. Her feathery foliage hung loose around her head, shifting in an invisible breeze. «Tamara Slaine?» she said, greeting me in English. «I'm Sona Dryoptera, Fifth Bloom, she/her, Terran Protectorate Department of Sophont Protection.»

«Very nice to meet you,» I said, putting on my very best (albeit still a touch awkward and halting) smile. «And this is Judy!»

«Hiii!» Judy giggled and waved, and not only did my heart melt, but her sheer sweetness even cut through Sona's businesslike facade — she smiled, leaned in, and gave Judy a few headpats.

«What a sweet little Terran,» she said warmly. «Hello, Judy! Would it be alright if I talked to you on your own for just a little bit?»

«Uhm... okay?» She looked up at me, silently asking for permission.

«Go ahead, Judypup,» I told her. «Be good and do what Sona tells you, okay?» She nodded, and I handed her over to Sona, who cuddled her up close and gave her another rush of affection, petting her and stroking her hair.

«Where do you think she'd be most comfortable?» she asked, glancing at me.

«Her den, probably,» I said, gesturing with a vine. «That door, right there.»

«Thank you,» she said, nodding and setting off. She leaned down and vanished inside with Judy in her arms, and the door shut behind her. I sat down on one of my sofas and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

I couldn't hear anything coming from Judy's den — the walls blocked sound far too efficiently for that. I could have asked the hab AI to snoop, but I figured that Sona would probably be checking that, and she had asked to speak to Judy alone. I presumed that meant privately. So I sat there and stewed in my own anxiety, and tried to distract myself by thinking of other things to worry about.

If it felt weird to speak English with Judy — to have to actively remind myself to use English with her, the language I'd been speaking all my life — it felt doubly weird to do so with another Affini. The Affini language, or at least, the dialect that I knew, just seemed to flow better. Maybe it was because I could produce the appropriate harmonics and subtones now that I had a biorhythmic prosthetic. Maybe two weeks of nothing but Affini, combined with the extreme neuroplasticity I possessed, had shifted something structurally in my brain. Then again, maybe it just felt weird because, well, speaking Affini made me feel more Affini, and going back to English felt like a step backwards.

Maybe it was all of the above.

Was I losing touch with Judy? I was changing so much, but I hadn't given much thought to what that meant for our relationship. Had I always seen Judy as so small, so fragile, so in need of care? I had always loved taking care of her, I knew that deep in my core (or, at least, the head-meat that passed for it), that much was never in question — what I was worried had changed was the ineffable underlying quality of that love. What I had said to Ardisia was the unvarnished truth: I would do literally anything for Judy. I would do unreasonable things if it would so much as make her smile. The intensity of my love for her felt like it might burn a hole right through me if I sat still for too long. Even then, as I sat in my hab dwelling on my insecurities, there was a part of me that was hard at work conceiving new ways to further shape Judy's life, to take those parts that were already almost perfect and shave them down ever closer to the asymptote of total perfection. Her happiness would be my magnum opus, the single most important thing I did with my life, no matter what else I might accomplish along the way.

I had always loved her, and I had always done whatever I could for her, but this was different. Not bad, per se — she deserved all this and more, and the better I became for her, the closer 'more' became to being possible — but different, in a way I hadn't expected when I chose this path. If I was to do this for her, then it was necessary, but nevertheless in the moment I felt a kind of awed humility at how much I had already changed.

I was still looping through that cycle of thoughts when Sona emerged, sans Judy. «Alright,» she said, «Judy's going to take a little nap for a while, so it's your turn now.»

Thank the Everbloom my biorhythm was probably too weak to give away my confusion and disquiet. I nodded, and replied "If you don't mind, I'd prefer to speak Affini. I find I think better that way."

"As you like," she said, taking a seat opposite me. She held a tablet in her hand, and glanced down at it occasionally to trace in a few notes. "First, how are you feeling?"

"...truthfully, a bit anxious," I admitted. "May I ask how things went with Judy?"

"If you're worried that I'm going to find abject deficiency with you as an owner, I think you can safely lay those worries to rest," she said, giving me the slightest of smiles — which she needn't have done, as I could feel smooth undertones of her voice flowing together in a gentle melody, which gave the same effect. "There are some points, of course, where there could be improvement — particularly if, as seems to be your desire regardless of the legalities, I evaluate you not as a Terran who owns another Terran, but as an Affini who owns a Terran."

"As I am an Affini, yes, that would be the case. Please do tell me if there's anything I can do to improve."

At first, her only response was to stare at me for a long moment. Finally, she spoke again: "Well, the most glaring deficiency is her lack of a haustoric implant," Sona said, "but as I understand it, that's the entire point of..." She gestured at me with a vine and an ever-so-slightly sardonic flourish in her biorhythm. "...so I'm not going to assess that as a mark against you."

"Much appreciated," I said, nodding and doing my best to echo the flourish back at her. If I succeeded, she gave me no sign.

"Beyond that, your care for her is exemplary. In Terran terms. She's physically healthy, emotionally supported, mentally stable, and so on," she said, as if she were moving down a list and ticking off items. "I placed her in a trance, gave her Class-D, and did a little bit of mnemonic regression. You see, normally, in a situation such as this, I'm dealing with one Terran making an ownership claim on another, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it doesn't always end up in a healthy place."

I nodded. "I have experience with it through the kink scene, prior to the Compact's arrival." Some people were good owners; others had no business exerting control over another sophont. Under the Accord, all you could do was keep an eye out for the red flags and hope. "I'm glad that you're around to make sure that no one's trapped in abusive situations anymore. This particular issue isn't something we see a lot of at Transitional Decarceralization, but it's one I'm personally aware of."

"Terrans certainly did find a lot of ways to be rather nasty to each other," she agreed. "The ones that really frost my roots are the ones who started it up after we got here, though — behavioral mimicry can be a real problem, even if it is cute on first blossom. Not all xenosophonts can follow a good example, and the position of caregiver can be a real strain for them."

"Mmm. My vet thought that's what we were when we first met," I said, nodding towards Judy's den. "I have, thankfully, convinced her otherwise."

"Well, if we take as granted your status for the sake of evaluation," Sona went on, "there are several areas in which you need to improve. First of all, you lack the appropriate accreditation for xenodrug grafting."

"Camassia — our vet — does thankfully keep us in exogenous xenodrugs. As for that, well..." I shook my head a little, setting the morning glories streaming from my head rolling in waves. "I can certainly take grafts. The only question is, where do I sign up?"

"Well, without the accreditation, no florist would graft xenodrugs for you — but, if you were to take the appropriate courses and prove yourself competent, I personally see no reason why you couldn't be permitted to take the grafts. That said, it would be much more difficult a process than I'm making it sound like. The coursework is intensive and designed for Affini who are both older than you and have been a part of a standard educational curriculum."

"I thrive under pressure," I said. "And Judy's worth any effort."

She nodded. "I'll make those arrangements, then. Don't say I didn't warn you. Second: Judy refers to you by name, rather than by an honorific. Could you explain that, please?"

I couldn't help but laugh a little. "Well, to start with, she's just a silly little puppy, and silly little puppies don't worry about things like name protocol. For another, for most of the time I've owned her I worked in the Terran Accord's legal system, which was very formal and involved a lot of protocol when it came to addressing others, and I felt that developing an arousal response to someone being called by a formal title, even if it wasn't the one I used in my day-to-day work, was playing with fire. Finally, it's just never really.... entangled me, I guess, the way that control and authority itself do. I would say that even though I very much care about the thing itself, I don't much care what one calls it. Does that follow?"

"I think I see your position," Sona said, making a few notes. "And for the record, Judy does seem to be fairly well-trained on first examination. Very polite, too. I didn't even have to prompt her to call me 'Miss Sona.'"

"She picked that up from floret culture very quickly." I let my pride sing out in my biorhythm; surely she picked up on it. "She may be a silly little puppy, but she's a very fast learner too. I don't think she's ever missed an episode of Sabine & Selenipedium since she discovered it."

"Good, good. And she has some floret friends, as well?"

"My co-workers' florets, yes. Anthemis's Sammy, Vanda's Lysander. She and Celeste are particularly close, so she sees a lot of Grace, Luke, and Roman as well."

"All florets of one..." She checked her notes. "Senna Colutea, Third Bloom?"

I nodded. "They really like Terrans." Understatement of the century; Senna was obsessed with Terrans.

"Oh, I know the type," she said, actually laughing a little bit. "Terrans are very sweet. One of these days I'm sure I'm going to end up taking one home from the job myself." She paused, and composed her foliage. "You know, for a moment there, I genuinely managed to forget I was speaking to someone who didn't bloom this way."

"I can have that effect on people sometimes," I said. She must have picked up on the burst of euphoria that snuck into my biorhythm, because I caught an echo of pleasant gratification back. "Is there anywhere else I can improve?"

There was — the conversation went on for nearly an hour after that. Sona seemed to accept that I was not only doing the best I could but actively wanted to do better, and rather than being particularly critical she presented each point almost as if it were something I was already aspiring to without realizing it. At least, that's how it felt to me, as each new topic seemed to fill out a new piece of a puzzle that, on reflection, I already seemed to know the shape of. She was methodical and very helpful, and by the end of our time together I had a road map in my head of precisely what and where I needed to focus on in terms of my care for Judy.

"Thank you so much for this," I said to her as I was seeing her out. "There's so much to learn and do, but I feel as if I'm in good hands."

"I'm sure you'll manage," she replied, lingering in the doorway for just a moment. "If nothing else, regardless of how your...personal experiment blossoms, Judy's in good vines with you, and what remains to be done is well within your capabilities. I look forward to seeing the reports on your scholastic performance, and I'll be checking in here personally on a regular basis."

"I'm looking forward to it as well," I said, letting honest excitement shade my biorhythms. "And I'm sure Judy is too."

"She's a very good little Terran," Sona said. "My recommendation, as a professional, is that you go and give her lots of snuggles."

"Oh, I can certainly manage that, I think," I said — and that's precisely what I did, the minute the door had closed behind Sona. Judy was curled up on her plushie-and-pillow pile, chest rising and falling subtly. Everbloom, she was a precious little thing when she slept like this. I watched her for a long moment as I slowly sat down, not wanting to disturb her until the very last moment.

Time can play tricks on you, I've found, when you're just gazing at your floret. It wasn't any more than a couple of minutes, but it felt like I was watching her for hours, my mind spiraling out into plans upon plans for each and every suggestion Sona had made. I didn't have the knowledge to carry most of them out yet, of course, but I could sketch the outlines, create a draft rather than a blueprint, of what I would do to my precious little pet to make her even more perfect than she already was.

I didn't understand how my mind could contain it all. It was like having multiple complete trains of thought, all rushing in parallel, all crossing over onto each others' tracks at a dozen switches at once in perfect timing, coming within inches of colliding but never actually doing so. The volume and precision of my thoughts, at least as far as Judy was concerned, was nothing short of staggering, and yet I could somehow encompass it all as easily as I had, once upon a time, simply looked down at the love of my life and sighed contentedly.

'Awe' wasn't enough of a word to describe the feeling. Not anymore.

"Wake up, little puppy," I purred, running a vine through Judy's hair. She stirred, curled up a little tighter, and flicked an ear, and I couldn't help but let out a soft laugh. «Judypup~» I whispered.

«Mmmmf.» She blinked twice, then yawned and stretched. «...Tam? Did I- oh, right.» She smiled and rolled over on her back, and I happily indulged her with a good bellyrub. She squirmed back and forth happily. «Is Miss Sona gone?» she asked when I finished.

«She is. She said you're a very good puppy, and she told me a few ways I can be an even better owner for you.»

«Doubt,» she said, giggling and climbing into my lap. I cuddled her up in my arms and gave her a good squeeze. «You're perfect.»

«Now, now, there's always room for improvement. For example, once I get my accreditation for xenodrug grafting...» I teased at her collarbone with a vine. «Just imagine what kind of dirty things I'm going to do to you once I have that kind of control, hmm?» Judy bit her lip, her eyelids fluttering as she shifted to straddle one of my legs. She started to hump it, bucking gently, and I felt the firmness of her cage quite clearly against my foliage. «Needy puppy~» I lifted her chin with a vine and stared down into her eyes, and she stared right back. Sweet, precious little creature. I could see every fluctuation of her iris, every little saccade of her eyes as my gaze inexorably drew them back in no matter how she tried to look away.

My eyes weren't like those of other Affini, but they were as close as Camassia could get and still have them interface properly with my greymatter. I had seen them work on Judy before, but now, with Sona's advice still ringing in my ears, I understood what I was seeing. I watched her will, already so flexible where I was concerned, bend like a tree in a storm. «Needy. Little. Puppy.» I emphasized each word with a thrumming burst from my biorhythmic prosthetic, watched her will twist further, watched her jaw fall slack as she fell deeper and deeper into my eyes. I could do so much to her right now — we had played with hypnosis before, but this was different, so much more.

But I wasn't ready for that, not yet. I knew the outlines of what I wanted to do to her, but she deserved better than an outline. She deserved crystal clarity, not a hazy and half-understood image. I cupped her face with one hand, tracing gentle circles on her cheekbone with my thumb. I could wait. I would wait. I would learn how best to do this, master the time-perfected techniques my Affini elders used, and then and only then would I shape the little Terran in my lap.

«I love you so much, Judy,» I whispered to her. «No matter what happens, no matter what I become, never forget that.»

I would give her the perfection she deserved.

Chapter 18

April, 2557

 

"Something's happened. Something's different. I can't explain it, it's just-" It was so frustrating, to have attained perfect command of a language and still not be able to properly express myself in it.

"Please calm down," Camassia said, waving a device over my skull. (Epimagnetic dipole resonance imaging system, my mind helpfully supplied. I must have heard Camassia call it that once. No, I read it in Common Xenosophont Medical Care Devices for class.) "There isn't anything wrong with your neurology."

"Then why am I thinking so much?" I was pacing back and forth in Camassia's exam room, arms wrapped around my body, vines twitching and reaching out to touch things at random out of sheer anxiety. (Don't touch the deep tissue biopsy probe or Camassia will have to recalibrate it.) "I feel like my head's about to detonate at any given time!"

"...are you experiencing pain?"

"No! Just...I have too many thoughts. All at once!" Even as I was freaking out at Camassia, even as my mind was helpfully identifying every piece of equipment in the exam room and enthusiastically dredging up its tolerances and use cases, I was deep in the weeds reorganizing my entire filing system at work and simultaneously planning Judy's birthday party in eight months.

"No pain, just racing thoughts. Hmm. Have you considered Class-E xenodrugs?"

"No, no, I lose cohesion when I take them." The last thing I needed was to feel like my body was out of control along with my mind. "I'm not- the thoughts aren't the problem, I don't think. It's just that I'm having so many of them and I'm worried that something is wrong."

"Nothing is wrong, though," Camassia said. "Your phytocortex is operating normally, and seems to be in perfect tandem with the rest of your brain." She paused, picked up her tablet, and began to enter notes. "Please describe, in detail, the symptoms. Their onset, anything that seems to particularly exacerbate them, et cetera."

"Alright." I began to lay it all out for Camassia — now that I had something to really focus on, my thoughts helpfully snapped into alignment (most of them, anyway; I wasn't going to give short shrift to Judy's birthday party). Memory upon memory surged back up all at once, and I was able to sift through them rapidly and pinpoint key moments in the neurological changes I'd been experiencing. I realized, suddenly, that they'd been going on for longer than I had been aware of them.

At first, it was simply the improved multitasking that let me handle so many vines at once, when the phytocortex was mostly serving as a distributed motor and sensory cortex. That was the first change — being actively aware of all my vines at once, and all the things I perceived in the light that fell on them. My skinsight (not that the meat's skin was doing it anymore) went from a weird sixth sense to the primary way I perceived the world visually.

But things had grown from there. My ability to multitask had developed beyond the merely physical, and my paperwork had grown far more efficient — I realized that as I relived more than a dozen conferences with Vanda overlaid on top of one another, the differences in them plain now that I compared so many to one another. My ability to serve as Argall's advocate throughout his wardship (The review is coming up. Better devote some headspace to that.) without compromising the quality of my work at OTD was another example, subtle but obvious in hindsight.

It was only when my brain wouldn't stop multitasking that I had really noticed any changes, and though I'd written them off as small and subtle, they were in fact more significant than I'd realized. I'd been too immersed in the Symposium on Terran Wellness Logistics, too saturated with information that I somehow still retained every bit of, to process it on the level it deserved. When I came home, when I began to turn the full weight of my now-hyperactive mind and its seemingly infinite bandwidth toward the single, all-important subject of Judy, I'd noticed what a change it really was.

And then I'd added the preparatory reading for the Terran care classes I was now enrolled in, and a new flood of information and possibilities smashed the floodgates wide open. I couldn't stop thinking this way now, even if I wanted to.

"Hmm. Hmm. Hm. Yes, yes I see," Camassia said, nodding and entering in notes the entire time I spoke without a moment's pause. When I finally described the way that thinking about Judy felt, the obsession as broad as it was deep, she added "That's not especially unusual."

"...what?"

"It's not unusual to have that level of focus on your floret," she said. I perceived biorhythms well enough now that I knew Camassia didn't have nearly so flat an affect (especially when speaking Affini) as I'd thought, but she could still be strangely brusque, and this was one of those times. "To a lesser extent, that's more or less how I think about my patients."

"....you're kidding."

"No," she said. "Why would I joke about this? You're describing fairly normal cognition. You're just not used to it."

"This is normal?" Now my brain was opening up even more avenues as I immediately started recontextualizing every interaction I'd ever had with another Affini as I realized that the entire time they were talking to me, their brains had been doing this. "How do you stand it?!"

"You're just not used to it," she repeated. "I understand it's probably a very strange experience for you, but take a moment and evaluate the nature of your thoughts. Examine each one in turn, and the holistic gestalt of all of them. I'll wait."

I sighed (which, at this point, was entirely a theatrical gesture I did purely out of habit), closed my eyes (again, habit, since it didn't do much to restrict my visual perception), and began to sift through my thoughts one by one. As I focused on the task, the noise softened; extraneous thoughts occurred, were examined, and were shelved until such time as I wasn't busy. One by one I ticked them off, and slowly came to the realization that none of these thoughts were negative, nor were they problematic, nor were they causing me any sort of harm. There was just a frosting dirtload of them, and that was apparently normal.

"I... I guess it's not... a problem," I finally said. "But it still feels weird."

"You're going through a lot of changes," Camassia said, draping a vine around my shoulder. Most Affini were still taller than me, but she was taller than most Affini (at least, when she was actually standing up), and so when I looked up at her, I still had to crane my neck a bit. Sure, I could see her the whole time anyway, but it seemed like the polite thing to do. "It's normal to feel a bit apprehensive about it. Well. This is, as far as I know, a unique circumstance, so 'normal' is perhaps not the right word, but you take my meaning."

"I do. Still, it's just- I mean, you feel all that when you look at me?"

"Right now, I'm primarily focused on helping you process your cognitive development. I'm also composing a memo to Ardisia complaining about the unnecessary restrictions she's placing on this process, developing an improved biorhythmic prosthetic, evaluating a metastudy of your neurochemical composition in preparation for more advanced augmentation, and of course continuing to work on the problem of how to develop a pseudocore. In fact, I haven't really stopped thinking about that last one since you brought the idea of developing a haustoric implant for Judy to my attention."

"... you've been thinking about it constantly for the last two and a half years?" I said, my biorhythm dropping off a cliff in shock.

"More or less. It's a very complicated problem," she said, as nonchalant as I'd ever seen an Affini. "As you grow accustomed to normal cognition, you'll likely find that the breadth of your thoughts will diminish somewhat. I'll recommend some reading on psychology and theory of mind for you on the subject — I wasn't certain you'd experience changes like this, or I'd have done so already. That should help you order your thoughts properly."

