Twin Creeks Station wasn’t much to look at from the outside – just an old hydroelectric dam straddling a pair of outflows, redirecting one watershed into two, along with a few outbuildings and old portables Osborne-Clark had dropped for workers to use as dormitories while they kept the old thing from falling apart. The garage was just big enough to hide the truck alongside a pair of jeeps, but it was also freezing cold. This high in the mountains, early in the morning, everything was freezing cold, and no one was willing to create a thermal hotspot by running a heater. People huddled together in groups, or up against the vehicles as they tried to eke out what little heat they could from the electrical coil keeping the battery warm enough that it didn’t lose its charge.

Nikolai stood alone, glaring at one group in particular, who kept glancing furtively back at him. Stars-damned plantfuckers, he thought. Saboteurs, the lot. He was sure it was their fault they hadn’t made it over the pass in time. He didn’t know how the fight in the back of the truck had broken out, but once he’d found out about it, he’d pulled over, gotten out, waded in, and dealt out a handful of blackened eyes and bloody noses to the ones he was pretty stars-damned sure were responsible for starting it. After that, Nell had sorted it out – a waste of fucking time, and one that delayed them enough to make False Oaks well out of reach before sunup.

So here they were, shivering on the edge of a frozen lake, hiding from the fucking weeds who were probably hot on their trail by now, using whatever kind of fucked up plant satellites they had to spy on them from orbit, flying around in their creepy silent shuttles. He had no idea how anyone would want to join up with those things, much less betray their fellow terrans over it. He’d checked, after the fight, and none of the plantfuckers had the mark on their neck that was the inevitable sign of the worm-head – or so pre-revolutionary rumor had gone, anyway. Maybe the weeds had gotten better at hiding it.

“Hey.” Nell tapped him on the shoulder – she must have gotten back from checking the radio repeater. “You didn’t start any shit while I was gone, did you?”

“I didn’t start shit before, either,” he grumbled. “Plantfuckers did.”

“Niko, don’t be an asshole,” Nell said, sighing. “I told you it was complicated. These are our comrades, we owe it to them to help them, not beat them senseless.”

“Whatever,” he spat. They weren’t any comrades of his. “What’s the story?”

“Well, there was traffic from Elysium, Athabaska, Orcas Bay…nothing from Featherstone yet, but the farm belt folks might have taken their repeater antennas down when the plants showed up, so that’s not surprising. So far so good. I think the majority of them will get away from the more easily identifiable settlements. Now we just hope these things can’t track us some way we haven’t thought of.”

“Still think we should be fighting back,” he muttered.

“How dense are you?” she hissed. “Their shuttles are bigger than the Accord’s cruisers! And that’s not even talking about the super-dreadnaught they have up in orbit! That thing’s nine kilometers long, Niko! It’s practically a mobile O’Neill cylinder! And they don’t even think that’s anything special!”

“Just because they’ve got fancy ships doesn’t mean they’re bulletproof,” he retorted. “Not to mention they’re fucking plants. We get some of the industrial weed killer from the farm belt or out in Elysium, fftt!” He drew his thumb across his neck for emphasis. “Dead weeds. Easy as that.” He was shocked the Cosmic Navy hadn’t tried it, but then, there probably wasn’t a lot of agricultural chemicals lying around on warships.

“You want to try to fight an impossibly advanced species of alien plants that dismantled the Accord in three years with fucking herbicide?” Nell said, no longer bothering to keep her voice low. “Stars, Niko, that’s – I don’t even have words for how up-your-own-ass that is!”

“What, you’ve got a better idea?” he said, raising his own voice. “Or are we just gonna run and hide and bury our heads in the sand instead of standing our ground and fighting these fucking things?” Stars-dammit, she was getting mad over this. Perfect fucking timing. She was hot, no doubt about that, but every time she got it in her head that she knew best, this shit happened.

“I am not having this ridiculous fucking argument with you, Niko,” Nell said, glaring up at him. “We have a plan, and we’re sticking to it. We are not indulging any of your bullshit macho heroics!” She grabbed him by the front of his coat and yanked him close to add, “Don’t forget which of us is in charge here, Niko. Hint: It’s not you.” She let him go and stalked away.

Typical Nell, he thought, brushing off his coat and angrily glaring at everyone in turn until they stopped looking at him. Lost the argument, immediately pulls rank. One of these days, when this shit was all over and done with, he was going to have to set her straight. This kind of shit might fly in commie-topia, but back in the real world, this was not how things worked.

