Over the next few weeks, Crim becomes, if only slightly, more reserved. Not due to any bad mood, but instead due to the new room that Azalia had gotten installed next to her bedroom. Becoming immediately infatuated with the new plants she's been given the responsibility to take care of.

The room is split in two levels, the first is near the entrance filled with vegetation that is more native to Helois. While the second level is slightly elevated, and consists of different flowers that Azalia hand picked from different planets she'd visited in the past. 

Crim is kneeling down in front of a pink flower, with slightly curled petals. Slowly pouring out enough water for it to remain in good health, while her lower set is gathering and equally mulching the area. 

Azalia walks inside and smiles at Crim’s work. “Your flowers are looking very beautiful Crim. Is there anything you would like me to have delivered for your garden?”

“I dunno, maybe a shovel, learning all of these flowers needs is going to be a… process, and I’m simply hoping you know how to take care of all of this while I heal from next week's new set of mods.” Crimson sighs, putting her red watering can down. “Oh or some paint, I prefer to paint little bees onto the tools. Keeps my spirits up.”

“Well, I know how to take care of plants, although I think it would be more fun if you give me the procedure you want me to follow while you are recovering.” Azalia pulls out her datapad and finds a shovel and some more tools, alongside a small paint set. “Here, do these look good to you?”

“Absolutely, and honestly I’m still working off of the books that came with the room.” Crim slowly stands up, dusting the dirt off of her hands and onto her overalls. Having mostly grown accustomed to wearing more revealing outfits, while maintaining having the mask Ipheon gave her on at all times. 

“So you can rely on those until I get better, once I’m sure I know all of the ins and outs, then I’ll switch to maybe some more unorthodox strategies. The plant's health always takes priority of course.”

“Alright, I’ll make sure to follow that, and I’ll also look up to see if there is any advice on taking care of these plants. That way when you come down from your high, I’ll have something fun for you to learn and work on.” She pets Crim a little bit. “Then later, we can maybe see about getting a small bee hive if you would like.”

“We would need to do a lot of research if you wanna try that, bee keeping is a very big responsibility, and honestly… I’d feel bad if I had bees on an interplanetary vessel.” Crim shakes her head, putting all four of her hands on her hips. 

“I mean a big part of my thinking when it came to beekeeping, is that I provided them quality care, so they stayed. If I had a hive aboard, then they wouldn’t have the same option of simply leaving, if my care wasn’t up to the standards of the hive.” She lets out a weak sigh. “It just wouldn’t be right to not leave the bees a choice. Just like it wouldn’t be right to just pick a sophont and tell them they’re yours now, of course barring them being a danger to themselves or bees.”

Azalia nods and wraps a vine around Crim’s shoulders. “That is a very good point Crim, though I bet you could find flowers that you and your beeple friends all love to hang out around. That way you will have something only you could provide that would be very special.”

“I’ll have to do a lot of research, but absolutely. I hope to have this entire room in tip top shape by the time I leave.” Crim nods a few times to herself, starting to put her gardening equipment away. “Thank you for going out of the way to get me this, having something to fill my days with other than tv has been a life saver, and luckily there’s not much danger in gardening even if I’m high as hell.” She reaches into her chest pocket, pulling out her blue inhaler, sliding her mask to the side and taking a hit from it. “Ahhhh, much better.” She pushes it back into the pocket, before walking over to Azalia and flopping against her side. “Fuck that always hits the spot.”

Azalia gently rubs Crim’s shoulders with a smile. “Of course if you decide you don’t like the hive moon, or if Raven despises it and we need to figure something else out for both of you to be comfortable, then this will still be here for you as well. But if the hive moon works out, then I’m sure whoever gets our hab next will love to have this too.”

“You make it sound like you’re planning on hitting the old dusty trail as well.” Crim chuckles slightly, shaking her head and letting Azalia lead her out of the garden and into the living room. “I figured you’d stick around for a bit, before leaving with the ship to continue your little adventure through the stars.”