"Okay," I said. "It does help to know that this isn't some weird reaction to the xenodrugs or the phytocortex going wrong or something." Focusing on the thoughts themselves, rather than my confusion at having them all at once, had done quite a lot to quiet things down, but some of the extraneous thoughts were starting to sneak back in. Still, now that I knew it wasn't a problem, it was a lot easier to just let those thoughts be. (My filing system could use reorganizing...)

"Understandable concerns," Camassia said. "And you did the right thing by coming to me."

"Thank you," I said. I finally managed to get my vines to unclench, and felt the relief in my meat that it wasn't being compressed quite so much. I shook out my foliage and gave a brief, stretching arpeggio in my biorhythmic prosthetic. "Well, since we're here...do you want to get Judy's checkup out of the way?" I glanced at my pet, sitting happily on the table and playing a game on her handheld console, totally oblivious to the conversation Camassia and I were having.

"A bit early, but why not?" she said, a cheerful note in her voice.

---

I'd half expected the classroom to look like, well, a Terran classroom — desks all in a row facing a display or a lectern or both, where the teacher would stand and lecture the class. Instead, when I showed up in Room 7 of the Affini Educational Annex, a broad dome-like building that had been erected in the middle of the Punchbowl (and whose lower levels were devoted to some of the machinery that had turned it from a toxic algae-wracked soup back into the cool, blue waters of historical videos and documentaries), I found a round room with a circle of soft seats in the center and a small hemisphere — a holographic projector — hanging from the ceiling in the center. There were about half a dozen Affini in the room, one of whom was having a quiet conversation with a Terran, probably her floret; the others all seemed to be vibrating with excitement, and I don't suppose I could blame them (though I was mixing in a dash of anxiety, personally).

I took one of the empty seats — a bench-like hump of soft, mossy material — and began to prepare my tablet's workspace for class. Almost immediately, my neighbor to the left, a rail-thin Affini with dappled white bark and a spray of stubby foliage mimicking Terran hair, scootched over and said "Hi! I'm Elymia Liatris! Oooooh, I'm so excited! Are you excited? You look excited."

"Hi," I said, just a bit overwhelmed by their sheer enthusiasm. "Tamara Slaine, she/her."

"Oooh, right, right, she/her, and I mean, First Bloom, obviously," Elymia said, her vines riffling as she giggled. "Tamara Slaine, huh? Interesting name! How'd you choose it?"

"Actually, it was given to me," I said, not entirely sure how to broach the subject of my parentage. "But I tend to go by Tam."

"Ohhhhh, Tam, I like it! Nice and short and to the point! Well, you can call me Ely then!" She clapped her hands, then began to flap them. "Oh! I'm just practicing. I read that this is something Terrans do when they're happy!"

"Some, yes," I said. I couldn't help but smile — she was so eager. (If I was like her, bloomed Affini, first domestication campaign, still learning not just about Terrans but about the universe, about myself, I'd be just the same way. Funny how decades of living the wrong life can ground you.) I let that thought run; it felt helpful, not to mention nice, to develop that kind of intentional empathy, seeing myself in the place of a sprout not from Mars but from some other world the Affini had found and domesticated, arriving on a planet full of adorable xenosophonts in need of loving care. I felt much less overwhelmed, and all it took was letting a tiny piece of my mind wander for a split second. Maybe what Camassia called 'normal cognition' had its upsides after all. "My floret does it, actually," I added.

She stopped dead, every single vine freezing in place. "You have a floret already?! Oh wow! Can I see a picture?"

"Of course," I said, pulling up my image gallery and showing Elymia a picture of Judy rolling over on the carpet, her tongue lolling out, not a stitch of clothing on her save her collar. "She doesn't have her haustoric implant yet, I still need to get certified, and solve some other issues. But she's all mine, and I love her more than words can say."

"Ohhh dirt, look at her!" Elymia said, her biorhythm a tightly coiled spring of pure desire. "Lucky! Oh Everbloom, her little ears and her little tail... she's much too cute! Dangerously cute!."

"I very much agree," I said.

"How did you meet her?"

"Oh, I've known her for years, we-" I paused, trailing off; the Affini who brought her floret was standing up and making a gesture with their vines that I knew was meant to call attention. Elymia got the message too, and sat up straight, paying attention — though, at least a few of her vines were still turned to focus on my tablet. I felt a little bit of pride about that; the call of so cute a floret as Judy was difficult to resist.

"Hello, everyone! My name is Separia Balsamifera, Fifth Bloom, pronouns she/her." She was a little shorter than average, I thought, broadly built with a narrow waist and thick legs, a mane of carefully trimmed leaves running down her back. "And this is Megan, also she/her. Say hi, Megan."

"Hi Megan!" the floret in the bright pink-and-yellow sundress said cheerfully, waving. Whether she knew it or not, she'd received a broad chorus of admiration from the collective biorhythms of everyone present, even me (though mine was quite a bit softer). Her Affini seemed odd to me, strangely flat — I realized I was effectively hearing what I used to sound like, before I got my biorhythmic prosthetic.

Separia gave Megan a gentle pat on the head with a vine. "Megan is my floret, of course, but she's also my teaching assistant, so even if she's a little silly, she knows what she's doing, I promise. So, welcome to Introduction to Terran Xenosophont Care, or, as I like to call it, Help! These Terrans Are All Too Adorable And I Don't Know What To Do! Rest assured that, by the end of this course, you will in fact know what to do when you happen upon the sweet little Terran of your dreams."

What followed was a high-level overview of the course, which doubled as a rundown of how Terrans' various needs usually expressed themselves. A lot of it was review for me — I'd lived it for almost four decades, after all — but I paid attention anyway. Best to know the foundation that the lessons would be built upon.

The day's studies went on to include some basic Terran biology, common substances that were toxic to Terrans, common Terran allergies and how to recognize them (and what xenodrugs might help ameliorate the symptoms long enough to get them to a veterinarian), Terran emotive states, and so on. The culmination of the day was a roleplaying exercise: each student took their turn comforting a Terran, ably played by Megan. The little floret had some real acting chops, it turned out — she could cry on command, which absolutely terrified Elymia, who had eagerly volunteered to go first. After everyone had a go, Separia gave everyone a list of books to read (not sections of books, entire books) and dismissed the class, adding, "Tam, would you stay after just a bit?"

So of course, I stayed. "Is everything alright?" I asked once the other students started drifting out of the room.

"Oh, yes, please don't feel anxious!" Separia said, laughing. "I just wanted to compliment you on how well you did in the roleplaying exercise! I had Megan give you a toughie, since, well, you have a lot more experience with Terrans than most students I see."

I wasn't entirely surprised to hear that Separia knew about me — Arisia or Sona must have quietly flagged my educational profile. "Glad to hear I didn't totally blow it," I said, smiling. 'Toughie' was putting it mildly; Megan had pretended to have a broken leg for my turn in the exercise, and her screams of pain were disturbingly realistic. I'd used my tablet to notify a local 'veterinarian' (Separia playing the role of the vet) who gave me directions and instructed me to bring the Terran in. After distracting Megan by asking her tell me about herself (and again, props to the actress, who improvised an entire life's story on the spot), I braced her leg, gently lifted her up, and carried her off to the 'vet' — which is to say, I handed her over to Separia.

"Usually, that one has students in absolute fits, but you kept your head remarkably well. Very little hesitation, I like that!"

"It's not the first leg break I've seen." TerraPrep had been a rough ride, and there'd been multiple injuries, many of them in the first station phase when we began to acclimate to higher gravity. It only takes one moment of inattention when handling weights at .55g instead of .38g to dump a 20-kilo dumbbell on your foot, or take a step wrong on the track, twist your ankle, then shatter your knee in the landing when you fell. "But it definitely woke me up, I'll say that. You," I added, glancing down at Megan, who was leaning against Separia's thigh, "are a very good actress, apart from being adorable."

"Mmm, thank you," Megan said, smiling contentedly. Separia had given her a dose of something, probably a Class-A, so she was nicely languid and floaty.

"Well, don't you rest on your laurels," Separia went on. "We'll get out of the basics soon enough, and then you may well find yourself struggling to keep up. If you do, please do come and see me outside of class, and we can fill in any remedial gaps we need to, alright?"

"I appreciate it, thank you," I said. "I don't know where those gaps might be, but I suppose I'll know them when I encounter them. It was like that at Transitional Decarceralization, when I was getting used to Compact bureaucracy."

"Mmm, yes, I read that in your file. You're quite young for a clerk, you know. Even with the business of your- I suppose 'transition' is the right word? -and your work in the Terran legal system prior to our arrival, it's impressive. And caring for a Terran who's functionally a floret on top of it!"

"Hopefully before too long, we can drop the 'functionally,'" I said. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, though. Not everyone gets on board with the idea of me being the way I am so quickly."

"You're here to learn. I'm here to teach. If you can keep up, that's one more sophont out there helping to keep an eye on little cuties like Megan." She gave her floret a gentle scruffle, and she made a perfectly adorable little noise. "Whether you're a Terran or an Affini really doesn't matter, if you look at it that way."

"...that's a good point," I said, relaxing just a little. I felt a little safer, a little more at home, in the class after that — which, I suppose, was probably her intent the whole time. "Well, I've got a bunch of new reading to do, so...see you next class?" We parted ways, my head full of new ideas to consider, dismantle, and look at from new angles. Was I getting used to the sheer breadth of my thoughts, or was it just the knowledge that it wasn't some kind of error or aberration that gave me the confidence to actually engage with them?

"Tam!" Elymia was loitering just outside the door. "Are you seriously a clerk too?!"

"Did you stay behind just to eavesdrop on me?" I said, giving her a smile with my face and my biorhythm.

"No! Well, yes. But seriously! You have a floret and you're a clerk!"

"I contain multitudes?" I riffled my vines in a shrug. "It's not so different from what I was doing before."

"Is that what Separia was talking about when she said you had more experience with Terrans?" Elymia let out an extremely theatrical gasp and clapped her hands over her mouth. "Were you some kind of forward agent sent to infiltrate Terra before the main fleet arrived to ensure that nothing bad happened when the planet was pacified?! Oh dirt, you're so cool!"

"Nothing so exciting. I'm just from Mars," I said. "And before the Compact arrived, I was a lawyer."

"That's... the little Terrans who argued in their horribly broken and punitive legal system, right?" Elymia said, her vines shifting in confusion. "But...would they have let an Affini be a lawyer? Didn't the Accord not want us around?"

"Well, at the time, I didn't know I was an Affini," I explained. "...you know what, here, look." I unhinged my jaw and let my face slide back out of the way so she could see the meat underneath. "Ta-dah~"

I could read the shock in Elymia's biorhythm, of course, but also in the fact that she forgot to emote like a Terran would. "...you used to be a Terran?!"

"In a manner of speaking," I said, closing my face back up around the meat. "I was pretty Affini-like even at the time."

"....that's so cool! Tell me more! Dirt, let's go get some fortified water, I want to hear all about this!"

Chapter 19

Notes:

Content Warning for: a bit of light hypnosis and quite a lot of fantasizing about making a floret out of someone less than enthusiastic to be one.

July, 2557

 

Four Affini and one Terran stood in the kitchen of the hab in Greater Reykjavik; strangely, it wasn't any of the four Affini who were cooking, but the Terran, who was using a stepstool to be able to reach the heated section of the countertop. Using a set of adorably undersized pans and utensils, Warren Argall was completing the final steps of preparing a meal for himself. Fried egg joined lettuce, onion, and mustard on a toasted piece of bread, and another such slice topped it off. He levered it onto a plate with a spatula, shut off the cooktop, and said, «Ta-dah, food. Happy?»

"His attitude certainly hasn't improved any," Dictyanthus said.

«Just as a reminder, my client would prefer that any discussion of his evaluation in his presence take place in English,» I said.

«Yes, yes, of course,» Dictyanthus said. «Apologies. Well, let's see what Warren has made for us. A sandwich with an egg?»

«An egg sandwich, yes,» Argall said, glaring up at Dictyanthus. «What, you want it garnished with gold leaf?»

«That won't be necessary, no,» Dictyanthus said. «What do you think, Viscaria?»

«Nutritionally, it's... acceptable,» the veterinarian said. «In a vacuum. I am a little concerned that it's — oh, what's the English term — ah, 'depression food.'»

«If you were on trial for your life after a year of imprisonment, you'd be a lot more depressed than I am,» Argall growled.

«None of that,» I said, tapping him on the shoulder with a vine. He shot me a dirty look, but said nothing. «But you agree, Viscaria, there's nothing wrong with a fried egg sandwich. You just said so yourself.»

«In a vacuum, yes. But he could have made any number of other meals that would reflect a much healthier approach to food preparation. Instead, he chose something that involved minimal effort.»

«What, you want me to make foie gras? Beef wellington?! I've been cooking for less than a year! Besides, if I want something fancy, I've got the compiler for that, haven't I? Why waste all that effort?»

«Mmmm-hmm.» Viscaria ticked off a box on her tablet.

«Oh come on!» Argall protested.

«I would like to point out that this kitchen is not fully accessible to my client,» I put in quickly. «He has to use the stepstool to even access the cooktop, and as for anything on a shelf, well, he certainly can't reach those. A straightforward meal makes perfect sense in a situation like this. I don't believe it's fair to penalize him based on a successful meal preparation.»

«That is a point,» Dictyanthus admitted. «We'll make a note to include that in our final deliberation. Shall we move on to the next exam? Let's see... ah, yes, the psychological evaluation.» Off he went, back to the sitting room in the center of the hab, Vita and Viscaria following, but Argall lingered.

«This is not exactly going well,» he hissed up at me. I was still rather taller than him, even when he stood on the stepstool.

«Calm down, Warren,» I told him, giving him a gentle pat on the head to soothe him, which he took but seemed a touch peeved at. «I think you're doing fine.»

«Yeah, well, what you think doesn't matter. It's what they think that matters, and that Viscaria... she's out to get me!»

I affected a sigh. «She's not out to 'get you,' Warren. She's just not sure you're ready.» And maybe she was a bit of a knothole, but I wasn't going to say that in front of him. Her opinion of me hadn't improved over the course of Argall's wardship — she was still horrified that I was grafting more and more phytotech to myself without the benefit of a haustoric implant and an owner to keep an eye on me.

«I was 'ready' before you damn plants showed up,» he mumbled, probably at a level he didn't think I could hear.

«Warren,» I said, kneeling down to look him in the eye — and pinioning him on the spot with my gaze. I watched his eyes saccade first to, then briefly away from, and then right back to eye contact with me. I watched his pupils dilate ever so slightly. «You were having trouble with the mechanics of boiling water when you began your wardship. You've made a lot of progress from there, and I'm very proud of you, but you're working from a serious skills deficit and it is important we correct it before we turn you loose.»

«Nnngh.» He finally managed to drag his gaze away. «Don't do that!»

«Don't do what?» I said, a playful lilt to my voice.

«Don't fucking hypnotize me! You're supposed to be on my side, remember?»

I laughed. «Oh Warren, I'd have to really try to hypnotize you. My eyes aren't nearly as good as other Affini's at catching cute little xenosophonts. I can do florets, most of the time, and always my Judypup, but independents?» I put on a pout. «Only if you really, really want it. Do you want it?»

«No!»

«Well then you don't have anything to worry about,» I said, straightening up and putting a vine at the small of his back. «Come on, let's not keep everyone waiting.» With a gentle little push, I started him walking and guided him out of the kitchen, all the while my imagination began spinning up in the background.

Don't hypnotize me, he said. What a silly thing to say — it immediately made me start thinking of how I could hypnotize him. Even after only a few short months of learning how to care for Terrans properly, I knew multiple inductions that I could use to lay the groundwork for a proper domestication. With my amplified cognition firing away, I naturally began to run through the steps with imaginary versions of Argall, demolishing his willpower in tandem across each of them. I had all the tools I needed to put him properly under.

What would I do with him, though? He certainly needed an attitude adjustment, probably more of one than I could manage with simple, unaided hypnosis. Maybe a good dose of Class-W would get him used to not backtalking. That could be the stick; the carrot, of course, would be a cocktail of Class-A and Class-E, to make him nice and clumsy and dependent, and so keyed up that he'd beg to be touched and held.

His entire aesthetic would need to change, of course. Vita's fashion worked well enough on him as he was, but if I was going to keep Warren, he'd need to be considerably softer. A bit of carefully tailored Class-G to slim him down, smooth out his skin, knock a foot or so off his height — by the time I was done with him, he'd make Anthemis' little cutie Sammy look hard and masculine.

It wasn't quite enough, though. One train of thought hit upon an idea that quickly spiraled out to dominate all the others: Judypup needs a kitty to chase. Once I had Warren nice and obedient, I'd reward him with cute kitty ears, a tail, and a pair of useless little paws instead of hands. Throw in a biomod to let him purr and some hypnotic conditioning to force meows and nyas into practically every sentence I allowed him to speak, and oh, what a cutie he'd make. Warren Argall, former trillionaire, reduced to nothing more than my silly, happy little kittyfloret — it was perfect.

But alas, it was just a passing fancy. He was my client, after all, and I was here to help him stay independent. To be honest, I thought he had a decent chance of pulling it off. He had improved significantly.

When we reached the sitting room, Vita offered him a vine; Warren sighed dramatically, took it, and let her pull him up into her lap. This wasn't his first time having a psychological evaluation, and he knew the routine. He was so docile, not even fighting as Vita took him by the chin, enthralled him, and promptly dropped him into a deep trance.

"Well, at least he listens to you," Viscaria said, making another note.

"He's really a very good boy," Vita said, smiling and petting Warren's hair. "He just gets antsy when there's too many people in the house. I've been trying to socialize him bit by bit."

"He went under so smoothly," I said, impressed with how easily she'd done it. "Have you been working with him like that apart from the evaluations?"

"Oh, yes. Implanting and reinforcing healthy habits, mostly, but also sketching out a loose psyche map. Nothing professional, of course, I wouldn't base any mnemonic engineering on it, but I think it's helpful to understand the lay of the land."

"Oh, that's interesting! We've just gotten to introduction to psyche mapping in my Terran care class, and I didn't realize you could use it like that." Even the introduction to the subject had left me completely baffled — it relied on some concepts in neurology that simply didn't exist in human science, and I'd had to stay after and get some catch-up reading from Separia on the subject. More grist for the never-ending mill of my brain.

"It's not something for a beginner to play around with, of course," Dictyanthus said. "But yes, there are some applications outside of mnemonic engineering."

"It's a highly complex process," Viscaria said, "one that even many Affini leave to professionals. Just in case you're starting to get ideas."

"Oh be nice, Viscaria," Vita said. "she's just curious. It's perfectly natural."

"I don't want her getting her hopes up."

"You don't want me running off to try it myself, you mean," I said. "You know, just because I have meat inside of me doesn't mean I'm incompetent."

"That is not what I said nor was I attempting to imply it," Viscaria protested. "I would have said the same thing to any sprout getting too excited about highly advanced xenosophont care methodologies."

"Your concern is appreciated but entirely unnecessary." Knothole. Yet even as I thought it, thoughts began spinning off of their own accord, looking at the situation from Viscaria's perspective; as a veterinarian, her primary focus was xenosophont well-being, and even if one accepted the position that I was an Affini, there was still on some level a xenosophont inside me and she couldn't simply ignore that. It went against every instinct, every impulse, every iota of her training. I was doing something untested, unsanctioned, and fundamentally unknown — who knew what would come of it? I was fine with that risk, and I'd convinced Camassia the risks were worth it, but Viscaria hadn't come to the same conclusion. It wasn't motivated by any kind of animus against me — she was just concerned I was tempting consequences that neither she nor I could foresee, and she was cautious by nature.

Sometimes, I really hated the hyper-empathy I was developing along with my augmented cognition. It made it hard to stay mad at others, even when I really, really wanted to.