He satisfied the burning itch behind his eyes by checking on his carbine for the third time that hour. Still under the seat of the truck, still loaded. He wished he had something bigger, but the commies were put off enough by giving a former guard a gun that he was frankly lucky to have even that. A proper assault rifle, maybe even an LMG – now that was the kind of shit that belonged in his hands. He was wasted on this pea shooter. Even Osborne-Clark hadn’t let him have that kind of firepower either, of course, but the suits were idiots – they lost to a bunch of communists, for fuck’s sake, of course they were. If he’d been in charge, he’d have held things down, the company would have stayed in control of the planet, and he’d be a big damn hero with an equally big damn paycheck coming his way.

“You done with that, or you wanna fondle your gun a little more?” Ugh, just what he needed – Trish was standing beside him, arms crossed.

“What do you want?” He loaded his voice with all the leftover irritation at Nell that he could manage.

“We’re loading up one of the jeeps with supplies for Overlook, so we don’t have to backtrack later,” she said. “Stop moping because Nell told you to shut up and give us a hand.”

“Fuck you,” he said, stowing the carbine. “I’m not moping. When those weeds come knocking, you’ll be glad I was on top of things.”

“I cannot even imagine you being on top,” Trish said, rolling her eyes. “Get to work – anything with a red X on it goes to Overlook.” She turned and walked off, not even bothering to see if he was following.

Bitch, he thought, the itch coming back hotter and more acrid than before. A little medical training and she thinks she runs the place. She’d get hers, one of these days. He slammed the door of the truck and took up a position next to the jeep, taking boxes and crates and loading them into the cargo space in the back. It was for the best. If he let the prisoners do it, it’d take twice as long and fit half as much; they were useless at anything that required even a little organization. Everything’s gotta be fucking committees and votes. No wonder it took them so long to do anything.

He was in the midst of trying to squeeze a box of medical supplies in between an ammo crate with a bunch of warning labels on it and a fuel cell when he heard the popping in the distance. He knew the sound intimately, not just from the uprising but from before, in training and on off-days. Who the fuck is shooting? he thought, seconds before the side door slammed open and Nell rushed in, breathing hard and frantically loading shells into her shotgun. “Scatter!” she shouted. “They’re here!”

Chaos erupted in the tight space; some froze, others panicked and ran without a destination in mind, and no few started shouting questions. The shots fell off in the distance, and a loud thumping sound slowly grew louder, along with a horrifying, singsong voice: “dOn’T rUn, LiTtLe tErRaNs!” it howled.

“Block off the door!” Nell shouted, shoving a crate across the floor in loud, scraping bursts. “And get ready to drive!”

The handle of the door began to rattle. “LiTtLe OnEs, WhY dOn’T yOu CoMe OuT oF tHeRe?” it called. “wE hAvE a NiCe WaRm sHuTlLe ReAdY tO TaKe YoU uP tO tHe TiLlAnDsIa!~”

“Fuck off!” Nell shouted, bracing the shotgun against her shoulder and firing into the door – slug rounds, since it only punched a single, tiny hole in the metal door. She racked the pump action and fired a second round through it. There was silence for a moment, save for the ringing in Nikolai’s ears. Then, the voice came back.

“tHaT wAsN’T vErY nIcE, fLoWeR,” it said. “yOu ShOuLd PuT tHaT dOwN bEfOrE sOmEoNe gEtS hUrT.” The door rattled again. “iF yOu’Re NoT gOiNg tO LeT mE iN, cUtIeS, i’M gOinG tO hAvE tO fOrCe tHe dOoR. sTaNd bAcK, oKaY?” There was a pause, then not only the door, but the entire wall shook, dust drifting down from the rafters.

Something landed, stinging, across Nikolai’s face. “Wake up, shithead!” Trish said, grabbing him by his coat and pulling him along. “Get in the fucking jeep!” She shoved him into the passenger seat – the dashboard was already warmed up. How had he missed the telltale whine of the capacitors charging? He looked up to find someone else in the driver’s seat of his truck, just as Trish shut the door on him.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Get the fuck out of my truck!” Another shotgun blast, then a cluster more from different guns as the wall shook again – cracks were starting to form.

“Nell!” Trish shouted as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “Come on!” Nell glanced over, fired another shot, then broke from the firing line.

