“Hibiscus.”

“Hibiscus. -Hibby-!”

It was, perhaps, a common joke among independent sophonts of the Affini compact that Affini could blend in just fine with the nearby trees and flowers.

For all appearances right now, a very long, skinny fir tree--albeit, perhaps, with uncharacteristic vines--was wound and bent over as if battered by the wind, its ‘branches’ swatting at a pile of flower petals. 

The pile of flower petals--a veritable bush, rustles a bit under the assault. It’s perhaps four, five feet tall--absurd, of course, for a shimmying pile of petals, but reasonable compared to the fir tree. Wide, though. Practically an orb, really.

“Mrmrbl.” The reply comes from the slowly unfurling bundle of leaves, slowly raising to...eight or nine feet, perhaps? The fir still has height on it, and the ‘bush’ appears more like a long, rainbow coat of tropical flowers, with a wide brim hat atop of it. A bark-like face forms underneath it.

“Abby,” The shorter Affini says. “I’m /absolutely/ sure we’re not there yet.” The taller fir tree’s needles flare outwards for a moment, like a puffed up hedgehog, before settling down. 

There is some faint movement beneath the coat of petals, as the fir tree resolves into something more humanoid. Not much more, but at least twin-legged, two-armed. The needles even form something akin to a hairstyle framing a long, leaf-shaped bark face.

The expression is of vague consternation with an old, incorrigible friend.

“Hibby. Look at me. Look at me, with your--yes. You’re coming to help us rescue a bunch of cuties from some sort of Terran space station...ship...thing? You remember this, yes?” The pained tone. The exasperation in how the needles flick in and out. 

“Yes, Abby. I know.” A single arm rises within the long rainbow coat, a chromatic sleeve indicating the rest of the room. Possibly a dozen Affini for a space station less than a kilometer long. Probably too many, really. Two of them are finishing and ordering the necessary paperwork to process the impending sophonts and florets. “I’m here for it.”

“You -are- here for it, Hibiscus Dhoop, Third Rebloom,”

“Fourth.” Hibiscus even takes the time to curl out a vine holding four flower petals, for demonstration.

“Fourth? Dirt, when did THAT hap--”

“Oh, it was a few months ago. Little mishap on a feralist ship, and I’ve been putting it off, so I thought, y’know, time to be a bit responsible and just rebloom already.”

“Why didn’t you bring it up?” ‘Abby’’s needles bristle. 

“I figured I’d wait till you wanted to admonish me with my full name.” The flower petals undulate, like giggles. “Which, see? I must be doing better! You’d normally have found some excuse to get on my case much faster. I daresay this is proof I’ve been behaving, Abby.” Hibiscus giggles warmly. 

There’s a pause. ‘Abby’ compresses herself a foot into what is either near tears or helpless laughter. Neither is sure which it is, before she stops.

“ANYWAY. Hibiscus Dhoop, Fourth Rebloom. The problem is not that you are ‘here for it’. The problem is who else is ‘here for it’.” The Af-fir-ni crosses her branches, and for good measure, wraps her vines around her arms to also aggressively cross those. It is time to send a stern message. 

Hibiscus Dhoop’s petals undulate a little. “Abby, Abiete, love, you’re better than that!” Petals waggle. “Everyone in this room knows Terrans, knows what they’re doing. You worry too much! Everycutie on that station is in the best of vines here.” 

Abiete’s needles bristle again, and there is a huff. A wooden hand moves to part the flowery coat. Another hand to part the outer layer of branches, and then a series of vines thrust within to hoist Hibiscus up to her full height, and then to open that inner chamber, before...

To the dozen other Affini in the room, from the leafy, bushy form of Hibiscus Dhoop has birthed a... smaller Hibiscus Dhoop. Though, in mere moments, it becomes clear that this is a girl in some sort of full-body--almost absurdly fluffy, like one of those stuffed animals-- outfit patterned cutely after her Affini. A Terran. She plops harmlessly on the floor, slowly uncurling and rising to her almost five feet of height.

“Hibby.”

“oh, are we there yet because--”

Hibiscus’s petals curl a little. “She has practice! She used to work on Terran ships all the time. Besides, she--”

“-Hibby-.”

And then Pistil Dhoop, Second Floret, pulls the hood off her faux-Affini-- ‘kigurumi’, Abiete remembers-- and an almost fluffy set of green curls pops out. Her eyes---wait, no. Somehow, her curls still cover her eyes entirely. She looks around as if she can see regardless, and then resumes eating a small cookie.