With our requisite sniping out of the way for a moment, the psychological exam proceeded. Viscaria and Dictyanthus walked Argall through a series of hallucinatory situations, marking his responses, before turning to more abstract questions of ideology.

«Fuckin' weeds,» he muttered. «Stole everything...»

"Not exactly the response one hopes to hear," Dictyanthus commented.

"He spent his entire life in the Accord," I countered. "It takes longer than a year to self-condition subconscious feelings that deep-seated, even I know that."

"Well, maybe we shouldn't be leaving him to do his own conditioning," Dictyanthus said. "That's a matter for the full committee, though. Let's continue."

And we did. The psychological exam, the physical fitness evaluation, the self-grooming evaluation — over and over Argall's ability to care for himself was tested from every angle. He did surprisingly well, for a man who'd probably never had to apply his own toothpaste to his toothbrush before the Affini arrived, but I could sense the collective feeling — he was not exactly hitting it out of the park.

«Well,» I said, taking a seat on the sofa after Dictyanthus and Viscaria had left, «that could have been worse.»

«Could have been a hell of a lot better, too,» Argall growled. «I told you she was out to get me!»

«Now Warren, you know that's not true,» Vita said, kneeling down next to him and petting him gently. He didn't squirm away, but he did keep grumbling to himself. «Do you want some Class-E to relax with?»

«...maybe a little,» he muttered. «I don't want to be a total space-case!» he added quickly. He accepted the flower Vita offered to him, took a single deep breath from it, and let it out slowly. «...yeah. Okay.»

«Do you want to go get into your suit?»

«...yeah. I'm gonna go do that. Thanks.» He didn't quite stumble off, but his gait was definitely a little more fluid than was usual.

"He really is different when it's just you," I said as Vita took a seat next to me. "We should pull the hab records for the wardship hearing."

"I doubt that would be enough to swing things," Vita said. "He's adapting behaviorally, but let's be honest: he'll backslide the moment he's out of sight."

"I don't think it'll get him completely off the hook, but it might just lock in the extension — and he is improving. Another six or eight months might just be enough for him to shake this idea that he's owed something special by the universe."

"Well, I certainly won't mind having him around," Vita said, a contented harmony backing her biorhythm. "I've gotten very used to him, you know. I even filed a Notice of Intent to Domesticate for him, just in case."

"Awwww. That's sweet! Any specific plans?" There went the old imagination again — he'd make such a good connivent for Judy — even when I'd literally just been told Vita had called dibs.

"Mmm, maybe, but really I'd just be content to see him walking around in his cute little suit. He actually changes the way he walks in it, and it's adorable."

"Rather than get creative with your first Terran, you just want the natural Terran experience?" This was something I'd heard from classmates. Granted, like me they were quite a bit younger than Vita.

"Something like that. I might do something with his hair. Brown with bits of silver is fine and all, but I'm thinking we can find something a bit more colorful for him. Oh, here he comes!" She turned as Argall walked, still quite languidly, back into the room. He wore, rather than his ratty old suit that I'd told him multiple times to decompile, a new suit in an entirely different cut, a darker grey with splashes of floral color in the lining, and a subdued goldenrod tie. It actually looked quite nice on him! «Oh, good choice, Warren!»

«I see you finally took my advice,» I said, adding a playfully smug undertone to my voice.

«I didn't decompile the old suit,» he said. «I just got new ones tailored.»

«Mmmhmm!» Vita said cheerfully as she offered Argall a vine; he took it in his hand, and she pulled him up onto the couch. «We found a tailor that met Warren's exacting standards, so now he's got a whole wardrobe!»

«Well, I'm certainly glad to hear that,» I said. «That poor old suit of yours couldn't have survived for much longer. And you look very nice in that! Honestly, if he's got a slightly more colorful one, we might even want to have him wear that to the hearing. Showing that he's moving on from material obsession would score some points for sure.»

«Let's be honest with ourselves,» Argall said, «they're all going to vote to melon-ball me.»

«Warren, no,» Vita said sharply, tapping him on the nose before I could even react. «We don't talk about florets that way.»

«Ow. Sorry,» he said, covering his nose with all the languid awkwardness of the florets he'd just insulted. «But I'm not wrong,» he added in a nasal tone. «They're never going to turn me loose and we all know it.»

«Don't be so pessimistic,» Vita said, giving him a gentle pat on the head. «Tam thinks you have a decent chance.»

«I think we can secure an extension for you. You have improved quite a lot,» I added.

«For a given definition of 'improve,'» he muttered. «I'd still rather things be the way they used to.»

«Yes, Warren, but literally everyone else at this point would much rather they not be that way,» I told him. «Even the last feralist holdouts are throwing in the towel at this point. If they can understand that the Accord is gone — and good riddance — you can certainly manage that too.»

«I'm not stupid,» he spat. «I know they aren't coming back. But things were fine back then! You got what you worked for.»

«Or what you inherited.»

«Fuck off,» he grunted.

«Hey!» Vita pulled him into a tight embrace and tapped him on the nose again. «We don't talk like that to friends and guests.»

«Sorry,» he muttered, looking away as his face went bright red.

«It's fine,» I said. «He's said much worse to me. Look, Warren, even you have to admit things weren't good for the vast, vast majority of people under the Accord. Now, everyone can live how they want to, have access to everything they need, fulfill their dreams no matter how outlandish. Warren, look at me.» I reached out with a vine and turned his head; his eyes locked with mine, and I watched him fall into them. «Everyone can live, more or less, the way you used to. Everyone can do whatever they want, and no one has to get hurt for it. Is it really that important to you that only you and a handful of others get to live like that? Is it really that important that you feel like you're more important than everyone else?»

«But...but I won,» he mumbled, unable to look away from me. Did I have him hooked? I had to keep going. I had to find out.

«And now everyone gets to win,» I said. «That doesn't mean you lose. The game isn't zero-sum anymore. We changed the rules.»

«Yeah, but-» His pupils dilated just a little, like the quivering of a small animal. The part of my brain imagining him as a soft little kitty got a little bit louder.

«So relax a little about it. Okay? No one's going to steal essential comforts from you. No matter what happens, you're going to be okay.»

«Y-yeah, but... yeah...» Argall swallowed. He hadn't blinked for at least thirty seconds now.

«Good boy,» I said, smiling and stroking his hair with a vine. I couldn't help but feel a wave of glee rush up from deep within me, rippling outwards. I actually had him in a light trance! I'd never managed this with an independent before — sure, Vita had softened him up, but still! «Go ahead and close those eyes. You've had a long day, haven't you?»

«Yeah...» His eyes fluttered, slowly falling shut, and he leaned up against Vita.

«Just relax there for a bit,» I whispered. "Dirt and roots," I added to Vita, "I can't believe I pulled that off!"

She giggled, one hand demurely covering her mouth, the other curling around Argall to hold him close. "A little shaky, but you definitely had him. Good job!"

"I've been practicing, but I've never done an independent before." Truth be told, I sometimes struggled even with some florets — Megan, when she wasn't playing along, was surprisingly strong-willed. Then again, that was probably a good thing for a floret working in education. "How much of that do you think will stick?"

"Oh, I don't know. I've been trying to plant that particular seed — don't worry, everything's okay, etc. — for a while now. Which isn't to say you didn't get your impressions across, he's just got a lot of anxiety built up around the issue, and that makes it hard to make that stick. If nothing else, you got him to relax for a little while, and that's always a good thing. Isn't it, Warren?" She stroked his hair, and he mumbled something incoherent as he nuzzled into her.

"I'm glad you two get along so well," I said. "He's still on the Class-C bonding blocker, right?" Once I'd told him about it, it had been one of his demands, and one which Vita had happily agreed to.

"Mmhmm. This is all him," she said proudly. "It turns out that even if he's grouchy about it, he just really likes to be held."

"A lap Terran through and through," I said, nodding. "Funny enough, I can see it. He spent his whole life building walls between himself and others for fear that they'd steal what he'd hoarded. No wonder he's touch-starved." He looked so floret-like, cuddling up to Vita the way he was. "Would you like me to take a picture?"

"You act as if I haven't taken a dozen pictures of him doing exactly this," Vita said. "In other words, yes, please. I have a collection to keep adding to, after all!"

Chapter 20

Notes:

Content Warning: Gross surgical talk (extraction of vital organs) and a very emaciated human body. Also, plant ladies being lewd.

August, 2557

 

Camassia's clinic had grown over the last few years, expanding both out into the water and onto the waterfront, replacing the old wharf with state-of-the-art Affini construction housing everything a medical center could possibly need — which was considerable, since she had several other Affini working under her now, handling everything from scraped knees to major surgeries. Her labs, of course, were still right at the center of it all, the same spiraling, fluted structure that had landed the very first day the Compact arrived on Terra. She still worked from there, carrying on the intensive research effort that consumed ever more of her time.

"I do hope she's not going to propose something completely ludicrous," Ardisia said as the pod swept in over the city and came in to land in the flowery courtyard that had once been a torn-up city street. "She purports to have made a significant advancement, but in the brief time I've known her I've come to understand that she might mean anything from a minor tweak to one of your augmentations to ... who knows what."

"I'm excited, personally," I said, smiling over at them as we disembarked. Dozens of Affini and their pets were around, either arriving at or leaving from veterinary appointments or simply walking by and enjoying a nice day; the sun was noticeably dimmer than usual, thanks to it being a soletta day. Somewhere, millions of kilometers distant, a massive arrangement of lenses was gently diffusing the light of the sun, ever so slightly lowering the amount that fell on the planet.

"Of course you're excited," Ardisia said, with a sort of exasperated smile. They really were very good at Terran expressions. "You're anticipating a new toy."

"I beg your pardon, they're not toys, they're essential components of my body. Every time I come in here and having something done, I get that much closer to fulfilling my dream. Besides, at this point, new augmentations get grafted directly to my phytotech. Recovery is so much easier than it used to be."

"Mmm. Be that as it may, remember our agreement."

"It has never once left my mind," I told them. It was hard to forget: if Ardisia thought Camassia was pushing things too far, too fast, they'd shut us down completely. That they held that Sword of Damocles over my head out of concern for me didn't make it feel any better.

Camassia greeted us just inside the door — she was clearly excited, her vines twitching and twisting around each other even as they unknotted themselves, her like spindly body was completely remaking itself in real time. "Yes, yes, good, you're here! Big breakthrough, fantastic stuff! Come in, come in! I have to show you this!"

"So I'm guessing it's not just another tweak to my biorhythmic prosthetics?" I said, laughing a little. Three successive improvements over the last six months still hadn't amplified my biorhythm significantly — it was proving to be a real tricky problem.

"Mmm, in a way, in a way. Realized the problem." She led us back into one of her lab rooms, where a large cylinder filled with a transparent fluid occupied pride of place in the center. Inside it, a large pod or seed or something floated, attached at top and bottom to a nutrient line via a few phytotech connections. "The prosthetics are working fine. There's just interference."

"What precisely do you mean by interference?" Ardisia asked, walking a slow circuit around the cylinder. "I take it this is the solution you've hit upon?"

"Yes!" Camassia nearly vibrated herself apart. "Look! Look at it! I am a genius."

I finally realized what I was looking at. "Oh Everbloom, it's... it's a core!"

"Your core, specifically!" Camassia said, losing cohesion for just an instant and reforming just as quickly.

"Then... then we've done it!" I said, nearly losing my composure the same way. "We graft this in, and we can start working on the haustoric implant, right?!"

"What? Oh no no no no," Camassia said. "No, that comes later. This merely solves the issue with your weak biorhythm. I told you, interference. Too much of you is made of non-phytotech tissue! I thought using your lung cavities as resonating chambers would help but it turns out they're the problem. Well. Not just the lung cavities, the whole thing. It's got to go!"

"Hold on," Ardisia said, holding up a hand. "You're saying that her... her Terran biology is the issue?"

"Exactly."

"And you're going to solve it by..."

Camassia looked extremely proud of herself. She interlaced every single one of her fingers, drew herself up to her full height, and stared lovingly into the tank in the center of the room.

"Tam, I'm going to put your brain into that!"

Ardisia protested, but I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying: every train of thought I had was in the process of converging on understanding the implications of what Camassia had just said. I was looking at my core — unfinished, perhaps, considering what Camassia had said, but my core nevertheless. I leaned forward, one hand on the cylinder, and stared in at it. My core. Somewhere, deep inside me, my vines tensed just a little around the meat, and I felt it shiver.

"You want to remove her brain from her head and put it in an experimental life support system!" Ardisia was saying, almost shouting. "That is not improving her quality of life, it's a dangerous experiment and you absolutely are not doing it!"

"But it's a necessary step, a precondition of the actual work! Leaving Terran tissue in the mix is going to keep frosting everything up! I have to get rid of as much of it as possible and it turns out that I can get rid of all of it that isn't the brain!"

"Why not just digitize her, then?!"

"Can't, wouldn't work," Camassia said. "Thought of it, thought of it a looooong time ago. Even if it would have worked, it would have been too easy. Besides, I doubt Tam would have wanted it that way, duplication and Class-O. Not her style."

"Huh?" I slipped out of my reverie and looked at the other two. "Wait, what?"

"Tam, I'm sorry," Ardisia said, "but this is too much, far too fast. There's no way I can permit it."

"What? Why not?" No. I couldn't come this close only to have it snatched away so suddenly! My brain began to spin out a thousand lines of argument, laying traps down every potential avenue the conversation might take. You're not taking this away from me.

"Tam, your... your original body, of which your brain is a part... they're connected. Trying to permanently remove one from the other is untested on your species — your former species — as far as I know, and generally not the way we do things! It's dangerous."

"Not that dangerous," Camassia huffed, crossing her arms. In the midst of everything, as my thoughts converged on the path of the argument, I recognized it as as gesture she'd picked up from Judy, and it gave me a warm feeling deep inside.

If I won this argument, I realized, I could actually start saying deep in my core and mean it. "Camassia's the expert," I added. "And a veterinarian to boot. Her first priority is my well-being. If it was really that dangerous, she wouldn't be suggesting it!"

"Camassia is a veterinarian, yes, but she's also obsessed with radical augmentation and always has been," Ardisia countered — an anticipated tack, and the branching tree in my mind narrowed further. "This is just one more example of her putting the latter ahead of the former. This can in no way be an improvement for you."

There we go. "You think so?" I said quietly. "You really think keeping my body around is essential for me?"

"It's essential for any sophont," Ardisia insisted. The lines of argument converged. I had an endpoint.

"Okay," I replied, and began to unweave my body. I kept enough of it together to keep myself upright, legs and a strip of carefully tensed vines. I disarticulated my face and, with extreme care, slowly exposed and levered the meat out of my body, holding it out in a hammock of vines. "You should probably have a look at it, then, if it's so important."

I had seen it, and so had Camassia, but Ardisia had never once looked beneath my vines, save for a peek at the meat's face — and that, at least, looked much the same as it ever had, save for the microvines running in to pierce nerve channels here and there. I wasn't showing off the dead-eyed, half-lidded stare of that face, though — I was showing off the rest of the meat. I had long since stopped using it for anything, and its muscles had atrophied to the point where it no longer resembled itself. If anything, I thought, it looks like the stereotypical disaster movie elgee. Spindly limbs rested immobile in my vines; even if I'd wanted to move the meat without my vines, I couldn't. It was like a bundle of twigs wrapped in a thin layer of flesh, shot through and held together with so many vines and phytotech constructions that they surely outmassed whatever meat and bone was still there.

"You can hold it, if you like," I said, speaking exclusively through my biorhythmic prosthetics as I offered it to Ardisia. "Be careful, though, the bones aren't as strong as they used to be."

"Tam, that's-" Ardisia stared down at the meat, visibly horrified.

"I know what you're thinking: that poor little thing, look what's happened to her. I feel it too, sometimes, when I look at this. I think any Affini would. But Ardisia, that's not me," I said. "It's not even my body, not anymore. It's just a thing I'm chained to."

"Her former biology has very little to do with keeping her brain alive at this point," Camassia added. "And what little purpose it still serves, the life support systems of the pseudocore will not only replace but will be a significant improvement upon. There will likely be a period of adjustment, of course, that's inevitable. Some physical therapy, some relearning of actions that still rely on, well, that." She gestured at the meat. "But what Tam says is quite correct — in no meaningful way does this body actively contribute to her well-being."

"In point of fact, it significantly diminishes it." I still had to care for the meat — still had to wash it, make sure it was properly supported, ensure it wasn't malnourished, and so on. It was like caring for a second floret. I had to do it in secret, too — I didn't want Judy to see what had become of something she'd loved so much, but it made me feel like I was lying to her, and I hated it. That came on top of the constant reminder that I wasn't like other Affini, that I had to work to be like them, that I belonged with them but had been set apart from them by a twist of fate. "Getting rid of this will be a major improvement for me, and it'll bring us closer to the project's end goal. Right?"

"Mmm! Once integration with the pseudocore is complete, I should be able to begin cultivating a bed of grafting cells. It may take some time to finalize the exact composition of that bed, of course, but once I have it, I may well be able to extract a viable cutting for a haustoric implant. May," she added with emphasis. "I still don't know if that'll work. But the pseudocore will. It will, with 6.5 sigma confidence, not only preserve but significantly improve her life."

"...six point five?" Ardisia said, not looking away from the meat. I had them. I knew I had them. "You're certain."

"Ran the math multiple times."

"I'll need to see that. And everything else having to do with this." They finally managed to tear their gaze away from the meat and look up, first at Camassia, then at me — at my face, my real face. "I'm going to need to read over everything and make sure I understand it before I sign off on this. I believe that's within the spirit of our agreement?"

"As long as you're not doing it just to dig in your roots arbitrarily, yes," I said. Her concern was understandable. Here was this sophont — xeno or otherwise — who was champing at the bit to do something untested and on-its-face dangerous. Sure, there was science saying it wasn't as dangerous as it seemed, but better to be sure before one leapt ahead.

"This is... a big thing, Tam, which you'll recall I did specifically say wouldn't help your case."

"Well, I won't be able to do this," I said, hefting the meat gently and smiling. "That's true. I will lose a bit of a trump card. But on the other hand, I would argue that being willing to go through with this shows commitment not only to the process, but to the overall outcome. Regardless of legalities, I am an Affini, and I will do anything for my floret. Even this."

Ardisia was silent for a moment, our eyes locked on one another's. My real eyes, not the ones buried in the meat that I never really used anymore. "I'll need those files," they said quietly. "And I'll be consulting with others. Second, third, fourth opinions. We'll see what happens."

---

"....so, now you wait?"

"Now I wait," I said, nodding. Karyon and I were seated on the couch in my living room, leaning into one another as our vines entangled. The wall opposite us was showing Judy's stream — off in her den, she was grinding away for a shot at top 3, and while we had the sound turned down, the split display and her bouncy little animated avatar told us everything we needed to know about the state of the run she was on. "I think my chances are pretty good, but that doesn't make the wait any less vine-twisting."

"I can only imagine." Karyon was careful, as her vines slipped inside me, to avoid the meat; she'd accidentally brushed it a few times early on, and she knew it wasn't exactly pleasant for me. I leaned into her, and returned the favor.

"Mmm. At least OTD has been relatively slow of late. I won't be causing too many problems when I inevitably have to take another sabbatical."

"You're still carrying that Terran work ethic trauma around, I see."

"Don't tease," I replied. "I just care about you and everyone else and I don't want to cause problems unnecessarily."

"Well, I definitely think that this surgery is a necessary one, so that's that problem sorted." She smiled and leaned in to give me a soft kiss on the cheek. "So stop worrying. Okay?"

"Nope. Too late. I'm going to worry." She was close enough to feel my biorhythms quaver in a sarcastic tone. "There is one thing I need to do, though — I'm going to need to find someone to watch Judy for a while. This surgery is probably going to fully incapacitate me, even more than the previous ones did."