“Everyone out, now!” she called, jumping up and onto the jeep’s running board on the passenger side, holding onto the cargo rack on the roof with one hand. The wall shook again, partially giving way. “Get the door open, go! Go!” Cold air rushed into the garage as the door began to lift, and as the wall gave way completely, crumbling in a dusty avalanche of brickwork and plaster. The massive arm, head, and shoulders of the weed that had smashed the wall in were caked in white, its eyes – too many of them – glowing as it seemed to stare right at Niko in the rearview mirror.

He missed part of what happened next – maybe it all happened too fast, or maybe he took a knock on the head and hadn’t noticed. He had a vague sense of shouting, of light pouring in from the slowly opening garage door, something tall and unnatural on the other side. Then, he’d been thrown back in his seat, and there’d been a horrible noise as the truck next to them stopped short, and something raked along the driver’s side. Now, there was more shouting as the jeep lurched, as gravity took a short break and something smashed him in the face.

“Wake! Up! You useless asshole!” Trish pulled her free hand back to the wheel and spun it as the jeep careened around a curve in the road. Something banged repeatedly against the window, and it took Nikolai a long second to realize it was Nell, smashing the butt of her shotgun against it. “Lower the window!”

There wasn’t enough room in Nikolai’s head to keep track of everything that was happening. At some level, as he worked the handle to lower the window, his brain forgot to breathe for a moment. Wind whipped in and slashed at his face, and as soon as it was open enough, Nell dumped the shotgun into the window. “Reload!” she screamed. One leg swung in, and she straddled the door, bracing herself and drawing a pistol. “Keep going!

“Like I’m gonna stop!” Trish shouted back. She veered around another curve, Twin Creeks Station visible once more across the frozen lake. As he fumbled with the shotgun, Nikolai saw the shuttle hovering above it in the rearview mirror, its ventral side coruscating in violets and blues, the massive figures of the weeds moving around the outbuildings. There was a strange sound in the air, almost like singing, but wrong somehow. A dark shape was moving across the surface of the lake, and as Nikolai stared he realized it was one of the weeds, but it had done something – it didn’t look even a little terran anymore, but like some kind of horrific nightmare bird or dinosaur or something, running on two long, stilt-like legs, hunched forward with a long tail out behind it. Is that what they really look like? he thought.

“Any time now with the shotgun, Niko,” Nell shouted over the wind, squeezing off a few shots at the thing as it closed on them.

“Huh? Shit!” He fumbled around the cabin for a moment before adding, “Where’s the fucking shells?!”

“Belt.” Another few shots followed before Trish put the jeep into a fishtail to take a curve at speed, drifting around it inches from the guardrail, somehow maintaining control despite the snowy road. Nikolai spotted the ammo pouch at Nell’s side, opened it, and began awkwardly forcing shells one by one into the shotgun’s internal magazine. “I swear these stars-damned things are bulletproof!” Nell added, tossing the empty handgun on the console and taking the shotgun from Nikolai. She braced herself, clamping onto the door frame with her thighs, and fired again.

“Nikolai, did you finish loading the jeep?” Trish said. Another swerve, another shot from Nell.

“sLoW dOwN, LiTtLe OnEs, tHiS iS rEaLlY qUiTe dAnGeRoUs!” the thing chasing them sang.

“You’re getting on me about that now?” Nikolai said.

“Did you load the box with the big fucking EXPLOSIVE warning labels on it?”

“Yes!”

“Then get back there, open it up, and give Nell some fucking grenades!” Comprehension dawned in the back of Nikolai’s mind, and he immediately began scrambling into the backseat and fumbling with the catch on the ammo crate. Inside, nestled in foam, lay little egg-shaped bombs just waiting to blow a weed to smithereens. Soon, he was passing them to the front seat. “One mile to the bridge!”

“Alright, you weed,” Nell growled, firing one last shot before dropping the shotgun back into the front seat. She took a grenade, pulled the pin, and silently counted “One, two, three,” before throwing it. A few seconds later there was a penetrating KRMP from behind that echoed off the mountain a second later. “Yeah, now you’re rethinking this, aren’t you?”

“Did you get it?” Nikolai twisted around, but the thing was still coming.

“yOu rEalLy sHoUlDn’T pLaY wItH sUcH dAnGeRoUs tHiNgS!”

“Fuck off, you fucking weed!” Nell screamed, pulling the pin on another grenade, counting off, and throwing it. This time, the explosion was much more on target. “I’ll die before I let one of you things inside my head again!”

“Bridge in twenty!” Trish called.

“Niko, when I count two, pull the pin on one and hand it to me,” Nell said. “Let’s double-up on this fucker and see if we can’t drop the bridge on it!”