“Well, it will depend on how well you both settle in. I can do my job from pretty much anywhere, so I could be there to support you if needed, but if you and Raven are totally great, I would come back here if that sounds fair. Really I can go either way and just about anywhere and be fine. I usually will arrange for a stay on a given world till the following ship comes through, then I will temporarily live there till posting up on the next planet. Helios was actually one of my shorter stays, so I didn’t feel like letting go of this hab. Honestly this is the most ‘homey’ I’ve gotten a hab to be.” Azalia smiles, turning a flower on the top a little bit in its pot.

“Awwww, you know you can just say you got attached ya know.” Crim prods Azalia lightly, her bottom set of arms gently wrapping around, and tugging on the affini’s vines, as she watches her start to mess with some of the flowers. Turning them to be easily viewable, no matter what level of the greenhouse room you’re in. “Hell I can admit that I got attached to you after all, and Raven’s never liked an affini more, as far as I know.”

Azalia giggles, and gives Crim a hug. “Thank you, and I have gotten attached. The way I figure it, if the hive moon doesn’t work out, there will be some beeple who I could adopt to bring back with us. You know, just to give you some incentive, or a cuddle buddy, either works.”

“Oooo very diabolical, just make sure you’re ready if you’re going to adopt a beeple. It’s a biiiig responsibility, after all they’re all immortal like you are, unlike my sad fleshy sack.” Crim pokes herself a few times. “So it’d be unfair to them, if you adopt them for me, and then I kick the bucket! Unless I could find a way to avoid bucket kicking!” She laughs wildly to herself, starting to drag Azalia out of the garden while they talk. “Then I could become the eternal bucket, kicked until the heat death of the universe.”

“Well it is a good thing then that we affini are specifically evolved with caring for beeple as florets being a part of our species. I would just have to find one that really clicks with us, whoever they may be.” Azalia ruffles Crim’s hair a little bit. “I wouldn’t want to make you eternal without your permission, but I’m not sure if you would like or want that regardless of what I want.”

“Hey if I could become the eternal beekeeper, I’d be totally down.” Crim dramatically puts her top right arm in front of her mask. “I’ve heard of digitization, which I did put in the list of things that once my meat suit starts failing to consider… but I also don’t know if you all do independent digitized sophonts, so I’ve mostly pushed that option to the back of my mind for now.” Snickering to herself, she scampers over to the couch, climbing up the side and flopping face first onto it. “Luckily we’re going to a hive moon, which apparently hosts digitized sophonts!”

“That it does, though I do not know exactly how it would work with a plurabis, and some florets have expressed a bit of existential dread over what all happens with it. We would want to see a specialist so they could talk to both of us about how it would all work, especially in yours and Raven’s case.”

“Oh yeaaaah, I bet it’s pretty fucky. A real bee and the larva kinda issue.” Crim wiggles around on the couch, as she nestles her way into the corner, having Azalia sit down next to her. “But I’m not especially concerned with the concept, I’m a spry young 28 year old, I’ve got at least another hundred or so years before digitization needs to become a conversation.”

“Indeed, it’s not something we should need to worry about for quite some time.” Azalia shakes her head, sitting down on the spot that Crim had gestured towards, and watching as Crim flops her head onto her lap. “But in other news, I’ve contacted an old friend of yours, and apparently she’s going to be arriving at the hive moon soon after we do.”

Crim’s face turns into a cringe under her mask, absolutely certain that Azalia is trying her best to announce that Delfi is going to be at the very least visiting in the gentalist way possible. “Did I really piss her off that badly?”

“I… wouldn’t say that you ‘pissed her off’, but she was very concerned about you when she arrived for your monthly wellness check, and found that you’d disappeared from your hab with not so much as a letter.” Azalia pats Crim on the top of her head, as she pulls out her datapad and turns a documentary about digitization up given the topic of today’s conversation. 

“To be fair, if she just looked in my file she’d have known where I went.” Crim flops her hands on top of her chest, anxiously tapping along it as she talks. “I always figured she was stalkin me constantly.”