"What's this 'find someone' nonsense?" She reached out with a vine and turned my head to face her. "You already have."

I could feel the meat's face warming, one of those reflexes that never really went away. "I didn't want to presume-"

"Presume?" Karyon said, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow composed of a hundred infinitesimal flowers. "Tam, you are the first friend I made on this planet, my dear co-worker who I care for very much, and a brilliant and gorgeous sophont that I spent several local years pursuing — and I'm still young enough that a a few years is a significant time investment for me! Why in the world would you think that asking me to help look after Judy is some kind of imposition, or presumptuous in any way?"

"Okay, okay, when you put it like that-" I couldn't help but laugh, the tension in my biorhythm that I hadn't even noticed breaking suddenly. "Fine, fine. I know Judy will be happy to have you around." I would be too, to be perfectly honest, even if Karyon had finally found a way around my objections to her moving in with me, however temporarily. At least she was moving in with me rather than the other way around, and given the official battle over my status had begun, it seemed less risky than it might otherwise.

Besides, was I going to ask a Terran to look after Judy? I'd done that before, of course, but, well... things were different now, and the Terran I'd most often turned to for help in that vein, Clara, was now happily a floret herself. "I don't know how long it's going to be," I added. "It may not be very long at all. Or it might take me months to relearn how to move around. I really don't know; Camassia doesn't have any sort of a timeline for this."

"Well, I will enjoy being here beside you for however long it takes. But just think: it won't be long before I can do this to you." Her vines seized on one of mine, pulling it deeper into her body and up against her core. The cilia of my vine brushed up against the surface, clinging gently, a soft brushing sensation that I knew she loved.

"What have I told you about trying to top a top?" I laughed and added a few vines to her core — if she was going to play like that, I was going to play right back. I knew she was trying to distract me from my anxieties over the potential surgery, but in her defense, it was working.

"That it's fun and I should do it more often?" she replied, pulling me deeper into her — her substitute for my lack of a core for her to play with.

"I don't recall that being the overall theme, no." I shifted, straddling her — even though I'd been putting on mass and height as my phytotech body grew, Karyon must have been adding on more mass herself, because when we were standing I still only came up to her tits. This way, at least, I could look her in the eye. "Do we need a refresher lesson?"

"Oh my, yes," she thrummed. I felt her biorhythm through my vines, rumbling and powerful. Someday, maybe someday soon, I'd be able to do that. "Do enlighten me."

"Well, the first lesson is-" I leaned in and pressed my lips against hers, letting my vines coil fully around her core and gently squeezing it. Her tongue, bitter and floral, made a quick appearance, and I slipped another few vines into her mouth to serve as an ersatz tongue of my own. (Dirt, I thought, I'm going to need to graft one of these. I spun off a train of thought to keep track of that, and to begin enumerating anything else I might need to add to my body once the meat was out of the way.) We communicated our needs to one another not with words — though we certainly could have — but with the mutual fluctuations of our biorhythms, a duet we improvised together that slipped into a beautiful harmony of smooth quavers interspersed with sudden octave leaps.

We'd slipped easily into this kind of behavior, a kind of intimacy I'd never really known before. It was making love, but a love that wasn't inherently sexual — not in the way a Terran would describe it, at least. Karyon and I explored each others' bodies and gave each other what pleasure we could, with touch and affirmation and the meshing of our biorhythms. It wasn't like the stone butch/pillow princess dynamic I shared (and loved) with Judy — I was a participant, I was being touched, and I liked it. If you'd asked me to point out the differences, I'm not sure I could have, but there was one. I could feel it in the stroke of every vine, the taste of Karyon's tongue, the sound of every biorhythmic note in perfect counterpoint. I was giving, and I was receiving what was given, and in both I found joy, for I knew, knew without a shadow of a doubt, that Karyon felt the same. The physical dimension of it was just one small part of the whole, of the unity we shared. There was no rising tension, no crest like a Terran orgasm, but simply a gentle tide of love and belonging that rose to envelop me, like an active and sustained afterglow without the after.

If my tear ducts hadn't long ago been converted into channels for phytotech nerve grafts, it would have made me weep for joy.

I could have let an eternity pass like that, but- «Tam! Tam! Tam! I made it! Sub-41 PB! Top 3, top 3, top 3!"» Judy was at the foot of the couch, jumping and trying to climb up onto it; I reached down with a vine and pulled her up, sandwiching her between us.

«Top 3? Good girl!» I gave her a scruffle under her chin and began petting her as she squirmed and bounced excitedly. At no point did I stop toying with Karyon's core, and at no point did she stop fooling around right back at me.

«Yes, good girl Judy!» Karyon agreed, joining in with scritches behind Judy's ears. Her fluffy little tail went thump thump thump against our bodies. »I'm so proud of you!«

«Eeeee!» Judy giggled and burrowed deeper into me, wrapping her arms around my body and luxuriating in the pressure of two Affini, in the biorhythms rumbling around her, and in the affection we were giving her. «I got the out-of-bounds dance and and and I did Persimmon Skip 2!»

«I saw!» And I had — I was reintegrating the train of thought I'd kept paying attention to the screen while Karyon and I had been playing with one another. «And you even got the quick-kill on Rocket Tank! Gold split! What a good girl you are!» I squeezed her in my vines and was rewarded with an adorable little squeak. «But petal, I think you forgot something,» I added, chuckling and leaning out of the way just enough for Judy to see the screen behind me. Her animated avatar was hanging limp next to the scrolling end credits of Mecha March 3 — she'd run off to tell me about her PB and left the rig's field of view. The chat display was a nigh-constant stream of laughing emoji of Judy's avatar, cartoon bone-shaped dog biscuits, and a waterfall of stylized "Good Girl!" emotes. I loved her chat.

«Oops!» She was far too happy to fret about it, letting out a laugh and burying her face in me. «Should I go back?»

«No, no, stay right where you are, Judypup,» I told her, using a vine to tap a few words into the chatbox, letting them know that a certain good girl was taking a moment to enjoy her owner's lap. She's such a perfect pet, I thought as I leaned back into Karyon, and began to kiss her again.

Chapter 21

January, 2558

 

How do you get out of bed when you don't have any bones?

Same way as everyone else: one vine at a time.

After two months of practice, at least it didn't take me nearly as long as it used to. It was embarrassing how useless I was for the first couple of weeks. My vines all worked fine, they all knew what to do, but without the meat in the middle of it all something was off and nothing wanted to hold together. Now, especially after I'd had some more robust endoframe grafts, I was managing, building limbs up bit by bit, knitting them all together, and finally tying my core into it all and levering myself up into a standing position.

Let me tell you, balance when you don't have an inner ear anymore is not an easy thing to get the hang of. Sure, my core would protect my brain if I took a tumble, but it was embarrassing nevertheless. I staggered, step by step, out of the brightly sunlit bedroom and into the main atrium of my hab. Karyon was sitting at the desk she'd set up to work from my hab while she watched Judy for me during my recovery — four years on, most of TCD's active caseload had already settled out, so she could easily handle her job from here. "Good morning, sleepyleaves," she called, smiling at me as she filled out a form.

"Good morning to you, too," I grunted. Talking, at least, I'd worked out within the first day — I'd already been speaking largely without my larynx for a while, anyway. I took the seat next to Karyon and slouched into her. Leaning was easier than staying upright. "Judy and Celeste get breakfast?"

"Mmmhmm! Celeste went home with Senna a little while ago, so Judy's playing her games. I was about to break to start prepping her lunch, if you'd like to lend a vine or two."

"Oh, absolutely." I was still down for twelve hours a day minimum, resting in artificial sunlight as my body healed and patched in new connections to my core, but that was better than the eighteen it'd been immediately post-surgery. "I've gotta do something useful around here, or Judy's going to start thinking you're her owner."

"Oh I doubt that very much," Karyon said. "Two months isn't going to overgrow twelve years. Besides, you do plenty! I'm just here to fill in the gaps. And to do this," she added, slipping a vine into me and drawing it down the length of my core. "I particularly like that part."

Every one of my vines shivered at once. I'd thought her touch had felt good before, but this was something else entirely. The sensation of her cilia brushing along the surface — how in the Everbloom's name had Camassia managed to make something so safe, so durable, and yet so sensitive all at the same time? "Yeah, I'm starting to see the benefits too."

Karyon giggled. "I bet you are." She gave my core another loving stroke and leaned back into me just a little.

"I'm just glad you're not turned off by what a monster it is. It's half again the size of yours, you know."

"Oh, no, my beloved has a big core?! What a terrible tragedy, woe is me! However shall I cope?" Her biorhythms danced with a sarcastic undertone, and I couldn't help but laugh. "Your core is lovely," she continued, shifting to warm notes of affection and love, "and I'm very happy you finally have it."

"The feeling is very much mutual," I said. "So. Lunch. Might I lay claim to tearing Judy away from her games?"

"Of course, my dear, she's your pet. Go say good morning to her while it's still morning!" I slowly hauled myself back upright, standing with one hand on the desk to steady myself. It would get easier as the day went on, as my vines got used to holding this shape — the mornings were always the roughest.

When I peered into Judy's den, I found her exactly where I expected her to be, nestled in with her pillows and stuffed animals, eyes focused intently on the screen as she demolished Mecha March 3 — or, at least, tried to. Her little robot blew up suddenly, and she let out a disappointed grunt. «Freakin' minefield RNG,» she groused, reaching out with a toe to poke the reset button on her console. «Such awful luck with it today!»

«Do you think a break for snuggles and lunch might improve your luck, then?» I said, leaning down and pushing my way into the den. I still wasn't entirely used to how low the ceiling was.

«Tam!» She laughed, dropped the controller, and held out her arms for a hug. I was on her in a moment, pulling her into my lap as I settled down in her pillow pile. «Mmmmm, good morning!»

«Good morning, puppy,» I said, stroking her hair. «And good morning to all you cuties in chat, too,» I added, waving at the camera. The second screen, the one displaying the chat feed, began going absolutely wild, flooding with emotes that, I'll allow, held a certain resemblance to yours truly. Judy, meanwhile, was burrowing into me, her tail wagging happily as she dug for and eventually reached my core, which she embraced and began to lick happily. It tickled so marvelously. «Good puppy~! Have you let everyone know about the little trip we're going to go on?»

«Huh?» She broke off and looked up at me, as best she could. «Oh! Ooops! Uhm, no stream again tomorrow, everyone, sorry!» she added over her shoulder. «I gotta go on a trip with Tam!»

«A very important trip,» I added. «It's her birthday present, after all.» The chat flooded with birthday cake emotes. «Did you enjoy your birthday party yesterday, my love?»

«Mmhmm!» Yesterday had been a celebration of Judy from the very moment she woke up to the moment she conked out from sheer exhaustion. Karyon had gotten the day started while I slept, but once I was up I'd joined in the fun. We made all her favorite foods for her, all her friends came over to celebrate — at first, in one big party, with games and a big cake, and then later, privately, with Celeste. I'd unlocked Judy's chastity cage and let the soft little Terran have her way with my puppy all night, until they both feel asleep together. «Best birthday ever!»

«Well, now I know the benchmark I have to top for next year!» I said. I already had some ideas in the works — by then, I might actually have enough training that I could graft some low-level xenodrugs. I turned her head to look back at me with a vine. «But now it's time for a certain pup to take a break and be fed. Isn't that right?»

«Uh-huh...» When her eyes met mine, she slipped under so quickly. Her pupils dilated and her mouth fell slack, and before I knew it she was a helpless little thing, trapped by my gaze and my vines. I could do whatever I wanted to her like this, shape her into whatever I liked — but I liked her just the way she was. What a perfect little pet, so docile and ready to submit.

«Good puppy,» I whispered to her. «We'll be back in just a little bit, everyone,» I said to the camera, tapping in the command to set the stream to Breaktime Mode and getting —carefully — to my feet, Judy sprawling bonelessly in my arms.

---

«Wooww! Look at how big it is!» Judy was plastered up against the viewport of the shuttle, staring out at the enormous, brilliantly colored ship as we approached.

«Mmmhmm! She's 140 kilometers long,» I said, «and fifty wide!»

«Oh wow, she's the same class as Selenipedium?! That's so cool!» Judy practically vibrated her way off my lap with excitement, but I held her tightly with my vines as I exchanged a smile with Karyon beside me. The hypnotic program I'd placed in Judy was a simple, straightforward one, and hopefully it would hold until the appropriate moment. It had held so far, but I was concerned the interior of the ship might prove to be too much for her to ignore.

As it happened, I needn't have worried; we made it into the hangar, down the long funicular ride to the interior of the rings, and onto the transit network before the cracks began to show. «Huh,» she said, standing up on the seat to look out the train's window and pressing her little nose against it. «It's weird, but I feel like...I've been here before?»

«No, I'm pretty sure you haven't, pet,» I said, scritching her behind her ears and setting her tail wagging happily. «The only other ship you've been on is Hesperoxiphion.»

«Yeah...» She pouted and kept staring. «It's just that looks an awful lot like the Big Mountain from Sabine & Selenipedium...» She pointed at the mountain about a quarter of the way spinward up the hab ring we were on.

«It does, doesn't it?» I said. "What do you think?" I asked Karyon.

"Well," she said, "it might hold long enough, but I think you're going to need to start distracting her."

"Mmmm." «Oh, Judypup?» She looked up at me, and I could see her sweet little mind bumping up against the barriers I'd set in place. I could see it in the way her eyes focused, the way her eyelids fluttered, the microexpressions plucking at her cheeks, her lips, her ears, her tail. Had I been this transparent to Karyon when she'd first met me? Had the jealousy that had gripped me in that moment been so obvious? If she'd noticed it, she'd never said a word. «Who's a good dog? Who's a good dog?»

Her ears pricked up, and her tongue lolled out of a smiling mouth. She knew this game.

«Who's a good puppy~? It's you!»

«Eee!» She giggled and all but pounced on me; standing on the seat, she was able to throw her arms around my shoulders and nuzzle into the side of my neck.

«What a good puppy she is!» Karyon agreed, reaching over to scritch Judy. «So cute and well-behaved!»

«The best little puppy an owner could ever hope for!» I said, squeezing Judy tightly as the train slowed to a stop in the station. I stood, being very careful to keep my balance as I hefted Judy, rocking her back and forth as I carried her along. «A very good puppy who deserves a great big birthday present!»

"I would agree that 150 by 40 kilometers is a pleasantly large birthday present," the ship chimed in via the station's public address system.

"Shhhh, not yet!" Karyon said, giggling.

«Huh?» Judy blinked. «I think I know that voice...»

«Oh, don't worry about it, Judypup,» I said as we walked out into the artificial sunlight. «I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Now, I think we're going this way...» Karyon and I set out down a very familiar path, soft and mossy and lined with trees whose foliage shone in a dozen brilliant colors all across the spectrum — including some that Terrans couldn't even see.

«Okay,» she said, looking around. «But this is an awful lot like...» She blinked. «Tam, wait, a minute, are we...?»

«Are we what, petal?» I purred in her ear as we came around a bend, and a certain hab came into view — but Judy, looking up at me with stars in her eyes, didn't see it just yet.

«...is this...Selenipedium?»

«Well, what do you think?» With a single vine, I gently turned her head, watching her face carefully. I didn't want to miss it — and there it was, the moment where my hypnotic barrier completely fell, and her eyes lit up with pure joy as she realized that she'd seen the hab she was looking at hundreds of times before from this very angle.

It looked much like other habs, smooth lines blending harmoniously, greenery growing up all around it, flowers in every shade surrounding it and climbing it — it was beautiful, like everything else we made. After all, if you were going to bother to make something, why not make it beautiful while you're at it? All around it, more of the tall, brilliantly colored trees grew, framing the hab and giving it a cozy, nestled-away feeling. Its door hung ever so slightly open, and another Terran was peeking out, just like she did in the opening of every episode of Sabine & Selenipedium.

But of course she was — the little Terran, her olive skin a perfect contrast to her soft and flowing lavender hair and ruffled orange companion dress, was Sabine herself. «Hiii!» she called out, waving just the same way she greeted the camera.

Judy let out a loud, excited yip and began struggling in my arms, and with a laugh I set her down on the ground and released her. «Go say hi, Judypup!» I said — but she was already running up and throwing her arms around Sabine, who was laughing and hugging her right back. There was a great deal of extremely adorable tailwagging on display, and both Karyon and I took a long moment to simply admire it.

"This was a very good idea," she said, leaning into me.

"I have those on occasion," I replied, leaning back into her.

---

"Thank you so much for this, Astraga." The interior of the house was no less colorful than the outside, a riot of floral brilliance that arched up the walls to a domed ceiling with a skylight in the center. In the middle of the atrium, Astraga had arranged couches in a circle around a central pool of cool, clear running water, and it was such a relief to let my roots drink their fill — even two months after surgery, I was still having issues with dehydration.

"Oh, it's nothing," Sabine's owner said cheerfully. He was just as bright as his hab, floral sprays giving him the appearance of a halo that shifted around his periphery whenever he moved. "My little pet loves meeting her friends in the audience. Anyway, Selenipedium handles most of the logistics, just like she does for the show."

"You're being far too modest, Astraga, as usual," Selenipedium said. "You contribute a great deal to Sabine & Selenipedium."

"Ah yes, 'craft services,'" he said, chuckling. "That means I cook for Sabine and whoever she has on the show."

"And the Master's Mysteries segments!" I added. "I love those, personally."

"Well, I'm glad someone does. Talking about phytoengineering is about the only way I can distract myself from being nervous about the camera."

"I think it's adorable," Selenipedium said. "A real charm point!"

"I would never have guessed you were camera-shy!" Karyon said. "You always seem so authoritative."

"The magic of editing," Astraga said. "Selenipedium is very good at making me come across as confident and unconcerned by cutting out all the times I flub lines or look right at the camera or whatever."

"Well, we very much appreciate the work you all put in on the show," I said. "It's been so good for Judy to have a pipeline directly into floret culture while I've been in a holding pattern on her implant for years on end, and I'll admit that even before I was taking Terran care classes I learned a thing or two about it from the show."

"Mmmm." Astraga leaned forward, looking right at me, fingers steepled. "I was wondering — well, ever since I heard from you and looked into your background, I've been thinking how one might even ask about the issue. Purely on a professional level..." He was practically vibrating with curious energy, an expectant tone waiting for resolution.

"Well, I'm not going to be much help at that," I said, laughing. "Phytoengineering is well outside my skill set."

"Oh, I can bother your veterinarian with any questions about that," he said, waving the subject away with a casual flick of a vine. "I'm honestly more interested in the subjective experience of it. I was discussing it with Selenipedium, but having another point of view would cast quite a bit more light on things, I should think."

"I'm afraid I don't follow?"

"Astraga's referring to my being digitized and networked into the ship," Selenipedium clarified. "Which was, to put it mildly, a significant alteration of my subjective experience of the universe."

"Aaah." I remembered, vaguely, one of the earlier episodes of Sabine & Selenipedium, where the ship had still largely been explaining herself to the "new" floret — the central intelligence of Selenipedium had once been an Affini herself. "I see. Well...yes, things have changed rather a lot. My brain is probably about 70% phytotech by mass at this point, according to Camassia, and the original grey matter is organized very differently than it used to be. Things — my thoughts, the way I think — have changed. I'm not entirely sure how to articulate it beyond there just being...more."

"From a purely outside perspective," Karyon said, "as someone who's been there the entire time, she has blossomed magnificently." She wove a few more vines around a few of mine, our biorhythms subtly synchronizing around the touch.