“Right!” Nikolai clutched his grenade, watching Nell pull the pin on hers and count off. He yanked on two, and held the live grenade for a terrifying few seconds before Nell took it from it and threw it as well. The jeep roared over the bridge, and the two blasts came one right after the other as the Trish threw the jeep around another curve in the road at an extremely unsafe speed. Nikolai was certain at least two of the wheels had left the surface of the road, and that they would tip and roll down the side of the mountain to their deaths, but a heartbeat later Trish brought it around and kept on driving. “Did we get it?”

“I don’t see it!” Nell said, laughing. “Eat shit, weed! Move over, let me get in, I’m fucking freezing! Trish, get us to Overlook!” Trish flashed a thumbs up, and the three drove off, the sunrise blinding on the snow.

There were no dreams to wake up from where Cass had gone. One moment, peaceful oblivion – the next, the soft embrace of heavy blankets and the dull ache of a body still holding a grudge. She made a soft noise and tried to sit up, but the bone-deep fatigue and the weight of the blankets made it difficult. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and levered them slowly open, the soft light of the room bright until her eyes adjusted. For a moment, she didn’t remember where she was. The wall had a window showing a view of a forest, but not one Cass recognized – nor, for that matter, any plants she recognized. Slowly, memory trickled back. Tsuga brought me home, she remembered. She let out a sigh. You’re letting this become habit, Cass. Remember what we said about that?

If she was in the same room, it had changed. Before, it had just been an empty, featureless storage room, stacked with boxes and a single hammock. Then, Tsuga had moved the boxes out and a bed in. Now, there was a wooden writing desk and a chair to go with it, both of which looked handmade. There was a thick stack of paper in a binder resting atop it. There was a bookcase too, with books – actual printed books. Cass had hardly seen any since the Pillar of Fire, which had taken Archives’ tiny collection. Then there was the window, or at least, the screen with such absurd fidelity that if she didn’t know she was on a starship, Cass would never be able to tell.

The door slid silently open, and there stood Tsuga. Something was different about her, but Cass couldn’t place it – had she reworked her face again? Or maybe her foliage had shifted? But no, the contours were the same, and the needles, branches, and vines all seemed to be in the right place. She filed it away for later.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling down at Cass. “Are you feeling a bit better?”

“Well,” Cass grunted, “I think I’ve moved up from feeling like I got hit by a truck to feeling like I got hit by a moped. Does that count?”

“Improvement is improvement,” Tsuga said. “Are you hungry?”

Until she’d asked, Cass hadn’t thought about it, but the question prompted a wave of hunger as her stomach suddenly tightened. “Extremely. Also, I, uh… I really need to get up and use the toilet.” She struggled to lift herself upright again, but before she knew what was happening Tsuga was wrapping vines around her and lifting her up into her arms. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Carrying you to the bathroom,” Tsuga said, already setting out. “Arvense said bed rest, which means you’re not getting up and you’re certainly not walking. Am I holding you correctly? I spent some of the time you were asleep reading up on how to care for terrans with sensory hypersensitivity.”

“It’s… it’s fine,” Cass said. Her vines were lashed tightly around her, but not so tight that they felt constrictive, merely supportive. “I’ve had worse, though. I can handle this.”

“Hush,” Tsuga said as the bathroom door slid open. “Just because you’ve endured hardship before doesn’t mean you have to endure it any longer. In fact, it means just the opposite. Here.” She gently deposited Cass on the toilet, vines coaxing her into a sitting position. “I expect you’ll want privacy, so I’ll just leave a single vine in here with you. Tug on it when you’re finished, alright?”

“O…kay,” Cass said, blinking as Tsuga walked away. What’s going on with her? It’s like she’s a completely different person. Her eyes stayed fixed on the vine, and when she was finished, she tugged on it like Tsuga had said, feeling incredibly foolish. The way her legs ached, she wasn’t entirely sure she could stand up on her own, at least not yet.

When Tsuga returned, just like before, she didn’t hesitate, but instantly wrapped Cass in vines and hoisted her up in to her arms. “Now, let’s get some food in you, and then once we’ve settled your stomach, we can come back in here for a bath.”

Screw it. She could be blunt with Tsuga. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“Nothing is ‘going on,’” she replied as she carried Cass back to the bedroom. “Apart from me caring for you while you’re unable to do so for yourself.” She gently set Cass back down in bed, this time in a seated position, and pulled the covers back up over her legs. The vines slackened. “Now, just wait right there while I get your breakfast.”