“oh um you two are busy but in a second id like to--”

“...Abby, how did you know?” Hibiscus huffs, slowly reclosing her petals around herself. Pistil stretches a little. There is a tiny yawn. She wanders off just a little, looking at the equipment. 

“Hibiscus Dhoop. I have known you for two of my blooms now. Your biorhythm does not, by any means, make a quiet ‘nyem nom nyem’ noise.”

“well i was going to talk about why but actually i think maybe you should look at the screen because it looks like theyre sending a shuttle over to us which is actually really surprising but we can talk about that later because--”

“Listen, things happen when you rebloom, and it was completely possible that--look, can we talk about this later?” Hibiscus squats down, forming herself into a smaller bushy orb. It is almost huffy. 

“We are going to talk about this later, Hibiscus. ..though, shouldn’t the heat of her body have been picked up on the--never mind,” Abiete says, choosing--for now, not to indulge the floret. Pistil Dhoop, Abiete well knew, would get exactly one sentence out, but that sentence would be a lifetime long, and there were important things to--

“...So is the little shuttle firing at us? No? It--doesn’t even have weapons, it looks like. Well, that’s delightful.” She slides herself over by her vines to read another screen. “And according to heat signatures, there’s nearly two thousand more on that--one  thousand?? One sixty? Wait, what’s going on on that station? Are they all escaping somehow? Or--oh, goodness, no, they can’t be --wait. What’s that shiny toy of theirs even doing?”

“An escape pod just launched out the back, should we go get it?” A ruffle of moss and sakura petals from another of Abiete’s colleagues. 

“In a -moment-, we need to catch that shuttle first, and then--”

The Primo Aeternus Quinque, it turns out, has at least five seams. Seams that start to glow as previously hidden engines start firing. While clumsy, it’s almost like watching a shiny, silver-colored orange peel apart. Or, one might suppose, a particularly few-leaved lotus.

The five ships of the Quinque, now separated, point in opposite directions, and proceed to jump into hyperspace. Every plant in the room is struck with opinions.

“...Wait. Why didn’t anyone suppress the area?”

“Why would we? No Terran ship that large can jump.”

“That’s five ships!”

“..We know that -now-! ...Wait. They’re back...?”

A few moments later, perhaps a few thousand kilometers off in another direction, the ships return.

The ‘ship’, even by Terran standards, is strange. Terran ships were small, and adorable, and this one was...well. 

Abiete crosses her vines. “So, they’ve just taken five ‘quality’ Terran ships--”

“Oh? How do you tell the ‘quality’ ones? They’re all so tiny and fragile.”

“The ‘good ones’ are shinier,” Abiete explains. “I don’t know why. So, they made five of those ships, pressed them together, put some doors in, and built some kind of collective hab for themselves. Alright. Why not.” She pauses a moment. “...And somehow, the jump drive failed anyway? Wait--no, what’s going on?”

That said, the ship looked far worse for wear when it returned. The shiny outside was gone, as if it’d managed to spend years in transit, there wasn’t a single spark of heat left on it that wasn’t from the engines, and then--a series of small explosions as something within the ship fails, and the whole five-part,--no, four.  They lost a ship somehow. The four-part flotilla starts to collapse and crumple in on itself.

“...Get the shuttle. Get anyone in there safe, and get answers.” Abiete says. “We have a very serious problem on our vines. And someone get that floret safe! It’s not good for her to be watching something like--Pistil!”

Pistil Dhoop stares at the screen, peering intently at the collapsing ships.

She taps her chin thoughtfully. 

“miss hibby i would like to talk to you for a minute because--”

“There’s no time, cutie!” 

Flower petals swirl through the air. The floret
     is scooped up
        and
        “okay miss hibby you know best but maybe later we can--”

“Pistil, I love you more than life itself, but we have to get that shuttle full of survivors now and find out what happened. Abiete, can you hold this?”

Hibiscus rustles over, hoisting Pistil in her vines, carefully stretching her over to place in Abiete’s care. There’s a quick puff of pollen in the Terran’s face before rushing to a nearby screen.

“Hibiscus! Wh--this is your floret! Why are you--”

“I have to check something!”

Abiete tightens herself into what almost does perfectly resemble a Terran fir of old, and grudgingly holds the now sleeping Floret. “...oh. Little cold, aren’t you?”

“Oh, she always takes her Z’s that way. Something about it being familiar,” Hibiscus replies.

Abiete is motionless for a moment, before shaking herself off. “...Anyway, let’s check the escape pod. There’s still -someone- on there.”