"And yet," I went on, "it's not just that there's more. The changes aren't merely quantitative, but qualitative as well." I still dreamed, more or less, like I used to; the night before, I'd dreamt I was holding my old meat-body in my vines, thin and wasted like it was just before I had it removed. It was me, and yet, it wasn't me. It was apart from me, some separate presence, with a quality of melancholy about it. "To the degree that sometimes I wonder if I'm really Tam at all anymore — that, at some point, this... «Ship of Theseus» ceased to be Tam and became something else. Whoever or whatever 'I' am."

"Well, as the only actual ship in the room," Selenipedium said, "I sympathize. I experienced something similar as I bootstrapped my cognitive bandwidth to the level necessary to manage shipboard function — as I became 'more,' it became easy for me to lose sight of those parts of myself I considered the 'original' me."

"I see the analogy, but — not to belabor the obvious — you put on rather a lot more than three-quarters of a meter when you went through this," I said, massaging my biorhythm into a lighthearted shape as best I could given the subject. "Not to mention, you were already physiologically an Affini — if you were anything like me, you already had a much broader cognitive foundation to start from. I've gone from baseline Terran neurology to...well, to something almost entirely synthetic. Certainly not natural Affini cognition, but close enough that my veterinarian recognizes it when I describe it."

"'Natural' is hardly the word I would use for us," Astraga cut in. "As a phytoengineer, it's very difficult for me to overlook just how much we've designed ourselves to be the way we are. I bear no more resemblance to the ancestral Affini than you do — that you have some lingering xenosophont neurology really doesn't add that much difference."

I turned that over in my head, from multiple angles — they all converged on a single conclusion. He was right: there was nothing natural about the Affini. Whatever we had been once upon a time, that was long-since buried under millennia of phytoengineering, all turned toward the task of making us the perfect caretakers for every sophont in the universe. No doubt that in another hundred thousand years, the definition of 'Affini' would be entirely different from the one I was struggling to meet in the eyes of Ardisia and so many others. "I had never really considered that," I said, "and I may just ask you to sign an affidavit as an expert witness for when I use that argument in a committee meeting."

"I'd be happy to," he said. He looked as if he was going to add something, but at that moment Sabine practically skipped into the room, hand in hand with Judy and pulling her along. Judy's tail was wagging back and forth, and every cell in her body rang with overwhelming glee. The joy I felt from seeing my floret so happy was no less powerful, a total encompassing of my personal universe in the single-minded knowledge that I had made this day absolutely perfect for her.

«Master, may we go get some coffee?» she said, tugging at one of his vines from the foot of the sofa. «I want to introduce Judy to benny!»

«Of course, flower,» he said, giving her an indulgent pat on the head. «Have fun, and say hi for me.»

"He actually runs a cafe?" I asked as the two florets dashed out the door. benny the Beeple Barista, with his myriad experimental hot beverages, was a regular segment on the show. "I thought that was just for the show!"

"He does! Well, runs is a strong word; mostly he just plays with food chemistry and every so often invents something they keep on the menu. His Master handles the day-to-day. And most of the service, with his other florets."

"We might just have to pop by on our way home, then," I said, "because that sounds lovely."

"Tam is still a tea fiend," Karyon said, covering her mouth and giggling. "Some things never change."

"Well, you're certainly welcome to stay for as long as you like," Astraga said. "I know Sabine wants to film a segment on Judy's... what was it, speed-doing?"

"Speedrunning," I corrected him. Of course we'd be staying long enough for that — I'd never dream of taking the opportunity to be on Sabine & Selenipedium away from Judy. "And I think we can hang around long enough for that. I can prepare for Warren's wardship meeting and the eventual trip to Nyrina for the implant conference from here as easily as I could from home."

"You've certainly got a very busy agenda for someone your age," he said. "But, having met you, you've also got exactly that type of personality. Me, I'm content looking after Sabine and designing new applications for phytotechnology, I don't need that kind of excitement in my life."

"Well, there may be a lot of paperwork involved," I admitted, "but I'm not sure I'd describe my life as exciting. I'm just a clerk trying to deal with a bureaucratic tangle."

"You're attempting to uproot everything we believe we know about ourselves, at least, as it concerns you specifically," Selenipedium said. "I would say that qualifies as excitement."

"Well, I wish you good fortune in your endeavor all the same," Astraga added. "And I'm sure Selenipedium agrees."

"Oh, quite! It's good to have things shaken up every now and again, and you are certainly doing your share of shaking, Tam."

"I just want to give Judy what she deserves," I said, and it was true. My dreams had come true, at least, in a way — I sat here physically indistinguishable from any other Affini, at least until advancing medical scanners came into it. If I had lost anything in the bargain, it was the ability to ignore my responsibilities, and I had scarcely ever used that quality anyway.

Now it was my floret's turn. I would turn every erg of my not-inconsiderable skill and willpower to making her dreams come true, and Everbloom help anyone who got in my way.

Chapter 22

February, 2558

 

I had done my part. I had argued to the best of my ability on my client's behalf. Now, it was all in the hands of the jury. Five years ago, this is the part where I would have been terrified, my client's unease worming its way into my own mind. No defense attorney wants to lose a case, but I particularly hated it — it always felt as if I'd let my client down, like I should have been able to do better for them, that they didn't deserve what was about to happen to them.

But that was all in the past. No matter what happened today, no matter what verdict the jury of my peers returned, I knew my client would be safe, happy, and healthy. For that surety alone, I would have accepted the Compact with open arms.

«This is taking too long,» Warren muttered as he paced nervously from one side of the atrium to the other. «It shouldn't take this long, they should have agreed that I'm good to go and stamped it and been done with it!»

«Patience, Warren,» I told him, not rising from my seat on one of the benches. It was absolutely covered with a wild variety of floral growth, and my vines were investigating each and every bloom curiously — I could name them all, I thought. It was a fun diversion for a part of my brain to amuse itself with. «You've had a very long wardship and you've provided them with a great deal of evidence. They're just being thorough, that's all.»

I wasn't sure that this was, strictly speaking, the case. There was probably quite a debate going on behind closed doors while I kept an eye on the little Terran for Vita. But he didn't need to worry about that — he'd just get even more anxious, and while I had a canister of generic Class-E on me (and had checked to make sure Warren wouldn't have a bad reaction to it if I needed to use it), he probably would have been less willing to accept xenodrugs from me than from Vita.

«Easy for you to say,» he spat. «Your life isn't the one that hangs in the balance!»

«Don't be so dramatic», I told him. «Your life is not hanging in the balance.»

«Okay, fine, not my life. Just my mind, my independence, my pride, my self-respect, my identity-»

«Warren, stop,» I said, laying a vine on his shoulders as he passed and turning hm to face me. «You're just getting yourself worked up for nothing.» I could feel, through the vine I had around him, his pulse pounding through his veins. His respiration was elevated, and he was perspiring no small amount if I could taste it through his suit.

«Excuse me for being anxious about my future,» he muttered, looking quickly away from my eyes. He didn't slip out from under my vine, though, like he would have a year ago. «I hate this. Why aren't you in there and she's out here?» I could practically see the neurons firing in his head, written in microexpressions and little quavers in his voice that even he probably wasn't aware of. He really would prefer that it was me in there and Vita out here. Hardly surprising: he was more comfortable around her than me, and I'd seen that in action several times.

«Because I was just your advocate during the wardship itself, Warren. I don't have any formal role in the actual decision,» I told him. I could have sat in, but someone needed to watch Warren, and I was by far the least experienced Affini involved in the whole process. It made sense. «She has my notes, and she can do everything I can in there, and more besides. We all have your best interests in mind, Warren. Trust in the system and try to relax.»

«Trust in the system? Pfeh. Even if I do make it out of this, it doesn't fix things. It doesn't put things back how they used to be.» After a moment, he added «I still think I should have pulled your trick,» in a low voice, still looking away from me.

I couldn't believe he was still clinging to that idea, and I should have been fuming at it, but the most that I felt was a peculiar bemusement. What a silly little creature, I thought. «You cannot possibly, after all this, think that that this is some sort of scam I'm running.»

«No, no, I know you've gone completely off the deep end as far as that's concerned,» he said, crossing his arms grumpily. «You're well and truly one of the plants. But that doesn't mean I couldn't have gotten out of this a hell of a lot easier and quicker with a little creative paperwork!»

«We don't play those kinds of games, Warren,» I said, unweaving my chest just a little and exposing my oversized core. «Besides, something tells me you really don't want one of these.»

His eyes widened. «What the fuck is that? Where's... your body?!»

«I had it surgically removed. My core houses my brain, along with a few phytotech organs that provide the oxygen and specialized nourishment it needs to stay alive.»

«Stars...» He couldn't stop staring at it; something about the pulsing and the gentle glow drew him like a moth to a flame.

Uh-oh. «Warren, did you take your Class-C today?»

«...huh? Yeah, yeah,» he said, finally managing to look away from my core, and right up into my eyes — and if my core had fascinated him, my eyes ensnared him right away. His pupils began to dilate almost at once, and his jaw fell ever so slightly slack.

«Warren,» I said, reinforcing my hold on him with a subtle shift of my biorhythm to emphasize the words, «did you take your Class-C bonding inhibitor this morning?»

«Yes...»

«What did you take it with?» I had to make sure he was remembering this morning.

«Coffee, bagel with lox and cream cheese...»

I felt a wave of relief rush through me — that was exactly what he'd had that morning when I stopped by Vita's prior to the wardship meeting. «Good boy,» I said, patting him on the head, and he let out a soft whimper. At least now I didn't have to worry about accidentally getting him fixated on me — that could cause issues no matter which way the committee ruled. Vita must have just trained him into having greater hypnotic susceptibility since I'd last enthralled him. «How are you feeling?»

«Nervous...»

Well, this I could help with. «There's nothing to be nervous about. Take a deep breath...hold it... now let it out. Feel your heart rate slowing down... that's it.» His vitals began to drift back toward his standing baseline. His cortisol levels would probably still be elevated, but given time that would work itself out. «Now, come here.» I reached out and lifted him up, setting him down on the bench next to me and gently leaning him over to rest his head in my lap. «Just take it easy and rest,» I said, maintaining his trance purely through biorhythmic influence. «Take a little nap, if you need to. I'll be right here, watching over you.»

I felt him start to drift off as I stroked him gently. He'd come so far, and I was so proud of him. He'd gone from a completely hopeless wreck to a sophont entirely capable of living independently, and even if his opinion of the Affini hadn't changed all that much over the interim, he was at least less angry and less combative about our presence. Given a few more years of passive exposure, even that would probably fade; he certainly got along well enough with Vita. I sat there, entirely content to pet the sweet little xenosophont dozing on my lap, for at least an hour before the door to the meeting room finally opened and Vita emerged.

"Oh no," she said, smiling as she saw Warren asleep in my lap. "Was he nervous?"

"Just a bit," I said, giving him a little scruffle. He began to stir, and made a very adorable grunting noise. "I only entranced him a little, no xenodrugs."

"Oh, very good, very good," she said, kneeling down and giving Warren a few good pets. «Hey, sleeping cutie~»

«Mmmf?» He lifted his head, blinking away the sleep. The moment he realized he was looking at Vita, though, his eyes lit up in a way that I recognized immediately. «Oh, hey,» he said, trying and abjectly failing to play it cool.

«Hey yourself~» Vita said, giggling. «Guess who's officially an independent sophont?» My memory flashed back to the train ride on Selenipedium — I'd played this exact game with Judy to distract her, and Warren reacted the exact same way she did.

«...I am? I'm... it's over?!» He was on his feet, standing up next to me on the bench and practically vibrating with excitement. «You're not pulling a fast one on me?!»

«I'm not pulling anything, Warren, fast or slow. You've officially been cleared, your wardship is over, and you're an independent sophont once more!» She'd barely finished speaking before Warren all but launched himself into her arms, clinging to her as she held him well off the ground and spun him around. He made no effort to slip free, no demands to be let go — he simply let her hold him.

"My, he really is attached to you, isn't he?" I said, standing up and giving him a gentle scritch at the back of his neck.

"Oh he's so docile," Vita said. "I'm half expecting to get a message from him five minutes after we part ways begging to see me again."

«What are you two saying?» he asked, looking up at Vita, then at me.

«Oh, nothing to worry about, just some logistics about finishing up the case,» I said to him. "You think it'll be that quick?"

"The other half of my expectations are that he won't even let me out of his sight," Vita said with a wry flourish of her biorthym. Warren shivered right in time with it. "He's mine. He even wants to be mine. He just doesn't realize it yet."

"I think I can see it, now that you mention it," I said. My mind immediately spun up a dozen ways Vita might break him here and now, and I desperately wanted to see which she'd go with. "...want to test it?"

"Oh, absolutely. Watch this." «Alright, well...that's over and done with,» Vita said, disengaging her vines from Warren and setting him down on the ground, damping her biorhythm to practically nil at the same time. «Sophont Housing Services is on the 17th floor, I believe — they'll set you up with a hab of your own.»

«...huh?» He looked up at her, confusion suddenly dominating his features. «We aren't...going back home?»

Home. Oh, Vita was right. He was already hers. Even if he hadn't synchronized with her biorhythms, she still been a part of his life for over a year and a half, and that background noise was a part of her. He was used to their presence — used to her presence — and their sudden absence even when she was standing right in front of him was something he wasn't prepared for psychologically. No wonder the poor thing looked so lost.

«Well, you'd just have to come back here to get your hab allocation handled,» Vita said, shrugging. «If you go do it now, though, I can return to my hab and have your things shipped off to your new hab. They'll probably beat you there. And then, you'll be all on your own, an independent sophont once more, just like you wanted it. Congratulations!»

«But...» I watched every single indicator I knew for Terran emotional states swing rapidly into the negative, watched his little heart come right to the breaking point. At the same time, I could see the confusion in him. He didn't understand what was happening — he knew he should be happy, but he wasn't, and he clung to that paradox like a shipwreck survivor clung to drifting debris. «You... you don't want to... I mean, it's... it's steak night...»

«Warren,» Vita said, patting him gently on the head. «You know how to make your own food. You don't need me to provide for you. You'll do just fine all on your own.» Those words hit him like a hammerblow; I honestly thought for a moment that his knees might give out. «You're an independent sophont. It's been very lovely taking care of you, but alas, that's over now.» She paused, long enough for his heart to flutter helplessly in his chest, then knelt beside him. «Unless...you'd prefer to stay with me?»

His spirits soared at the mere suggestion. «W-well... yeah,» he said, trying in vain to recover his emotional equilibrium. «I mean... we're... pretty good roommates?»

Vita smiled. «Roommates? Is that what we are?»

«Well, it's not like... like I'm your floret,» he stammered out. He was quavering now; with Vita so close, he expected to feel her biorhythms, but she remained as silent as she could.

«Do you want to be?» she whispered. Warren began to voice a question, his lips shaping themselves into a "wh-" shape, but no sound came out. Vita repeated herself: «Do you want to be my floret, Warren?» And with that, she let her biorhythm rumble back up to its usual level. The effect on Warren was instantaneous and obvious, his eyes welling up with tears of relief.

«I...what?»

«Do you want to stay with me? Do you want me to take care of you? Do you want to never have to worry about anything ever again? Do you want to never have to be away from me ever again?» Her biorhythm rose in a steady crescendo, and I watched as Warren's defenses fell one by one. «Answer.»

«...yes?» he squeaked, his lower lip quivering. He seemed almost surprised by his answer, but was in no position to do anything about it. Vita held him in place with nothing more than her will.

She stood up, and let her biorhythm slacken again — just as before, it had an immediate effect on Warren, one that made him gasp audibly. «That's not good enough, Warren. I spent quite a lot of time and effort making sure you could be independent. This is your first choice as an independent sophont; if it's also going to be your last, I need to be sure it's what you want.»

«I...» He hugged himself, but never took his eyes away from her. «I...you did something to me...didn't you?»

«No,» Vita said, «but if I had, would you be upset?»

«....no,» he whispered. He swallowed heavily, and added, «I do want that.»

«Not good enough», Vita repeated.

«W-well, what do you want from me?!» Warren cried out, desperation filling his voice and twisting his face.

«I want you to beg», Vita told him, ramping up her biorhythm again. «If you, Warren Argall, can bring yourself to beg me to make you my floret, then I'll do it.»

For a long moment, he simply stared up at her. I watched him fight a battle with himself over the next word to come out of his mouth. Deep inside him, shame and fear were waging a campaign of brutal, bitter attrition for the sake of the word "No," but it was obvious that side was only delaying the inevitable. The other side was gaining strength all the while, a storm of longing and hope sweeping across Warren's emotional landscape, its victory inevitable. «Please,» he finally whimpered.

«Louder.»

«Please!» His voice cracked, tears running down his face.

«On your knees.»

His knees gave out instantly, and only the swift intervention of Vita's vines kept him from banging them painfully on the floor. «Please!» His hands curled around the loose vines of Vita's left leg, and he hung onto them for dear life. «Please let me be your floret!»

She smiled, knelt down, and booped him on the nose. «I thought you'd never ask.» Then she giggled and swept him up into her arms, and he laughed and cried all at the same time, his relief palpable as he clung to her with his arms around her neck. «Silly boy, fighting so hard for so long over something you didn't even want!»

"That was... magnificent," I said. I had watched every moment of it, my full attention focused on the little Terran, reading his every response, practically his every thought — it was all so transparent, so easy to see. Because of that, I could see the results of each and every move Vita had made. It was amazing how much one could learn from books and study, but it paled before how much I had learned from simply watching another Affini break a Terran right in front of me. "I feel privileged to have seen it."

"Oh hush, you could have done that," Vita said, giving me a warm biorhythmic chorus that drew a little noise from Warren in tandem. "He wanted it. It was just a matter of giving him the chance to realize it. Why let him wander away and make himself sad? What would that accomplish? He's always on about 'the way things used to be,' back when he had the power to make others do things for him, back when everything was taken care of for him. He wants to be taken care of. He just needed to allow himself to be."

"...you're absolutely right, of course," I said, giving Warren a gentle stroke. Even if Vita wasn't, strictly speaking, responsible for Warren as a ward any longer, she still had a moral responsibility for the little xeno who had fallen for her despite being on bonding blockers. In a situation like that, really, she was obligated to break him — how fortunate that she clearly felt much the same about him as he did for her, but then, after a year and a half of caring for him, that was hardly a shock. «I'm very happy for the two of you,» I added. «Is he your first?»

«He is,» Vita said. «Warren Clematis, First Floret. How do you like the sound of that, hmm?» Warren didn't say anything, just buried his (very red) face into the side of Vita's neck.

"Aww, I think he's a little embarrassed at how much he likes it," I said, laughing just a little. "Precious little guy. How long do you think it'll take you to get an implant cultured?"

"Tam, please," she said. "I started one culturing a week ago."

Notes:

We are closing in on the conclusion, y'all — but here's where Warren's part in the story ends, and who doesn't love a happy ending, right?

Chapter 23

Notes:

Content Warning for: Sad predomestication Judy (capitalism, mental health, excessive alcohol use, etc), and arguing about Tam's identity.

June, 2558

 

«Be good for Karyon, alright, sweetie?» I had Judy wrapped up in my vines, scruffling her and squeezing her and dumping every erg of love I could into her tiny little Terran body.

«I will!» She laughed and squirmed and gave me puppykiss after puppykiss right up until I handed her off to Karyon.

«As if Judy could be anything but a perfect little good puppy,» Karyon said, picking up exactly where I'd left off. Judy happily burrowed into her and began giving her puppykisses, too. «I think we'll go for a walk in the park, and then maybe find a nice cafe to relax in for a while so Judy can get her practice time in. Wouldn't want our little speedrunner getting rusty!»

«Oh, certainly not, not with 41:50 on the horizon!» I leaned in and gave Judy one last kiss, and whispered to Karyon, "Dirt, but I'm so frosting nervous."

"You'll do fine," she reassured me, her vines teasing mine gently. "You endured the Accord; this lot are a dozen Blooms too early to reckon with you when it comes to argument, my love."