“What she told me was once you finished your first year, she started to ease up on her constant checks. And would only really visit you due to a fondness for your ‘hijinks’, given for being as reckless, and clumsy, as you are, you still don’t pose any real danger to yourself. Especially once you eased up on your constant trips to the apiary.” 

“Oof, guess I misinterpreted some things.” Crimson chuckles to herself, turning ever so slightly away from Azalia. “But heeeey, we’ll see her again, politely explain that I don’t need her to take care of us anymore, and move on with our lives! It’s not like she’s gotten incredibly attached or anything, why does this keep happening with you affini!?”

“We are all quite affectionate, and when you act like such an adorable cutie I don’t think any of us could help but get attached.” Azalia begins brushing Crim’s hair slowly. “She will probably want to make sure you both can still hang out as friends. And ensure you don’t think you can get away with the random disappearing act again.” She grins down at Crim. “I of course won’t let anyone just take you, but you know, however that ends up working out.”

“Good to know you really are all that presumptuous.” Crim blushes a bit, shaking her head. “And the worst part is I’m kinda getting used to it, moving up here, actually getting to know affini other than Delfi, and the few that I ‘worked’ with at the hives.” She exhales sharply, the memories of her time working at her apiary after the affini’s arrival, sitting bitter on top of her tongue. “I swear the level of ‘awww’ it’s so cute how good you are, at your out of date methods, I got thrown at me, was migraine inducing. It didn’t feel like I was making a difference anymore, just…” She shrugs a bit. “Checking up on things that didn’t need me, and getting flirted at, by affini who didn’t think much more of my skills than being ‘endearing’.”

As Azalia opens her mouth, Crim puts a hand up to stop her. “Buuuut, now that I’m here, I’m actually… happy? Like sure I don’t have a job, and I miss my hives, but everyone here just sees me as Crimson Sevinta, mostly capable independent sophont. Not Crim, the poor seed who nearly starved to death, too scared of the outside world to abandon her hives.” She rubs the top of her mask lightly. “So uh… thanks I guess, for treating me like an at least simi capable person.”

“You are very welcome, while you are so very cute, I enjoy seeing you open up more on your own, even if I do have to give you little nudges from time to time. I can tell that you do need the help to come out of your shell, but once you have, you are really just the most cuddly little bee.” Upon saying bee, Azalia pets Crim’s fuzz.

“Azaliaaaaa!” Crim wiggles around as Azalia runs her vines through the fluff. Barely holding back squeaks and shudders from how nice the vine feels. “This is so ruuuude.” She giggles, stretching out and starting to slowly drag herself on top of Azalia’s vines. Complaining mostly to prove a point, while still basking in whatever physical affection she can get, each of her arms picking a different vine on Azalia’s lap, and grabbing onto it.

“Oh is it now? I think you kind of like it when I tease you like this though. That, and you get lots of affection this way too.” Azalia giggles and runs her vines over Crim’s hands and through her fuzz. “Besides, you are the one who set up this position, so I know you like it on some level.”

“Can’t you let a bee girl brat in peace!” Crimson makes buzzing noises as she wiggles her way up against Azalia’s chest. Each of her arms bending slightly as the vines wrap around them to give four individual tiny hugs to each vine. “And I swear if you ever tell anyone I’m cool with us cuddling like this, I’ll be soooo mad.”

“Oh I won’t reveal your secret, I like having my cuddly brat to myself thank you very much.” Azalia giggles while ruffling Crim’s hair. “It makes you so unique compared to other beeple, and it also makes me wonder how your antennae will move with your attitude after you get them. I bet it will be adorable.”