“We could just eat at the table, you know.”

“Arvense said bed rest,” Tsuga said, her voice firm. “So you’re staying in bed. No arguments.”

Cass let out a sigh and relaxed against the headboard – against the pillows that Tsuga had stacked there without her even noticing, that is. Something must have happened while I was out, she thought. But what? When Tsuga returned, she was carrying a wooden tray with legs at both ends, and the air filled with the sweet and savory scents. There was a plate of pancakes, stacked three high, with a pat of butter melting on top and a drizzle of maple syrup, a pair of eggs over easy, and three rashers of a dark cut of meat that was oddly familiar.

“This is… wow,” Cass said, picking up the fork and knife and cutting a segment of pancake. She chewed thoughtfully – it was good, but it wasn’t the same. It was not the molecule-perfect pancakes Tsuga had given her before. “This isn’t the same recipe you compiled,” she said.

“I didn’t compile those,” Tsuga said. “I made them.”

Cass paused with another piece of pancake hanging in midair on her fork. “You made these? After what happened last time?”

“I practiced more. And studied archaic terran measurements to better understand the process of cooking. I tried to make the eggs sunny-side up, as that seemed traditional, but I couldn’t quite get it right. I hope these are acceptable.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Cass said, using a fork to cut into one. Soft, melty yolk began to dribble out, and the taste was heavenly. “Tsuga, this is amazing. Is this…” She picked up a piece of the not-quite-bacon and took a bite, and sense-memory flooded back. “This is halal bacon. I haven’t had this in decades!”

“Well, I studied your file,” Tsuga said, crouching down and smiling. “And it said you belonged to a terran religion with dietary requirements, so I looked those up, and it said no pork, so I double-checked everything, and it turns out bacon is pork. Why is bacon pork? And it turns out ham is also pork. I think it’s very confusing.”

“It’s delicious,” Cass said, unable to keep the smile from her face. “Thank you. It’s…not something I worry about a lot. Not something I could worry about on Solstice, anyway. You ate what they gave you, or you didn’t eat. But this honestly– it means a lot to me. The thought, I mean. And it reminds me of home.” She looked up at Tsuga. “So, thank you.”

Something in the color of Tsuga’s eyes shifted, a warm hue of gold spilling out into the green. “It was my pleasure,” she said softly. “And you deserve it.”

Something was wrong.

It wasn’t the sofa. The sofa was perfect, enormous, more than enough for Aletheia to stretch out on, soft enough to be comfortable but firm enough to hold her weight. It wasn’t the plushie she was cuddling, either. Much like everything else, the Affini seemed to have perfected plushie science – it was exactly as fuzzy, as soft, and as firm as it needed to be for maximum huggability. Aletheia had never seen a beeple, but if they were even half as cute as this plushie, she knew she’d love them. It wasn’t the dress Pisca had put her in that morning, or the french toast she’d cooked for her, or the ancient Information Age cartoon about some mythical creature called a pony that she was watching. All of that was perfect too.

(Her body, okay, sure, not perfect. Not even close. But that was a work in progress, so that didn’t count.)

No. Something was wrong, and it was Pisca. She had made breakfast for Aletheia, and helped her wash her hair, and picked out a really cute sundress for her to wear, and given her the plushie, and had picked her up and carried her to the couch, and even stroked her while she watched the cartoon, but something about it all had felt distant. Even now, Pisca was looking over some document or another on her tablet, one hand idly resting on Aletheia. She didn’t even have a vine wrapped around her, and she was as sober as sober got. Class-As were a new thing for her, but she really, really liked them – the orientation chat had not been wrong. Granted, she understood why Pisca might not want to dose her up right now, but it was just one more thing on top of everything else.

She sat there through three episodes of the pony cartoon, leaning up against Pisca, before she finally worked up the courage to act. She crawled into Pisca’s lap, leaning up against her trunk and reaching out to clutch one of her vines. Let’s see her ignore something this cute, she thought. And indeed, Pisca did pause, look down, and smile. She lifted her hand, stroked Aletheia’s hair a few times, then gently laid the hand on her shoulder held her close. Aletheia sat there for a moment, waiting for more, but it never came.

That does it. She squirmed to her feet and looked Pisca square in the face. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“Hmm?” Pisca set the tablet down. “Nothing’s wrong, little one. Why?”

“You’re just…different,” Aletheia said. “If you’re busy with work or something, I understand, but– it just feels like you’re holding me at arm’s length. I know yesterday was bad. It was bad for me too. But that doesn’t change what we talked about. I still want this.”