"One hopes," I replied. I'd been preparing for this moment for years, now, constructing argument upon argument in a flowchart that, with any luck, anticipated every potential counterargument. I had evidence, expert testimony, character witnesses — I had it all. I'd never worked on a case this complex or this far-reaching, and I'd certainly never worked on one that could have such important consequences.

If I frosted this up, Judy's one and only chance for an implant would slip through my vines. I couldn't let that happen. I absolutely could not allow that to happen. So I crammed my feelings down deep into my core, watched Karyon carry Judy off, and centered myself before walking into the main offices of the Terran Protectorate Medical Board. I found the meeting room without too much difficulty — it was the one with all the elder blooms clustered around it, enmeshed in conversation.

That none of them noticed me when I walked up gave me no small amount of hope. I gave a soft frisson of biorhythm to call attention to myself, a clearing of a throat I no longer had. "Pardon the interruption," I said, "but I'm Tamara Slaine, and I believe I'm the cause of all this bother?"

---

The club was loud, much louder than was really safe for little Terran ears, but they didn't seem to mind — they danced, and cavorted, and found partners to grind on and take into shadowy corners for a bit of illicitly erotic playtime, lubricated on rather more alcohol than was healthy. Case in point; the little cutie who came stumbling up to the bar next to me, already very drunk, and said, «Hey, barkeep, I want a Screaming Orgasm!»

«Oh, I can take care of that for you,» I said, smiling down at her. She was a young woman — I could read that easily enough though it seemed she hadn't been on those Terran Class-G equivalents for very long. Poor thing needed much better medication than that.

She turned to look at my waist, then slowly craned her neck upwards. «Whoa... you're big,» she said.

«And you're drunk,» I replied, winking.

«I am not!» she insisted, brushing a bit of her hair out of her eyes — it wasn't quite long enough to tie back yet. «I'm sober enough to use the Screaming Orgasm line and have it work!» She snickered gave me a gentle slug on the arm. «...oh dang you're strong too,» she said when I didn't so much as move an inch. «Heyyy... are you a Martian?»

«Mmmhmmm. Bloomed in Valles Marineris.»

«Neaaaat. Never met a Martian before. Thought you couldn't come down h-» The bartender placed a Screaming Orgasm in front of the woman, and her thought process derailed immediately. «Oh. Shit. I did order that, didn't I?»

«You did,» I said, laughing and coiling a few vines protectively around her. «So drink up, cutie, and then maybe I'll take you home.»

---

"Well, you've certainly crafted an interesting argument, if nothing else." Clavor Sideroxylon, Fifteenth Bloom, the veterinary specialist who was chairing the committee, had at least done me the courtesy of listening quietly. Now, alas, I had to do the same, vines twisting around my core in lieu of showing my anxiety outwardly. "Your veterinarian's notes are quite exhaustive, too. A fascinating process, on a purely medical level, but we're not really here to discuss the medical ethics of what you've done, now are we?"

"I don't suppose we are," I said as evenly as I could. "I understand the issue with my request, but ultimately I believe this is very resolvable. Very little of me at this point is even remotely Terran, and quite frankly even those parts that did originate in a Terran body could scarcely be called Terran-like."

"Yes, I've seen the scans of your brain tissue," Clavor said. "And I've talked to several veterinary neurology specialists, including Perityle here," he added, indicating the tall, thin Affini to his left. "They're all of the opinion that, frankly, given what we know about human cognition, your brain shouldn't be working given the shape it's been contorted into."

"Well, I suppose I should say thank you for helping me make my argument," I said, smiling. "My phytocortex — mind you, this is my own lay understanding as told to me by Camassia, of course — is responsible for a lot of my cognition at this point, but the old greymatter still contributes."

"This phytocortex of Camassia's" Perityle said, her white, plumage-like foliage shifting as she spoke, "how certain are we that it'll continue to support active cognition given the state you've placed your brain tissue into? You're on a very unusual xenodrug regimen — I don't believe I've ever seen something like this applied, and certainly not to a Terran."

"Well, you've only had Terrans to study for about ten years," I said, riffling my vines in a shrug. "So far, it hasn't posed a problem. Camassia tells me that the cognitive changes I've experienced are, more or less, in line with the Affini standard. I don't see that as a negative."

This was true, or at least, true enough. I was maintaining several active lines of thought purely a a way to ground myself during the most tense and critical argument I would ever make in my entire life. Thinking of Judy, of how I'd met her, of how I'd domesticated her, of how I'd improved her life even before the Compact had arrived, was a balm for any injury as far as I was concerned. Yet, a little disquiet came with that too — those were memories of a very different Tam, after all. I recalled them without too much difficulty, and I couldn't point to the line between that Tam and the Tam I now was if you asked me to, but I could no longer envision myself in the tiny shell of a Terran body.

When had that slipped away from me?

---

The little Terran asleep in my vines had stayed lucid just long enough to give me directions to her apartment, but the more I followed them and the closer I got to the destination, the more I realized that this poor girl lived in one of the most cramped, underserved parts of Vancouver-Victoria. It was no shock when I found her apartment entirely unsatisfactory, a single-room studio that had a basin but not a toilet and a bed that was little more than a single, thin pallet laid in a hole in the wall. I had to hunch way over just to fit through the door, and then the ceiling was low enough that I couldn't really straighten up again.

Such a sweet little creature didn't deserve to live like this — but the rest of the Compact wouldn't arrive for years to come, so there was precious little I could do for her besides make her as comfortable as I could. «We're back, sweetie,» I whispered, jogging her gently as I sat her down on the edge of her bed.

«Nnnnf. Five more min'ts,» she grumbled, trying to brush my vines away.

«Shhh. You can sleep all you want in just a moment,» I said. If I'd had the proper grafts, I could have rebalanced her electrolytes in an instant, but alas, all I could do was ensure she was properly hydrated after all the alcohol she'd consumed. I reached across to the basin and filled a glass with some water — it looked less than pure, but after tasting it I decided it was drinkable enough. «Drink this,» I said, closing her fingers around the glass and guiding it up to her mouth.

«Nnnnn. No more.»

«If you don't drink this, you're going to have the mother of all hangovers tomorrow, petal,» I told her. «Now drink.» Sweet little thing that she was, her face warmed and she obeyed, drinking the whole glass. I didn't even have to entrance her. «Good girl,» I said, taking it from her. «Now get some sleep, okay?» She nodded, flopped over, and promptly passed out. I watched as all the worries and all the stress fell away from her face, watched the sweet, gentle girl underneath show herself at last. I bundled up her blankets to make sure she didn't roll off her side in her sleep, then took one of my business cards from my pocket. I wrote, «Hope you feel better, cutie. Call me!» on the back, added a heart to make my intentions clear, and left it on her little fold-out table. Then I squeezed my way out of her tiny, miserable little apartment, making sure to set the door to lock behind me.

---

"I still think the real issue here is her age." Tritica Diplotaxis, Eleventh Bloom, was the committee's xenopsychology representative, and fae had been laser-focused on the topic from the beginning. "Regardless of her biology, her neurology, or any of that, the fact remains that she simply lacks the experience necessary to domesticate a xenosophont. The rest of the argument is purely academic!"

"Alright," Clavor sighed, "let's address that now, then. Tam, I take it your position is that you are, in fact, experienced enough to domesticate Judy?"

"It would be rather foolish of me to try to argue that I possess a broad range of experience to a room full of Affini who all have ten or more Blooms on me," I said, leaning back against the broad, stiff leaf that served as the back of my chair. "I am an absolute sprout, I've never denied that, and I'm not surprised that Tritica finds fault with me there. I am doing everything I can to ameliorate that lack of experience, of course, I'm actively pursuing education in Terran care and the necessary skills to go with it."

"There's more to domestication than a set of skills, though," Tritica insisted.

"Of course," I agreed. "It's the single most important thing one can do — of course it's not as simple as that. But the fact remains that, prior to contact, prior to even knowing about the Affini, I domesticated Judy, to the point where other Affini recognized that she was functionally domesticated. I have numerous pieces of evidence to support that, including a domestication contract signed almost a decade prior to the Compact's arrival on Terra."

"The contract is very sweet," Clavor admitted. "But not yet legally binding."

"Not yet," I agreed. "That's why I've come all this way, after all."

---

«Uuuuugh!» Judy flopped down on the battered old sofa, dropping a duffle bag at her feet. «Sorry I'm late. I hate my boss. I hate my life. I hate everything,» she moaned.

«What'd the shithead do now?» Rio said, pushing a disposable cup of probably-lukewarm-by-now coffee across the table at her. The coffee shop wasn't too active at this time of day, but the mid-afternoon rush wasn't far off. I had my vines trailing in a cup of tea, myself.

«Docked my pay. Again. And then kept me after for unpaid stocking to make up for forgetting I was working today. I hate him so much.»

I felt as if I were having a spike driven into my core, seeing her like this. She was such a sweet girl, and she didn't deserve to have to live this way. «So, let me make certain I understand here,» I said. «You were late, for which he docked your pay... for the time you missed?»

«No, I'm on half-wage for the rest of the month,» she mumbled.

«And then made you work unpaid on top of that.»

«That's gotta be illegal, right?» Rio said.

«The one or the other, no,» I said, «but both in tandem...well, there might be a case there, but I don't think you'd win it. Anyway, civil law isn't my specialty.» Both, of course, had been spectacularly illegal once upon a time, but that was before the Work & Time Theft Act had been passed early in the Accord's centralization. «More importantly, are you going to be alright?»

«I don't know,» Judy said. «I don't know how the fuck I'm going to make rent.»

«You could come work for me, you know,» I said. «Rio helps me out on occasion, but I could use a full-time paralegal.» My public defender caseload had started to pick up once I'd secured a line of funding from a convenient trillionaire. It wasn't enough, not nearly, but it was something I could do to help these poor creatures.

«Noooo,» she whimpered. «I can't do paperwork.»

«It's not hard,» Rio said. «It's just looking stuff up and filling out forms and shit.»

«No, I mean, I literally can't,» she said. «You put a form in front of me and I'll just lock up. I can barely even handle scheduling doctor appointments for hormones, it stresses me out so much.... ah fuck, I forgot again!» she added with a whimper.

«To take your meds?»

«No, to go do the refill thing.» She leaned back in the couch, looked away, and mumbled, «I ran out a month ago.»

«Stars, Jude-» Rio began, but Judy cut him off.

«Don't call me that, it sounds like you're calling me by a guy's name!»

«Fuck, sorry,» he said, his regret obvious on his face. «You know that wasn't what I meant though, right?»

«Y-yeah, just...» She let out a long, frustrated sigh. «I know I shouldn't care, it doesn't sound anything like my deadname, and I even kinda like it as a nickname, but I just can't shake that feeling, y'know?»

«Judy...» I draped a few vines around her shoulder and pulled her in for a hug. «We're here for you. I'm here for you. Is there anything we can do to help?»

«I dunno,» she said, leaning into me. She was so small, and so soft despite the weak Class-G equivalents that apparently she hadn't even been able to take for a month.

She needs someone to take care of her, I thought. My gaze focused on the bag she'd brought with her. «What's in the bag?»

Her face turned red. «Just... things.»

«Judy.» I lifted her chin and made her look right into my eyes, enthralling her just a little. «What's in the bag?»

«...okay, okay, I got kicked out of my apartment,» she admitted, looking away. «I had late fees because I spaced out on paying last month and I didn't pay those on time and...yeah.» Her eyes fell shut, and I saw the will to fight just drop right out of her.

«So you have nowhere to stay?» She shook her head. «Wrong. Come home with me. I have plenty of room, and you know how comfortable my couch is.»

She shook her head again, more forcefully. «No, I don't want to be a burden.»

«Judy, you are my friend, and I care about you.» Friend might have been selling it short; we had been dancing around one another for several months, the flirting rolling in and out like the tide; we'd simply never made anything official. This was a big step, maybe too big a step, but I wasn't about to let this poor Terran get picked up for vagrancy when I could stop it. «Come stay at my place. Absolutely no strings attached. Okay?»

«....okay.»

«Aaaand Super-Mom strikes again,» Rio said, snickering and pounding the rest of his coffee.

---

"I'm not entirely certain I'm convinced," Clavor said, paging through supplementary details on his tablet.

"That my phytotech body isn't meaningfully different from your own?" The arguments had been going on for hours — I'd been carefully constructing each pillar of the argument, one by one, ensuring that each had a strong foundation, that they could collectively serve as the foundation for what was to come next.

"Not so much that as generally," he went on. "Individually, your arguments are all well-constructed, and I can see why they carry such weight with you, and with some younger Affini. It's the synthesis of these arguments where I'm finding difficulty accepting the whole. All these little things can be true without you necessarily being an Affini."

"But we're not arguing about that," I replied. Here it was — the moment when I pivoted away from every single argument I'd been making, when the weight of it all came down squarely on the one issue that really, truly mattered. "We're not here to determine that. That's incidental at best. What we're here to determine is will you allow me to make Judy a proper floret? What you see as an argument over whether or not I'm an Affini is really an argument over whether you can trust me with her. That's all."

"You're attempting to create a distinction without a difference," Tritica countered. "To keep a floret is to be an Affini. You're trying to... what's the Terran phrase?" «Have your lake and drink it too?»

"That's immaterial to the question at the heart of this committee meeting," I said firmly. "To be perfectly honest, it doesn't matter to me whether or not you consider me an Affini, because I know that I am, for all intents and purposes, an Affini. I don't see the point in arguing about it. It doesn't matter. What matters is Judy, and what she wants, and what she wants is to be my floret, to carry my haustoric implant."

"Something that even Camassia isn't certain she can do," Clavor added.

"It remains to be seen whether it's possible or not, yes. Answering that question will have to wait — but it relies on you, collectively, trusting me enough to allow the attempt to even happen. I believe that I've presented sufficient evidence for that, but please listen very carefully to what I'm about to say: Judy is already my floret, in every way that matters but one. You cannot stop that, and you cannot take that away from us." I looked slowly around the room, actively using my eyes to stare at each and every one of the oldblooms around me as I spoke. "All you can do is deny Judy something she deserves. Do you believe that Judy should be punished because I'm not quite the typical Affini? Because I matured a little sooner than might otherwise be expected? Because I found her and claimed her long before you had the chance?"

There was silence in the room.

Had I pushed it too far? I tried to listen to their biorhythms, to get a sense of how they might be leaning in the wake of that, but I'd done my job too well — they were all caught by the same hushed withdrawal, too shocked to let their feelings be known.

I let the silence hang for a moment, hoping I hadn't done the wrong thing, then added, "You don't have to decide whether I'm an Affini or not. All you have to do decide is, 'am I close enough?'"

---

The little Terran in my arms squirmed and leaned back against me, my vines coiling around her arms and legs and holding her in place as my fingers trailed along the smooth, pale skin of her bare thighs. In front of us, the vidscreen was randomly shuffling through a curated playlist of pornography, and Judy's half-lidded eyes were locked on it as I teased her. «How are you feeling?»

«Good,» she whispered. «Still stressed though...»

«Poor Judy...» She'd so valiantly gone out and tried to get a new job after the first two weeks of getting her life back in order, and had spent the next month coming home more and more dejected each day. Each and every day, I reassured her that she wasn't a burden, and fed her a nutritious (if awkward — I wasn't exactly much of a cook) meal before settling down with her to relax. I might not have had any xenodrugs grafted, but the Terrans had some passable drugs of their own, and I'd picked up a small stash of cannabis to help Judy calm herself down. She was pleasantly buzzed now, I could tell, riding the high from a small edible. «Is there anything I can do to distract you?»

«I'm never gonna find a job...» She sniffled. «I'm sorry, maybe not tonight?»

«You are never obligated,» I told her, my hand leaving her thigh at once and turning her sideways, cradling her as if in a wedding carry. I held her tightly and let her cry against my chest, and Everbloom I wish I could have done more for the little creature. «You are never, ever obligated.» Besides, it wasn't as if sexual pleasure was my goal; she'd asked me for it, and I'd been very clear that we would only go there if it wasn't some kind of implicit payback for me offering her shelter. «You are welcome to my body whenever you want it, and you are never obligated when you don't.»

«But I'm taking up so much time and you're spending so much on me and you're giving me a place to live-»

«And you deserve all those things, and more besides,» I said firmly. «You deserve everything you want for yourself, and it does me no harm to see those needs and wants fulfilled.» True, I had to work under the absurdity of a budget, but I had more than enough to absorb whatever demands Judy's needs represented on it.

«No I don't,» she muttered, burying her face in the side of my neck. «I'm garbage.»

«You are not garbage,» I said, stroking her hair gently, «and you absolutely do deserve it.»

«Mmmf.» After a moment of accepting affection, she glanced up, her eyes catching a glimpse of the screen. «Oh wow,» she murmured.

«Hmm?» I looked up as well — I'd honestly forgotten about the pornography, but it had kept on playing and gotten to a new video. In this one, one woman was leading another, on all fours, around on a leash. The sub was gagged with a doggy-bone shaped gag, she had a buttplug tail wiggling around behind her, and she was wearing nothing but a chastity cage. Dirt, I thought, how did that sneak in there? It was very sweet, but probably not ideal for the mood I was trying to create — I thought I'd trimmed all the bondage-related media. «Should I turn that off?»

«...maybe not?» Judy said. She was absolutely fixated on the screen, and I could feel her heartbeat quickening as she watched the sub on the screen play at being a dog, rolling over and having her belly rubbed. Frost me, I thought, but that's adorable. «I, uhm... wow.» Her face had gone bright red, and she was chewing on her lip the way she did when she was really spun up.

«.... ah.» I smiled and squeezed Judy gently. «Does Judy like petplay, hmm? Is this something you'd like to explore?»

«M...maybe?»

I took her chin between thumb and forefinger and directed her gaze back up at me. «Judy, do you want to be my dog?» I said, then immediately thought better of it — she was far too small, too cute, to be a dog. «Do you want to be my sweet little puppy?»

Her eyes lit up suddenly, and her lip began to quiver. I could see the stress, the anxiety all bundled up inside her, and I could see her yearning to let it go. She was so ready to break. All she needed was permission.

«Do you want me to collar you, Judy?» I continued. «To put a leash on you to keep you by my side? Do you want me to train you? Will you sit? Will you roll over? Will you beg?»

«Please!» she whimpered, all but throwing herself against me. «I'm sorry I know it's weird but please, please, I need it, I'm so fucked up but I need it! I didn't know I needed it until right now but-» She started weeping into my chest again, and I stroked her back gently as I let her cry herself out. She needed catharsis, and I would give it to her before we went any further. She sobbed and shook in my arms, and I held her tightly, giving her gentle squeezes with my vines.

«There's nothing wrong with asking for something you need, or even something you want,» I told her. «It won't hurt you, will it?» She shook her head, still unable to look up at me. «Then I'm going to give it to you, with a great big smile on my face. Okay?» She sniffled and nodded, and I took that as permission to do what I did next — I leaned in and whispered, my biorhythms thrumming and my voice as throaty as I could make it, «Good puppy.»

---

The meeting room had been sunlit, but somehow the quality of the light was different as I stepped out into the broad park that adjoined the bureaucratic hub. The light of Nyrina's star tasted different than Sol's, but it was sunlight, fresh and pure and true. I swept my gaze across the open field and quickly found my favorite shade of violet. In no time at all I was settling in next to her. "Hello, my love," I said, my vines teasing at Karyon's.

"Hello, darling," she responded, her vines giving way and entwining with my own. "How did it go?"

"I am cautiously optimistic," I said. "We should have an answer within a few days, I think, but it went well."

"You think you convinced them?"

"I think I made a dent. We'll have to see. But I think they'll see the truth at the heart of it all." I located Judy, out on the field next to a tall cylindrical structure and a handful of Rinans and a single Affini. "It's all for her. What's she doing, anyway?"