“Oh don’t you taunt me with the future, I’m impatient enough about my mods as is!” Crim wiggles around, pulling each vine her arms have a hold of closer to her chest. “I can’t wait for my wings and legs next week, oh I wonder if they’ll flutter when I get excited, or if I’ll start buzzing when annoyed!” Even the mere mention of the next step in her mods is more than enough to send Crim into an excited spiral of rambling about different features that she’s excited for. “And then there’s mandibles! Oh I can’t wait to have some of those. And the fluff, I know I’m going basic yellow and black as the baseline, but I might eventually get dyed to have red fluff. Oh or purple, Raven likes purple a lot.” 

“Well, red and purple look good together, though you could also keep the black in there and alternate red and purple over the yellow. Your little bit of neck fluff is cute, but oh your full body fluff will be fantastic.” Azalia squeals lightly. and wiggles her vines that are in Crim’s grasp. “One thing I am excited for is for you to be comfortable not having a mask on, I want to see you able to relax fully without anything in the way.”

“Ah come on be honest, you’re just salty that I’m the one terran in the known universe who can look you in the eyes without getting fucked with by your magic hypno fractals.” Just to prove her point, Crim perfectly lines her head up with Azalia’s the slight black mesh lining in front of each of her eyes interfering with her ability to get caught up in the affini’s gaze. “If you’re asking me, everyone should just wear masks, they look cooler than real faces, and they give you the power of anonymity!” She coughs, stopping herself for a moment. “Well they look better than everyones real faces, other than beeple faces. Heck, all of you affini are technically always wearing masks, thus proving my point!”

Azalia laughs before shaking her head. “I would love to get you caught up in a little hypnotism, but I’m serious when I say that I want to see you fully comfortable in your own body, if that makes sense. You carry yourself differently, the few times I’ve seen you without your mask, and I just want to see that confidence fully.”

“Let me difflect damn you!” Crim wiggles a few of her arms free, before shaking them at Azalia. “You know I’m no good with the emotional junk you’re trying to put down here.” She flops her way over to lean up against Azalia’s midriff, letting out muffled grumbles into the affini’s mass. 

Azalia rubs Crim’s back gently. “Alright, I’ll stop, you can keep deflecting. I’m just having fun with you.” She giggles a little bit before loosening her hold, though keeping some vines around Crim. “Once you come down from your xenodrugs from your next body mod set, is there anything you would like to do?”

“I wanna have a picnic with bramble, and blossom and the rest of the hive.” Crim lets her arms drop down to her sides, vines slowly wrapping back around each to let her stim and play with them passively. “I wanna be able to show off my new look and everything, including my super cool gift mask from Ipheon~” She snickers to herself, taking a small chance to jab at Azalia about the other affini vying unsuccessfully for her affections. After all, only someone with four arms and four wings, and compound eyes could get that.

Azalia rolls her eyes and lets a few vines tickle Crim. “Oh if you are gonna brat, then I suppose I’ll need to give you a little fun punishment.” She wiggles the vines into Crim’s tummy and neck. “Although you wouldn’t brat if you didn’t want the attention anyway.”

Crim starts to wiggle around, giggling wildly as she writhes under Azalia’s vines. Each of her hand weakly attempting to return the tickling, incredibly relieved that she’s got the mask on to hide how widely she’s smiling. “Ah- ha- Yeah, well I wouldn’t do it if you didn’t want to give it!” She pauses breaking into even more giggles as more vines slither down to tickle her legs. “Call it a compromise!”

“Well I do want to give it.” Azalia’s vine wiggles into the back of Crim’s knee. “I love your laugh and every little noise you make after all, but I will concede to this compromise. I want to give your bratting these punishments, and you want to receive them. And for the time being this is purely behind closed doors for our own fun.” She reaches down to boop Crim’s mask right over where her nose is.

Crim almost instinctively tries to bite at Azalia’s vine, only to have her little snap succeed in ramming her face into the mask full force, and bonking herself back down onto Azalia’s lap to fall even deeper into her giggle fit. 

After half an hour of entirely ignoring the show that Azalia had put on, Crim manages to piece by piece squirm her way out of the writhing mass of Azalia’s vines. Panting, and struggling to breath from that long of overstimulation. “I yield! I yield!”