"Oh, when we were at the cafe, she made friends with a bunch of Rinans from the local technical institute who are... well, as I understand it, they're trying to see how small a rocket they can make that can still loft a working, trackable satellite into a stable orbit, sort of an engineering competition."

"Rinan speedrunning," I said, my laugh trailing down my vines and right into Karyon's core. "Of course she'd find her way right to them. Dirt, but Rinans are adorable, aren't they?"

"They really are," Karyon agreed. "I almost adopted one, but I was worried I was a touch too young for such an energetic little floret. Judy's much more my speed — she's happy to just sit there and be adorable and absolutely deconstruct the experience of a video game. If I ever go looking for a floret of my own, they're going to be two peas in a pod."

"She is just about perfect, isn't she?" I said. My little pup, loyal and good and sweet and beautiful and happy, happy like she'd never been before. I had done that for her, even before I'd embarked on my own journey, and I was getting better at it by the day. I would make her better still. I would make her absolutely perfect. She deserved nothing less, and I would do anything to make it happen. That had always been true. It was still true, after everything I'd done to myself, after every change I'd wrought. I might not be able to recognize the Terran I'd once been inside myself any longer, but I recognized that.

Whoever you were, Tamara Slaine, Terran, we have that much in common, I thought.

Chapter 24

Notes:

This is a very short but very emotionally intense chapter, so please be in a good place for reading it.

Content Warning: Medical problems, esp. similar to fertility issues.

December, 2558

 

There is nothing so horrible as waiting. Caught in the balance of hope and dread, all you can do is simply exist, and there is nothing you can do to save to wait, wait, wait. Patience was a virtue I had long tried to cultivate, but a handful of decades couldn't prepare me for what I felt as I waited for Camassia. I think a handful of centuries wouldn't have helped; a handful of millennia, perhaps, but I doubted it. The only thing holding me together was Karyon, her vines interwoven with mine and preventing them from completely abandoning the pretense of form.

"She's taking too long," I whispered, not bothering to articulate my mouth.

"Maybe that's a good sign," Karon said, giving me a tender squeeze. She was leaning into me, her core adjoining mine, and her biorhythm was washing over me like waves lapping at the shore. She was worried too, of course, but her worry was for me as well as for Judy. "Maybe it means this time-"

"Don't say it, you'll jinx it."

"...I've never known you to be superstitious," she said curiously.

"When it comes to this, I'll take all the help I can get." The exam room was much the same as it had ever been, though it certainly felt smaller than it used to as far as I was concerned. Add in the tension and it began to feel a touch claustrophobic. "I don't want anything to screw this up for her."

"I know, my love." Karyon coiled a vine around my core and tugged it a few centimeters closer to hers. "I know. And for the record, I feel the same way."

"I don't know what I'll do if-" I froze as the door slid open, revealing Camassia standing behind it. Every single photoreceptor I could bring to bear locked onto her at once, looking for any sign, any hint, any long and forlorn hope that this time, it had worked.

But a simple glance at her, vines drooping and biorhythm muted, told me everything.

"Not again." I let out a plaintive noise and practically dissolved into Karyon's vines. "Not again."

"Again," Camassia said quietly, taking a seat next to me and putting one of her long arms around me and Karyon. "Parenchymic decoherence. I'm sorry." Parenchymic decoherence — in other words, the substance of my core's substrate, the sample that was supposed to integrate with the haustoric implant, had disintegrated and died on a cellular level. Again.

This had been the third attempt; Camassia had one last idea to try to help shore up the core sample, altering its phytochemistry and pumping it full of various pharmaceuticals to try to induce growth before decoherence could set in. Obviously, it hadn't worked. My core wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough.

My poor friends. My anguished biorhythmic wailing was probably overwhelming. Even now, in the depths of my grief, I couldn't quite stop worrying about others, about the impact of my actions. I was Affini enough for that, but not Affini enough to do the one thing my floret wanted in the whole universe. I was a root-rotten frostbitten failure.

"Obviously the artificial parenchyma is the problem," Camassia explained. "I thought I'd corrected for the metabolic differences between natural core tissue and the phytotech substrate, but those differences appear to be quite critical. For obvious reasons, there isn't a lot of research on this subject, but as it is..." Her vines coiled around and intertwined with mine, the best she could do for a hug given the shape (or lack thereof) I was in. "Based on the results of this last experiment, I don't believe there's any way to stabilize a sample of your core in a haustoric implant."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to rage. I wanted to break absolutely everything in the room, then move onto the next room and break everything there, and on and on and on. I wanted anywhere else to put the hurt. I wanted to create some kind of monument, leave some kind of concrete mark upon the world, that reflected the feelings I was drowning in.

But that wasn't who I was I anymore. I had left that part of myself behind, and that last little Terran impulse screaming out of my greymatter was no match for the sheer weight of responsibility that came with being an Affini. So instead, I simply said, "Thank you, Camassia. For trying."

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it work," she said. "I know I said it was unlikely to, but... I still feel as if I got your hopes up only to leave you wanting."

I wound enough of my head together to shake it. "You've done so much for me and Judy," I told her. "Please don't feel bad." I finally wrapped a few vines around her, and slowly began to reshape myself into my usual form.

"I imagine the two of you would like to be alone," she said, "but feel free to stay as long as you need to, and please, if there's anything I can do, let me know." She said this more to Karyon than to me — she was holding herself together much better than I was.

"Of course," Karyon said. "And again, thank you." She held me as Camassia disentangled herself and quietly left the room, and she held me for a long, long time after. We said nothing; there was nothing to say. Our biorhythms washed back and forth as she desperately tried to play counterpoint to my deep, all-encompassing sorrow.

It was over. There was nothing more to do. There was nothing more to try. I couldn't give Judy the haustoric implant she deserved, and I was going to have to live with that. I was going to have to live with having my dreams realized, having my body finally reflect who I was, at the same time that she was going to have suffer having her dreams dashed. I felt disgusted with myself, with my selfishness. The Terran parts of my brain demanded tears, demanded a stomach to turn over in frustrated nausea, demanded hot bile and pumping blood — but I had none of those things. I was an Affini. I was an absolute, abject, total failure of an Affini.

"I don't even know how I'm going to tell her," I whispered, after what felt like hours.

Karyon said nothing for a long moment, but simply cuddled me tighter. Finally, with hesitation in her voice and a faltering biorhythm, she spoke. "There is one thing..."

"Camassia said she'd tried everything," I said. "Please don't give me false hope."

"No, listen," she said, lifting my head, "and look at me with those pretty eyes of yours. There is something we can do. The problem is with your parenchyma, right? It begins to fall apart when it's separated from the whole, because- well, alright, I don't really understand why, just that it doesn't hold together on its own. But that's not a problem other Affini have. That's not a problem my core sample would have."

Every single one of my vines froze, taut as a bowstring, as my biorhythm cratered suddenly. She wanted to take Judy. She was going to take Judy away from me, give her an implant of her own, bind Judy to her instead of to me. Judy would adapt — the haustoric implant would ensure that. Karyon would shape her, Karyon would make whatever changes were necessary. Karyon would be the center of her universe, and she would be happy that way.

And that was the worst part. She'd be happy that way, and because of that, I would let it happen. I felt like my core would split, like my Terran brains would wrench themselves out of me in mindless fury at what I was contemplating. I was an Affini, and the happiness of other sophonts, especially xenosophonts, was more important than anything else. I didn't know how I would live without Judy, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered except Judy's happiness.

"Please don't say that," I whispered. "Please don't." It was so selfish of me to try to hold it all back, to try to prevent it. I would give in, I knew I would, but not without fighting it, even just a little. I loved Judy too much to just let go so quickly.

"What? No, Tam, listen. I've been doing a lot of reading, and I think...well, I know I'm not a veterinarian, and I'm certainly not as brilliant as Camassia, but if the problem is parenchymic instability, why don't we use a piece of my core-"

"Karyon, please-" It was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen. I could see it happening, every single one of my thoughts converging on it. It was coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

"-to give your core sample something to bind to," she finished. "Camassia's been so focused on trying to get your core sample to function on its own, but if mine would thrive naturally, maybe that'd be enough to support yours."

I had never before experienced every single one of my trains of thought derailing at once. The effect was something like a bomb going off inside my head, and for a moment nothing made sense; vision was just a confused jumble of light, sound was meaningless noise, even taste and smell and touch fell to pieces. I finally managed to drag myself back to coherence on the back of a single thought.

"Tam? I know its a lot to ask, but-"

"What are you even talking about? Why would... what do you mean? Put both our core samples in the implant?"

"Yes!" She brightened and leaned in, resting her faux forehead against mine. "I love Judy, and I love you, and nothing would make me happier — but of course, she's your floret, and I feel like I'm imposing to even ask..." She trailed off, unsure, I think, what to say next.

"Okay, hold on. Back up. Explain. Is that even possible?"

"Of course it is," Karyon said. "It's not common, but it's not particularly rare, either. Many Affini share florets, Tam, and they do it by hybridizing their core samples within the haustoric implant. I, uhm...I may have been thinking about this for some time," she added, the vines in her cheeks riffling ever so slightly and shifting the way the light caught them — a very cute way, I had to admit, of simulating a blush. "Judy is such a wonderful little pet, and she warmed to me right from the beginning, and- well, I confess that when I was still entertaining thoughts of domesticating you, I was absolutely planning to take her right alongside you, of course. Even after, if she wasn't already yours, I'd have been all over her in an instant! But, she is yours, and so..."

"...so you were fantasizing," I said, smiling just a little up at her. "You were thinking, hey, wouldn't it be hot if-"

"Y-yes," she admitted, laughing awkwardly. "Reading texts on hybrid implants and just... imagining. And when I was caring for Judy when you were recovering from surgery, I might have indulged in a little bit more imagining. But that's all I meant it to be, really, I would never just bring it up like this, to try to force my way into the relationship between someone else and their pet. Even after we began living together, it felt like it was too much to ask. But then you had your difficulties with the implant, and it just occurred to me that...maybe it'd be a little less selfish to ask, if it was something I could give you."

"...and you really think it could work?" After three failures, I wasn't sure I could handle a fourth, but if there was even the slightest chance that this would work, that this could give Judy what she wanted...

"I don't know," Karyon said, "but I think it's worth a try. And Tam? Even if you had bloomed Affini to begin with — or even if I'd found Judy first, and she was my pet rather than yours — please believe me when I say that I would want this anyway. I love you, and I love Judy, and I love the way we share our lives, and I want to keep on sharing myself with the two of you."

I believed her. "I love you too, Karyon. And I know Judy does too." My voice, my biorhythms, were still shaky. I wasn't sure I could stand, let alone walk. I wasn't sure about this hybrid implant idea — not about the idea itself, but about the possibility that it, too, might fail. But I had to try. For Judy, and for Karyon too, now, I had to try. "So...we should probably go get Camassia, then?"

Notes:

And with the penultimate chapter out of the way, next week is the conclusion. Hope to see you all there!

Chapter 25

Notes:

Content Warning: A lot of sweet, gentle lewdness with a side of exhibitionism, public display, and good helping of (mostly offscreen) public sex.

April, 2560

 

«Ohhhh! What a perfect little creature! Just look at you!» I heard the sound of Judy's laughter from the living room as I continued to fill the cooler, carefully packing each and every entree and snack I'd prepared. I wasn't the only one responsible for cooking, of course, but I couldn't resist going a little overboard.

«You say that every time you see her, you know,» I called out. «You're starting to get predictable, Ely.»

«Oh hush! Separia says it's important to give Terrans positive reinforcement, and I'm reinforcing that she's positively adorable!» She laughed and came into the kitchen, carrying Judy with her and swinging her back and forth — more giggles from my perfect little floret.

«Well, you do have a point, I suppose,» I said, smiling and reaching out to stroke her hair while my vines finished the work of loading the cooler. Judy was sprawled lazily in Elymia's arms, perfectly medicated into the exact state of calm she needed before a big event. Even just a few months ago, I'd have needed my tablet out to check the exact details to confirm that, but I'd been getting better at using her physiological responses to gauge the implant's effectiveness. I could see her most common impulsive thoughts as they began to form, now, and I could watch them fade like morning mist before Judy even realized she was having them.

No more anxiety. No more appointment brain. No more intrusive thoughts that told her she didn't deserve good things. Just the docile eyes of a floret, and the lazy smile that came of affection. Everbloom, I thought, as I ran my thumb along the curve of her tiny little cheek, she really is perfect.

(Not really, of course. There was still so much I could do, so much I would do now that I could. The more I learned, the more I knew just how much further I had to go. But Judy didn't need to worry about that. I had long since decided that she would never have to worry again.)

«Mmm....Miss....?» She fell so easily into my eyes.

«Yes, flower?»

«I love you~» She giggled and let her eyes fall shut. Elymia's biorhythm went into a vibrato, and she practically shook with sheer delight.

«And I love you, my sweet, darling, little puppy,» I said, scritching her behind her ears. Her tail began to wag, and her tongue lolled out of her mouth in sheer bliss.

"Ooooh, I'm so jealous!" Elymia said. "I want a floret!"

"You'll find one," I reassured her. "There are plenty of Terrans out there, and even if they're claiming to be independent, even if they insist upon it as loudly as they can, trust me, some of them are just trying to cover up what they really want. And it's usually pretty obvious."

"I knoooow, but I want one," Elymia pouted. It really was a very good replication of the Terran expression. She'd clearly been practicing. "They're so precious!"

"Tell you what," I said, gently extracting Judy from Elymia's vines and coiling my own around her, "I'll introduce you to Ophrys and her floret today. I've told you about her and the Terran she's been after, haven't I?"

"Oooh, your super cool co-worker?!" Elymia's eyes lit up.

"Mmmhmm. I have absolutely no doubt she'd love to tell you all about her new floret and how she went about luring her in. But we should get going, Karyon's probably done setting up by now, and everyone's going to start arriving soon."

"Right, right! Should I carry the cooler?"

"Would you?" I could carry it and Judy easily enough, but Elymia clearly wanted to help out, and it'd let me devote just a little bit more of my attention to Judy — and she deserved every bit of attention she could get from me. Before too long, we were out the door and riding the elevator down the residential tower, the panoramic view out the window of the blue-green Punchbowl as scenic as it ever was. Dozens of white sails could be seen here and there as boats plied their way back and forth over its cool surface; later today, there was supposed to be a regatta, I vaguely remembered. Everyone was finding their own way to celebrate the day.

«Miss?» Judy was stirring in my arms, clinging to my vines and making the sweetest little puppy-dog eyes up at me. «Can Celeste please spend the night tonight?»

«I certainly don't have an objection,» I said, smiling and booping her cute little nose, «but we'll have to ask Mx. Senna very politely, won't we?» Senna always got a real kick out of florets asking favors, especially when they were nicely medicated. I, meanwhile, always got a real kick out of seeing Celeste having her way with my little Judypup. Smothering her with her pillowy thighs while Judy went down on her, tail wagging happily. Playing with her puppybits until Judy acted like she was practically on Class-W xenodrugs. Mounting her and pressing her into the bed with her weight as she slowly and methodically pounded her into submission. Dirt, but they were adorable together.

«Yes, Miss,» she said, giggling and nuzzling into my chest. Oh, and how lovely it was to hear her call me that. It was still novel, even after almost a year since we'd started — Karyon knew what she wanted, and it was better for Judy to have consistency. The Tam I used to be didn't know what she was missing.

The park in Nanaimo we'd chosen for our celebration wasn't far by train, and it looked as though plenty of others had had the same idea. There were already several grills going, florets running happily to and fro, their Affini looking on indulgently, and even what looked like a pickup baseball game on the far side of the park. The sea breeze left the April day pleasantly warm, something like what climate scientists said was a perfectly ordinary summer day prior to the Collapse. The grass and trees certainly seemed quite happy with it.

Even with all the activity, it didn't take long to spot Karyon. She'd spread out a few blankets and set up a little tent in case any florets wanted some shade. "Tam!" she called out, waving, and before long I was settling in next to her and transferring Judy over to her lap.

«Miss, Miss, Miss!» Judy cuddled up to Karyon and began giving her puppykisses.

«My darling little Judypup!» she said, laughing and giving her a good, long, heavy stroke before settling in to scritch at her ears. «And my beloved Tam as well. Oh, what misery it is, being parted from you!»

«You left maybe half an hour before we did,» I said, leaning into her and petting Judy.

«Half an hour?! Oh, however did I endure?» We were absolutely intolerable together, I knew, but we were making up for lost time — and, for that matter, for time yet to come that I would necessarily have to miss. We might have been unified, but there was very likely a hard time limit on how long we could be. It wasn't something that occupied my every waking thought, but it was there nevertheless, an ambient sense that we had to make the most of the time we had together. It was, I thought, one of the last Terran things I had yet to shed, one that I perhaps never would.

«Ooof!» Elymia let out a very theatrical sigh as she set the stasis cooler down and joined us on the blanket. «Awww, how cute, a floret and her owners. I should take a picture!»

«You absolutely should,» Karyon agreed. «One can never have enough pictures of this sweet little thing.»

«Oh, but wait a moment,» I said, grinning and tracing a vine around Judy's collarbone and down her arm. With its cilia, I felt for the telltale heartbeat, the taste of the skin just above the vein — ah, I thought, right there. Another vine slid into place, this one topped with a brilliant orange blossom that clustered tightly around a hypodermic thorn, wet with antiseptic nectar. With the most delicate care, I pierced Judy's skin, sliding the thorn into her vein, and expressed just a little bit of Class-A xenodrugs into her system. As the hypodermic thorn slid out, I tensed the flower and shook free the hemostatic pollen, which mixed with the gooey nectar and staunched what little blood might have come with it.

The effects were near-instant; once the agent in Judy's veins reached her heart, it rapidly spread throughout her body, and she let out a soft moan as the sensations of the affection we were giving were amplified and refracted across her nervous system. I could actually see the change taking place, the shifts in her microexpressions, and it never ceased to be astonishing. It gave me such joy to be able to do this for her.

«Oh, well done,» Karyona said, smiling and kissing me. «You're getting really good at that!»

«Well, this perfect little flower gives me lots of opportunity to practice — don't you, Judypup?» I slid a vine up under her crop top and began playing with a particular spot in the small of her back that absolutely drove her wild, and right on cue she let out a loud moan that I was certain everyone in the park heard.

«There, perfect!» Elymia said, laughing as she took the picture with her tablet. «I'll send that along to the two of you!»

«That one's definitely going in Floret Chat,» I said to Karyon. «Do you want to do the honors?»

«Oh, I wouldn't dream of depriving you,» Karyon replied.

«Ugh, I'm so jealous,» Elymia said as she tapped away at her tablet. «You two are so cool and you have such a perfect floret. It's enough to make a girl wilt!» She reached over and scritched right at the base of Judy's tail, drawing another long moan from my sweet little pet.

«Well, there's going to be plenty of ostensibly independent sophonts around today,» I said. «Why don't you go and have a look, and see if you can't find any likely candidates?»

«Oooh, that's a good idea,» she said, nodding. «Maybe I will! Future floret, here I come!» She was up and practically running in seconds, and Karyon and I couldn't help but laugh.

"She's going to make some sweet little Terran very happy one day," I said.

"I still think her personality is more suited to a Rinan," Karyon replied, "but the core wants what the core wants."

We spent a while simply cuddling on the blanket, Judy suspended in our vines and squirming helplessly as we pleasured her. More and more sophonts began to trickle into the park, and it wasn't long before more of our party joined us.

"Tam!" Vanda emerged from the throng, scruffy little Lysander in her arms and another Affini, who walked with a hunched gait and whose foliage seemed to droop off them in long, hanging sheaves, in tow. "There you are!" «And here you go, sweetie, go say hi to Judy,» she added, setting Lysander on the ground and giving him a gentle push forward. He stumbled, already adorably baked on, if I had to hazard a guess based on his pupillary response, Class-E at a minimum.