The vines stop, gently shifting Crim around and rubbing her back. “There we go, how are you feeling?” Azalia makes a point to limit the vines to just three rubbing her back, avoiding any sensitive spots in order to let Crim recover. “I’m glad we could have that fun, even if it seems like it was a little overwhelming.”

“Everything is more than a little overwhelming all of the time, you just take longer for me to get there than most.” Crim mumbles out as she nestles her head into the couch, taking comfort in the stillness that the cushions provide. “Now I’m just so tired, I wanna curl up in a blanket and eat chips.”

Azalia reaches over, grabbing a blanket and tucking it around Crim. “Here, let me get you some chips. I’m going to fill out some documents while you rest.” She gives Crim a small pet before heading over to the kitchen to get the chips. Soon she returns, setting the bag of chips within easy grabbing distance of Crim.

Each of Crim’s arms grab at different spots on her striped blanket, cuddling up into it before using her top set of arms to grab the bag of chips and start snacking. “Alright, you do that, I guess… I’ll just.” She has to lean over due to her arms' decreased length, to grab the remote for the tv. 

“Start up another one of those ‘affini for silly cuties’ videos, best to get in all the studying I can after all!” She snickers to herself as Azalia standing in front of a bookcase. Wearing a pair of completely useless to her glasses, and holding one of her vines as a makeshift ‘stick’ to use to gesture.  “I still can’t believe that you named it that, but the info’s good so whatever.”

“Well, when I researched into some of your ancient terran book series, it was basically called ‘for dummies’, I get what the title was going for, but I found it very degrading, I don’t think there are any dummies, just those who haven’t learned a subject yet. So I took it upon myself to borrow the idea but renamed it to be less harsh.” Azalia pulls out a new book alongside her datapad. “I’m going to be working on breaking down the next set of lessons.”

“Alright alright, you have fun with that.” Crim pulls out a few chips and starts to shove them into her mouth. Struggling to eat everything without getting crumbs everywhere, given she refuses to take her mask off even when Azalia isn’t looking directly at her. 

“And I still feel like ‘Affini for the studious sophont’ would feel less demeaning for those of us who aren’t florets.” 

“Oh that is a good title for the language course I’m working on. I still want to keep the name for the series overall though, as I do want to expand it from just language. I’ll see about getting the title changed for this subject though.” Azalia notes down the suggested name before continuing her work, reaching a vine over to dust up the crumbs that Crim is making.

“Maybe just have it be the name for advanced courses? I don’t think your original name was terrible or anything like that after all. It’s just using that name for more advanced concepts, and lessons, is more likely to make the viewer feel intelligent, and increase the desire to interact more with the material.” Crim chuckles as a few vines come around to clean up the mess she’s making. Knowing better than to apologize for it at this point, the first few times she did on instinct Azalia ended up pouncing on her, and cuddling her until she stopped, best to not have a repeat of that any time soon.

"I'll take the suggestion into consideration. I think everyone can be studious if they want to." She smiles and switches to affini to test Crim. "I know that a cutie like yourself is really studious, making both titles fit you." She giggles before finishing her cleaning, giving Crim a little pet before retracting her vines.

Crim nods slightly, having to run it through her head a few times, before exhaling. “I know a cutie like yourself is really studious, making both titles fit you.” Getting a warm smile as a response from Azalia, and nodding to herself satisfied with her little achievement as she goes back to watching the show explain how there are an incredible number of dialects of affini depending on where you live, that while all coming from the core baseline, are modified to be more easily understood by sophonts in different areas of the compact.

“Good job, I’m very proud of you for learning Crim. You have been working very hard on learning.” Azalia pets Crim gently before giving her a little bee plush that she had been hiding inside her vines. “Here you go, I hope you like it. I've been waiting for a good opportunity to give you this, and learning so much about affini language is a big deal.”

Crim of course, immediately snatches the plush toy and starts to nuzzle it openly. Enjoying having a smaller bee plush that looks more similar to a terran honey bee, rather than like the many many beeple plushies that she already has. “Thank you Azalia, I try my best to make you… proud.”

Azalia smiles and pets down Crim’s back. “You make me so proud, and now I know I need to look at more terren bee plushies for you. The way you hug that is just the cutest thing ever.” She giggles before taking a few notes. “I’m thinking of writing a book on pollinators, focused on bees and beeple, but really covering just how important all pollinators are to planetary life.”

“Oh are you now?” Crim chuckles lightly as she slides deeper into her mound of blankets, the new plushy being passed from hand to hand as she stims on it happily. “You wouldn’t happen to need an expert terran aprist, who can attest to the importance, and precarious position that bees as pollinators are stuck in would you?”

“Oh I would love to have an expert terran aprist to help me with attesting to everything that has to do with bees. A lot of my influence is spreading knowledge, and giving everybody a new understanding of the various ecosystems, as only those who work directly with ecosystems seem to understand how important this is.” Azalia sends a shared document to Crim’s datapad, filled with different categories of pollinators and lists of everything they do in the environment.

Crim watches her datapad buzz from the other side of the room, chuckling to herself as she flops over. “Yeaaaah, I’ll get to it as sooon as I’m done with this very interesting affini’s class on speaking affini myself. I hear it’s very rude to neglect a project that someone put a lot of effort into after all.” She almost sticks her tongue out at Azalia, only to have her tongue yet again get stopped by the mask. An inconvenience, but one well worth it to avoid the dysmorphia of having her face seen.

Azalia giggles, before leaning back into her chair. “That is very true, especially when it is covering a subject you are interested in learning. I’ll leave you to your lessons, then when it is over, how about we have a short conversation purely in affini to see how well you are coming along?”

“Alright alright, I’ll make sure to get my brain into smart mode by the time I’m done.” Crim sighs, going quiet and continuing to watch the educational show, having to struggle as the second half of the video switches to speaking fully in incredibly simple affini. Making sure that words aren’t too long, and at this level, being made explicitly for affini who have florets who wanna know the basics of speaking affini themselves. 

Once the lesson was over, Azalia opened up with a question in affini. “So, how are you feeling after all that? You may use just a couple words, if you are still not quite ready for full conversational use of the local dialect.” She smiles while getting ready to note down how easy or hard this lesson was.

Crim uncharacteristically slides her mask up to the top of her face, as she runs Azalia’s words through her head on loop. Slowly piecing each segment of the sentences together. “It’s tricky, but nothing that is impossible.” She flashes Azalia a small smile as the mask keeps her eyes covered, before pulling it back down in front of her.

Azalia claps excitedly, before giving Crim several pets. “Good job! I think listening to more and practicing will help you pull your sentences together faster, but the important part is you are getting the words correct.” 

She stands up before making sure she has the right notes on the right lesson. “I feel far more confident in the lesson order now. If you want to continue you can, but in my research it is important to take breaks when learning new languages. Would you like some honey toast? I’m thinking of making some as a treat, but I wouldn’t want to feed you more than you actively want.”

“Yes, I would like some honey toast Azalia.” Crim chuckles a bit, slowly peeling herself out of the blanket cocoon she’d been left in while she studied. Getting up to the edge of the couch, before carefully climbing down with three of her arms, using her bottom left one to hold her bee plush close to the chest of her overalls. 

“It’s very sweet of you to offer, and trust me I’d tell you if I thought you were coddling me…” She looks up as Azalia raises an artificial eyebrow at her, feeling a little more self aware about the last few hours. “Okay if I thought you were coddling me more than normal.”

Azalia giggles, and nods. “Thank you for allowing me to coddle as much as I do. I genuinely enjoy it, but I also don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. That and I want you to feel like you can come to me with a problem without being afraid of getting overly cared for.” She leaves a vine low for Crim to optionally grab onto before walking at a relaxed pace to the kitchen.