«Heyyy, Judy,» he mumbled, leaning up against me to steady himself.

«Oh heyyy Lysander,» Judy mumbled back, giggling. I spun off a thought process to listen to their conversation, in case they needed me, while I continued listening to Vanda, who was making introductions.

"This is Seduma Hedychium, Second Bloom, it/its — it'll be joining us at OTD starting next week!"

"Oh, welcome aboard!" Karyon said, offering a vine. "Karyon Sparaxis, First Bloom, she/they."

I did likewise. "Tamara Slaine, Hapaxanthic Bloom, she/her."

"Hapaxanthic?" it said, entwining a few of its vines with ours momentarily. "Ah, yes! Vanda was telling me about you! A very interesting case."

"An interesting case, am I?" I said, smiling just a little sardonically with both my face and my biorhythms — I'd gotten passably decent at that kind of stereo emoting.

"Well, one doesn't often hear about- actually, I suppose I should start with, is it alright for me to ask about this, or would you prefer not to talk about it?"

"Oh, I'm not sensitive, ask away," I said. Even if this went poorly, it didn't matter — what mattered was in my lap, mewling in delight. My core shivered just to think of her, and I gave a little pulse with my biorhythm, watching her body react to it almost as if she were a part of me. In a way, she was. «Judypup, aren't you going to introduce yourself?»

«Hmmm?» Her eyes swam in her head as she lifted it to look. «O-oh...hi... uhm... I'm... Judy Slaine-Sparaxis, First Floret, she/her.» She giggled and buried her red little face in my chest again.

«Well hello! I'm Seduma Hedychium, Second Bloom, it/its!» It reached in and gave Judy a few gentle strokes with a clump of vines. "What a lovely floret. A hybrid implant, I take it?"

Karyon nodded. "A little bit of both of us."

"That is so romantic," it said, taking a seat next to me on the blanket.

"These two have been absolutely inseparable from the moment Tam came on board," Vanda said, settling in next to Karyon. "If Tam hadn't been, well, Tam, there would have absolutely been an office domestication betting pool about the two of them."

"Oh please," I said, giving my biorhythm an amused flutter, "we both know Karyon would never agree to be my floret." That got a laugh from everyone.

We chatted idly for a while after that, and I told Seduma about some of the surgeries I'd been through, and what a bear of an argument it had been to convince the Medical Board that I could be trusted with a floret. We didn't just talk about that, of course; it was also very curious about Judy, especially when it learned that Judy was into speedrunning.

"Oh no, now you've done it," Vanda said, laughing.

"No no, tell me, tell me!" Seduma said, its biorhythms rippling with eager energy and its vines taut and ready. "I want to know all about it! Terrans have such fascinating cultural practices! Like, for example, did you know about limericks?! They're such a fascinating and adorable little structure of rhyming couplets-"

"I think Tam is probably quite aware of limericks, Seduma," Vanda said, cutting it off with a gentle tone.

I, of course, couldn't resist. I gave a theatrical throat-clearing and recited:

«There once was a lawyer named Rex

With minuscule organs of sex.

Arraigned for exposure,

He maintained with composure,

"De minimis non curat lex."»

Seduma clapped its hands excitedly. "Oh very good, very good! Did you make that up on the spot?!"

"No, no," I said, laughing. "It's Blooms old, but the good ones stick around forever."

"Ah, ah, still, very good! I don't get it at all, but very good!"

I had a few more to offer it, but we eventually managed to entice Seduma away from talk of limericks with talk of speedrunning once again. We even switched back to English, so Judy could have input.

«See, the game updates 60 times a second, and every update is a frame, so when I say Persimmon Skip 2 requires multiple frame-perfect inputs I mean that I have specific windows of 1/60th of a second where I have to get all my inputs exactly right!» Not even being high could stop my precious little Judypup when she got excited about speedrunning. I was so proud of her.

«Intriguing! And this is difficult for Terrans, I take it?» Seduma said, hanging on her every word.

«I think like, maybe five sophonts have ever pulled it off in a run?» Judy said, leaning back against my foliage and rolling her shoulders a little to make a little nest for herself. «We thought it was TAS-only until like, three years ago. I wasn't the first to do it, that was SyntheticToast, but I was the first to get it in a real run. That's how I got my first Top 3 PB!»

«Ohhh, yes, I know about PB! That goes on sandwiches.»

Judy broke down giggling, and it took her almost a minute to recover. No one dared to interrupt — she was being far too adorable for that. «No, silly!» she finally said, still laughing, «it means personal best.»

«Ohhhh, I see, I see. So, your PB is one of the three fastest, then?»

Judy took a moment to collect herself, waiting for the giggles to die down. «Who's got two thumbs and the Mecha March 3 world record?» She gestured at herself with both thumbs and said, «This girl!»

«Oh my, the world record?» Seduma looked appropriately impressed, but then, I think it was mostly reacting to how incomparably cute she was.

«Which is to say,» I clarified, «the Protectorate-wide record. It's trivial to maintain leaderboards across that distance now, and my Judypup has beaten Mecha March 3 faster than anyone else in the Protectorate! Which means, unless someone's running the game outside the Protectorate and we haven't heard about it, which I think is pretty unlikely, my little puppy has beaten Mecha March 3 faster than anyone in the known universe!» I tickled her mercilessly, and set her back to helpless giggling as everyone present admired what a talented and perfect little floret my Judypup was.

«Oh, did I miss speedrunning talk again?» The part of my mind that had noticed Ophrys coming helpfully informed the rest of me that she'd clearly had her foliage redone recently, bright and vibrant with a few new grafts of Terran flowers she'd discovered and integrated into her flashy personal style.

«I think Seduma will be happy to fill you in,» I said, turning to smile up at her. «Looking lovely, as usual~»

«I don't know what you mean,» Ophrys said, winking at me. «Seduma, was it?» They introduced themselves while Ophrys set her floret down on the blanket, and I immediately extended a vine and pulled her close. Her jet-black latex skin was slick and warm from the sun, and she stumbled just a little on the stiletto heels that had been integrated into her feet.

«Hello, Elena~» I purred, lifting her chin to make her look up at me and ensnaring her with my eyes almost immediately.

«Hi, Miss Tam,» she responded dreamily. I teased her just a little, my vine tracing the line around her face where the integrated latex skin replacement terminated and her natural skin took over; she shuddered and nearly fell right into me.

«Hey Elena!» Judy said. «Miss, can I cuddle with her before Miss Ophrys gets her set up?»

«Of course, petal!» I set her down gently and let her glom onto Elena, nuzzling into her neck. They'd gotten so close since Elena agreed to be Ophrys' floret — not so close as she and Celeste were, but frequent cuddlebuddies at get-togethers and whenever me and Ophrys quietly arranged for them to both come with us to the office on the same day. They enjoyed one another for a few moments before Ophrys turned her attention back to Elena.

«Alright, flower,» she said, reaching down and tracing a particular shape on Elena's back. «Are you ready?»

«Mmm...always, Doyenne,» Elena moaned softly.

«Have fun~» Judy said, giggling and giving Elena a kiss before Ophrys gently pulled her away. Vines coiled around the latex-clad floret, moving her limbs and teasing her artificial skin. I watched as Elena twitched and shuddered, watched the telltale signs of her implant flooding her system with Class-A xenodrugs, watched her lose herself in sensation. Ophrys gently pushed her down to her knees, tracing long and complicated figures on Elena's body, to which she responded as if programmed — which, I knew, she had been.

«Are you ready~?» Ophrys repeated, kneeling down behind Elena and whispering in her ear.

«Mmmmf! Yes! Yes! Please, Doyenne!» Elena whimpered helplessly, her eyes rolling as she desperately arched her back, staring up into Ophrys' eyes.

«Good girl. Now freeze.»

With a sudden jerk, Elena stopped moving. Part of it was hypnotic, of course, but her implant would now be dosing her on Class-M xenodrugs as well, locking her into that position, back arched and arms contorted in sheer pleasure, just where Ophrys had placed them. She curled possessively behind Elena, her foliage spreading out in a colorful canopy to shield her from the sun. Now that they were unnecessary to keep her in place, her vines mostly retreated, and with one hand she gave Elena's hair a few gentle strokes. «Good girl, Elena. Good girl.»

Ophrys had done an astonishing job with Elena, I had to admit. Her anxiety, her tension, her fear of her own nature were all gone, replaced with an absolute joy in being displayed, being teased and toyed with, and being absolutely powerless to stop it. I could never have managed such a transformation, but then, that was what three Blooms of practice gave you. Elena Boquila, Third Floret, was a masterwork, and I was jealous of the skill that had reshaped her.

«Oh, that was a good one, Ophyrs,» Karyon said, and I could feel her biorhythm dancing with pure admiration right alongside mine. Everbloom, but we fit so well together. No wonder our friends made fun of us for taking so long to officially unify. «A beautiful pose, such tension.»

«I couldn't agree more,» I said, tracing along the contours of Elena's body with a vine — Ophrys had given us standing permission to tease Elena when she was frozen like this, and I could just imagine how wonderful it must have felt for the little floret, loaded up with Class-A the way she was. «I never really considered the potential of Class-M xenodrugs until I saw the way you use them. Getting the accreditation to graft them would probably take years, but, I am quite tempted. What do you think, Judypup, hmmm?» My vine slipped down to stroke Judy, who was lying on her side with her head in Elena's lap.

«Mmmm, you can do whatever you want to me, Miss,» she murmured happily as she rubbed her face up against Elena's soft, latex-coated thighs.

«I think they'd make a lovely pair,» Ophrys mused. «Just let me know if you do end up pursuing it. There's nothing quite like a collaboration~»

We flirted back and forth, on that topic and a few others, for at least half an hour, long enough for the baseball game on the far side of the park to come to a close, and the participants and fans alike began to fan out across the park to join in the festivities. It wasn't long before three of them, two in Nanaimo Otters uniforms, joined our little party.

«Well I see you've gotten yourself all set up,» Jill said, leaning over and grinning in Elena's face. «Whaaaat, not gonna say hello? Hey all,» she added, glancing up at us. «And hey, Judypup!» She leaned over a bit further, bat resting on her shoulder, and rubbed Judy's tummy.

«Awoo!»

«Hello, Jill. How'd your game go?» I asked — she was sweaty, and her uniform had a big dirt stain running up the side, so clearly it had been a fun one.

Before she could answer, Rebel, their plumage bright violet and and green in the Otters' colors, broke in with, «This bitch right here not only knocked an RBI double, she got the other team's catcher's number.» They popped the top of the stasis cooler and extracted a beer, which they opened with a fizz-pop.

«Hey, what can I say, girls appreciate a good gun show,» she said, flexing her free arm and making her thick bicep stand out. The extra six inches of height, she'd put on with Class-Gs, but the muscles were all hard work, and she was very proud of them. For my part, I was a bit flattered that was she was filling my old shoes — as Rio had said at a game night last year, there should always be at least one muscle mommy around.

«Yeah, well, boys do too,» Rio said, stripping his uniform shirt off and hugging Rebel from behind. «So finish that beer, you and your gun owe me a post-game fuck.»

«Calm your shit down, bro,» Rebel said, winking and taking a very slow, very loud sip. «Isn't thinking about baseball supposed to cool that off?»

«Fuck you. No, wait. Fuck me.»

«Oh, go on, you two,» I said, pushing them gently towards the tent and its waiting stash of pillows. «I know it's probably been at least six hours since you did it last. Here, Jill, sit down, cool off a little.» One of my vines grabbed another beer from the cooler and passed it to her before I sealed it back up.

«Much obliged,» she said, popping it open and taking a long pull before settling down on the blanket, leaning back to rest her head on Elena's free thigh. «Aaaaah yeah. Hell of a nice day, isn't it?»

«With so many adorable little flowers sheltering beneath my foliage,» Ophrys said, beaming with sheer flirtatious delight, «how could it not be?»

«And what a lovely view.» I wasn't just talking about the Punchbowl, deep blue in the sun, the seawall to the north no longer the dingy grey of institutional neglect but bright and colorful, a floral mural reinforced with coral that stretched out into the water, tapering off to join up with the mainland in the distance. Before us, on the broad field of the park, were hundreds of Terrans, hundreds of Affini, all intermingling and exchanging affection in one way or another. It was the promise of the Compact in miniature, writ in hugs, cuddles, kisses, gentle strokes of a vine, the soft moans of florets in the throes of xenodrug-laced ecstasy.

It was a beautiful, perfect day, and I was sharing it with my wonderful friends, my beloved partner, and my perfect little floret. And if the world I lived on wasn't perfect yet, well, it had only been six short years since the signing of the Human Domestication Treaty. We had certainly come a long way, but we would never leave such important work unfinished.

But today was a day for relaxation and celebration. We spent long hours out there, drinking in the nourishing light of the sun and the nourishing sight of so many happy sophonts. Judy migrated back and forth between Elena's lap and mine every so often as Ophrys readjusted her position, giving Elena brief moments of mobility to squirm and moan desperately before being frozen again in a new pose. When Senna finally arrived with their gaggle of florets, the fun and clamor both redoubled; Celeste wasted no time, pouncing on Judy at once, pinning her to the ground and straddling her. They were so adorable together!

They eventually made their way to the tent, and I let them play while the conversation carried on, and as friends and neighbors dropped by to say hello. Tecta even came by with Clara, who was still scratched and bruised from whatever fun she and her owner had been having last night. Anthemis brought Sammy, who promptly joined the floret cuddle-puddle centered on a still-frozen Elena. The sun made its long arc across the southern sky, and we Affini slowly shifted to keep the shade on them as our conversations turned and twisted. We discussed all sorts of things, from the cute and silly things our florets had done recently to pending cases for those few sophonts the Office of Transitional Decarceralization was still directly overseeing — very soon now, we'd be switching over to standby procedure as we were folded into the Bureau of Terran Wellness, on call in case any Terran traumatized by the carceral system required specialist intervention or aid. Our job would never truly be over so long as any Terran touched by that wretched system was still alive, but the majority of the work had long since been settled, with those Terrans unable to care for themselves placed in homes with their new owners, happily adjusting to life as pets.

Everbloom, but I loved my job.

Eventually, as the afternoon wore on into evening, I found myself in conversation with Seduma once again. "You know, I never got the chance to ask," it said, "what precisely you meant by Hapaxanthic Bloom when you introduced yourself."

"Ah, well." I touched my chest, and unwove my vines just a little to expose the slightest glimpse of my core. "I still have Terran greymatter in here, you know. Eventually, it's going to deteriorate, and eventually it'll die, and when it does, I'm going to die too."

"You're not going to rebloom?" it said, shocked at the idea.

"Well, the greymatter doesn't have a choice, and despite all you see, and despite how much the phytocortex is networked in with it, I — the sophont you're talking to — still am that greymatter in large part. When it goes, I go. Ergo, Hapaxanthic Bloom."

"I see, I see," it said, nodding. "But that's so sad!"

I shrugged, a gentle riffling of my vines and my biorhythm. "It's something I've accepted. I have one lifetime to live, and I get to share it with Karyon and Judy. What more could I ask for?" There was more to it, of course — there was still enough Terran left in me to fear death on a level that could never really be ignored, but it wasn't so defining, so gut-wrenching a dread, as it had once been. I had done what I had bloomed to do, and I had given Judy what she wanted most and what she deserved. Everything else, every moment I had from now until the last neuron fired, was merely the afterglow of that monumental achievement.

"And the rest of you will just... wilt?"

"Maybe. Maybe not," I said, a bit mischievously. "Not even Camassia knows for certain if the phytotech she used is close enough to the genuine article to support independent life. But then, you know, it's funny, this is actually sort of the root of the argument I spent years making."

"Oh? I've heard a lot about it, of course, from Vanda, but I'd be curious to hear your take on it as well!"

"Well, you know I used to be a lawyer, right? And what a lawyer is, and all that?" When it nodded, I continued. "So, I have experience making convincing arguments, and I know what to rely on and when, and while this is a very straightforward one, it's also fundamentally an emotional one, so I couldn't rely on it, even if it was ultimately what we were all arguing about. It's very simple: we Affini bloom from xenoflora all the time, right?"

"Oh yes," Seduma said, nodding along. "Certainly. Especially so far from the Core Worlds!"

"Right! So..." I paused, my face articulating into a wide grin and my biorhythm rising to a crescendo. "Why all the fuss now that an Affini's blooming from xenofauna? And if one does — if there is another nascent Affini somewhere in all this, who goes on to bloom in their own right — well, I know they're going to bloom into a good world, one I had a vine, however small, in making better. And they will have friends ready-made, here to greet them and help them learn and grow as they've helped me learn and grow, and in time they'll go on to make this world and other worlds even better. Maybe there'll be a bit of me mixed in, just from how closely intertwined we are, and maybe there won't be. I don't know. No one does. And that's fine, I mean, who doesn't love a good mystery? It's going to have a happy ending either way."

There were other conversations to have after that, and florets to play with, and independent sophonts to tease. Jill wandered off with a particularly cute floret who couldn't resist a tall, strong, sweaty butch; Rio and Rebel returned again and again to the tent, joining me and Celeste in throwing a frisbee for Judy to chase during their inter-coital breaks. As afternoon slipped into evening, Karyon and I found our laps playing host to a pair of very amorous florets, tired from the day's exertions but still very full of love and affection they felt impelled to share with one another. I caught every little microexpression, every shiver, every subvocal gasp as they touched one another; their psyches spilled out in front of me like a textbook showing me their thoughts, their needs, their desires, such that I knew precisely where they would reach out and touch one another even before the idea occurred to them. It was like their lovemaking was an echo of their love. It was beautiful.

But time, alas, time is the one thing we hadn't yet worked out how to domesticate. Our vines subtly began to pack things up as our friends and their florets drifted off to their own homes, and before long we were carrying Celeste and Judy back to the transit station — Senna had, of course, agreed to the sleepover.

Judy stirred from the impromptu nap she'd fallen into, sleepy little tuckered-out puppy she was, and looked up at me with love, nay, with worship in her eyes. I met her gaze and she instantly fell into it, her implant gently assisting. "She's so perfect," I whispered to Karyon.

"She is," Karyon replied, leaning gently into me. Our vines intertwined, and almost in unison we reached into one another and gently traced a little heart on each others' cores. "And so are you." She always said that.

"And you," I replied, as I always did. A moment later I added, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For her. For making this possible." I said it so often. I could never say it often enough.

Karyon smiled, and I felt it through the vine I still had coiled around her core, and through the vine she had coiled around mine, warm and bright and full of love. "Thank you for sharing her with me."

She always said that, too.

Notes:

Thank you all for joining me on this journey, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!

If you're still dipping your toes into Human Domestication Guide (and, if so, whoops, you found the advanced 301-level discourse fic a little ahead of time!), I'd like to throw a few recommendations out there. If you haven't read the original Human Domestication Guide, I can't recommend it enough. Darkfalli's Wellness Check is a perennial favorite and the fic that hooked me on HDG as a setting in the first place. AsphodelVeil's Nurture & Acquisitions is the HDG fic that made me want to start writing HDG myself instead of just passively consuming it, and comes with the bonus of every chapter having a fic recommendation of its own, which will really get you going down that rabbithole. Finally, if you'd like to know more about Human Domestication Guide, or just chat with authors and other folks interested in the setting, come check out the HDG Community Discord!

Once again, thank you to everyone reading and especially to everyone who commented. I may not reply often (hello social anxiety I definitely need a Class-E for!), but I read every single comment, usually the minute I get the email notification about it, and it means the world to me to have elicited such a response from a reader. I hope to see you all on my next project, The Floret in the Mirror, coming soon-ish to a screen near you.