“Well I know Raven likes it, and honestly having someone around who can help me in my… less wise moments isn’t the worst thing in the world.” Crim’s arms all wrap around her plush, standing near the vine but electing not to hold onto it as an, albeit small, show of independence. 

“Just never let Delfi hear that I said that to you, I think the smile that would get on her face would make me vomit.”

“Oh I will keep this very private, just for the two of us…well, three of us.” Azalia smirks lightly before pulling out Crim’s step stool to help her get into her seat at the table. 

“I care about keeping what you say between us, outside of you giving permission on any given topic.” She begins toasting some bread, before pulling out the honey and a few other spreads. “I think she will be surprised when we start holding conversations fully in affini, that is a look I can’t wait to see.”

Clambering up onto her seat, Crimson leans up against the table, a small grin slipping onto her face. “Ooooh, what if we when she finds us on the hive moon, have you go up and talk to her… fully in affini, pretending like I won’t have any idea what’s going on, and then bang. I pop in and give her a little surprise, I swear I’ve never seen affini’s mask crack unwillingly before, but I think that would do it.”

Azalia smiles at Crim’s creativity, before shaking her head. “While that would be funny, I’m not sure if you will be…conscious enough of your surroundings outside of special rooms on the hive moon. But I could arrange for something like that for our own fun.” She takes the toasted bread out, before slathering a moderate amount of honey over it and bringing the plate over to Crim.

“Oh I figured, I meant like, of course you’ll have to drag me out when she arrives, might as well have it be in one of those special rooms so the conversation can be more fun!” Crim slowly passes the plushy between her hands, before putting it down on the opposite side of the table from her. 

“And I’m very excited for the hive moon, but that doesn’t mean when I encounter old… friends? I guess? I wanna be on my A game.”

“I’ll make sure of it if everything works out. Either way I think watching you be a little worker bee will be the cutest thing, and I’m not going to hold back that opinion.” Azalia pours some tea for Crim, before returning to her work. 

“I think the next level of affini lessons is almost done being put together, I’ll get the new series name in place for its release.”

“So are you going to be doing all the recordings during my healing process?” Crim grabs the tea, sliding her mask off and looking away from Azalia mostly for her own comfort. 

“I wouldn’t mind if you had me hanging out with you while you work on it. I’d not be much use, but maybe a cute transitioning bee girl napping in the back would help sophonts pay better attention.” She chuckles lightly, sipping the tea and realizing its green tea with honey, and starting to drink it more eagerly. 

“I was planning on recording then anyway, but having your permission, I will definitely have you in the background or my lap during the lessons. Then I’ll have a couple ready by the time you recover, that way you can enjoy seeing how you look from an outside perspective.” Azalia wiggles happily, giving Crim a little pet when she puts down the tea. 

“Tomorrow is the day, and I promise I’ll keep your exposure to a minimum, although I may invite your beeple friends over to cuddle and enjoy being around you.”

“Having guests to keep me calm is better than me trying to crawl around when I shouldn’t be.” Crim shrugs, running her hand along the mask. 

“I know I can’t really wear it much while I’m healing, but maybe put it on the side of my head when I’m on screen. That way I won’t have to see my face broadcasted on the recordings.” She waves her hands a few times. “But the rest of me your fine to show off, maybe use that pink dress you got for me to match you or somethin I dunno.”

“Alright, that I can do.” Azalia taps the mask playfully. 

“Pink dress with the mask, very cute. And I’m sure you will heal up very fast, all the cuddling will help you.” She giggles a little bit before checking some documents about the next round of body mods. “I’ll be keeping you very still for 2 days, and after that we can start to have your friends over, I probably won’t record until the 4th day.”

“Well I’ll do my best to not be any trouble.” Crim pokes a finger against her cheek, turning to Azalia and making the cutest look she can manage. “And I know for a fact you’d have to force Raven off of your lap at this point, so her causing trouble isn’t something ya need to worry about.” 

Once Azalia finishes cooking Crim’s snack, she puts all four of her arms out, making little grabby hands. Having learned that combining this with looking longingly at Azalia, could bend the affini to give her basically anything she wants. 

Azalia giggles, and coos lightly, before setting it down in front of Crim. “You are very good at leveraging your cuteness, but I also like falling for it. And don’t worry, while you were much more squirmy than Raven was, I’ve got my own little techniques to keep you still, and happy during your recovery. I won’t have it in the video for you, but I may take a separate video to show off.”

“You’re going to send it to Ipheon to brag, and show off that you get to cuddle us, while we’re on class J’s aren’t you?” Crim grins, snatching up the honeyed toast, and starting to shove it into her mouth. 

“If you are, I totally approve by the way. After all, bramble will see it.” She chuckles a bit, a more timid smile finding its way onto her face.

“You are so cute when you think about bramble, and I know he will see it and more.” A wicked smirk crosses Azalia’s mask. 

“I am thinking of asking if bramble can sleep over one of your nights, that way you can have your totally not a boyfriend cuddling you for a whole night on your J’s. Then I can get so many cute pictures and videos.”

Crim nearly chokes on her food at Azalia’s comment, having to cough out pieces of toast as she tries to cover up her face. “he's just my frieeeend!” Her voice comes out in a little whine, as her free set of arms goes and grabs her plushy to cling to and stim on. 

"Of course he is just your friend. How many videos and pictures would you like of him cuddling you on J's? I'm sure to get some of each of your friends at least a little." Azalia smirks at Crim and her stimming before lightening up. 

"You will come back to reality with a new plushie, I'm thinking of requesting one of those rhythm plushies, but with some beeple buzzing instead."

“As many as you can get, just ya know… be careful around the face ya know.” Crim slowly takes a few more bites out of the toast, before leaning back in her seat and sighing. Trying to get her flush to come back down. 

“And I swear by the time we arrive at the hive moon, we’re going to have a plush collection to rival the actual ‘unnamed’ plushy shop at this rate, not that I’m complaining it’s great.”

Azalia pets Crim a little more. “Of course, I’ll do my best to avoid face shots, but a few may get in there depending on how squirmy you get. And I can’t help getting you so many, you always get so happy, and watching you stim and cuddle with them, especially when you jump into the pile of plushies.”

“Azzzzz.” Crim slides her mask back down, grabbing her tea and starting to slowly make her way out of the seat. 

“You’re being a big bully again, so now I must go and flop down in my plushy pile, and impatiently count every single second until my new body mods!” Once she’s down, Crim starts to scurry to her bedroom as quickly as possible, her posture tense from embarrassment. “One… two… three… four…”

Azalia shakes her head, and pokes into Crim’s room. “It’s getting a little late, you should brush your teeth before you start counting too far, unless you would like me to brush them for you.” She giggles a little bit while wiggling a vine with her ‘threat’. 

“I’ll give you one minute to decide how your teeth are getting cleaned before I decide for you.”

“You’re pushin it Azalia, that’d mean you messin with my face meat, and I’m not gonna deal with that.” Crim waves Azalia off, as she’s currently undoing her overalls, and getting changed to be ready for bed. 

“I’ll go do it just as soon as I’m in my pajamas, you’ll get to enjoy doing it all you want after tomorrow.”

Azalia keeps her grin, before swooning back slightly pretending to be defeated. “Alright, I just am making sure that you are clean and ready for bed…that and I’m having fun with you in my own way, so thank you for being a good sport about me teasing you a little bit.” She begins to pull out of the room. “

I’m going to clean up the kitchen, then go lay down. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

“Alright I gotcha.” Crim chuckles, tossing her inhaler into her case. “Can you refill my inhalers while I’m healing? I think I’ve only got a few more puffs in my main one.” 

She stretches slightly, slipping into her bee pajamas, before crawling into her hexagonal bed, and grabbing her biorythm beeple plush to cuddle it to sleep. “I’ll see you in the morning Azlia…” She gives a little wave, and quietly under her breath whispers. “I love you.”