Pisca’s eyes shifted, and one of her needly antennae brushed Aletheia’s cheek gently. “I know you do, petal. And I do too. But after yesterday, I feel like I need to– well, I need to rethink my approach. I need to be more careful, more intentional. I don’t want what happened yesterday to ever happen again. Especially not to you.”

“I trust you,” Aletheia said. Stars, her eyes are so pretty, she thought, sighing gently and staring into them.

“I know,” Pisca repeated. “But I have a tendency to get carried away, and I let that tendency hurt Cass. I have to be better. And I don’t know how long that will take.”

Aletheia froze, her reverie doused with a chill. “You’d better not be trying to get rid of me,” she said.

“Not get rid of you,” she said. “But I worry that you might be better off with another Affini. One who’s more mature. Who won’t get carried away with you.”

“But I like it when you get carried away with me,” Aletheia said, squeezing the plushie tight and pouting. “It makes me feel small, and soft, and good, and–” ” She sniffled and buried her face in the plush beeple. “And the last few days with you have been the happiest I’ve ever been.” There was an ache in her heart, and she felt as if she might burst into tears at any moment – she’d become such a crier since she was put on Class-Gs. “I don’t want it to stop.”

“It won’t,” Pisca said, stroking Aletheia soothingly. “Whoever you end up with will make you just as happy.”

Aletheia shook her head fiercely. “No, they won’t, because they won’t be you.”

“Aletheia–”

“You were the one who helped me tell Arvense I wanted Class-Gs,” she said, looking back up at Pisca. Her eyes were wet. The waterworks were sure to start any second. “You made me feel safe, and you always gave me special attention whenever you came by the hab, and you helped me pick out cute dresses and you even helped me pick out my name.” She sniffled again, louder. “I want you. And I know you’re scared but even if something does go wrong I won’t be angry with you, because I know you’ll fix it. I trust you.”

Pisca was silent for a long moment, but she never once stopped stroking Aletheia. “You’re certain about this?” she said quietly. Aletheia nodded, rubbing away the tears that were welling up in her eyes. She felt vines snaking around her ankles, around her waist. “Even after yesterday, you still want to be my floret?”

“Always,” Aletheia whispered, leaning forward and letting Pisca catch her and squeeze her tight against her trunk. “I belong here.”

“To me,” Pisca said. Her vines tightened around Aletheia, gentle but insistent.

“To you,” Aletheia replied, gasping softly as more vines joined the first few. She blinked her tears away and gazed up into Pisca’s impossibly deep eyes. So pretty.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to get better at this a little more quickly than I’d planned.” There was something welling up in Pisca’s eyes, too, as she brushed a lock of hair out of Aletheia’s eyes and stroked her cheek with a thumb. There was a need there that matched Aletheia’s, a hunger perfectly tailored to the longing she’d carried inside her her whole life. She realized that now – it had always been there, the desire to be held, to be cared for, to be kept and loved and to belong to someone as utterly as she belonged to Pisca. What a relief it was to have found her perfect complement, the one place in the universe she was, without question, meant to be.

Something delicate and sharp trailed across her exposed shoulder, and though she shivered at the sensation she didn’t look away. Slowly, gently, Pisca turned her head to the side, and let her eyes focus instead on the orange-blossomed vine, on the wet little needle at its heart. She gasped just a little, a short intake of breath that halted as she took her lower lip between her teeth, and looked back to Pisca. Pisca said nothing, merely stared, as if waiting for something.

And she was waiting for something, Aletheia realized. Tell her, she thought. Tell her before you get lost in her eyes again.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice catching. The needle came down, a sharp little prick that was washed away by a warm feeling crawling throughout her body. “Aaahh,” she moaned, letting her head loll back as she rode the high – not as strong as that first time, a more measured and sedate dose, or perhaps Aletheia was simply developing a tolerance. It felt wonderful nevertheless, all the tension and fear banished in a wave of delight. “Thank you,” she murmured, looking back up at Pisca.

“Thank you…?” Again, that sense of waiting, that Aletheia had forgotten to do something. But what? she thought, washed away by the pools of color in Pisca’s eyes. What does she want me to do? Pisca smiled, and clearly saw the problem – she saw everything in Allie’s mind, didn’t she? She leaned in and whispered, “You call me Mistress, little flower.”

And Aletheia’s heart soared. Of course I do, she thought, a giggle escaping from her. Obviously. She took a deep breath, felt herself fill with air and with love, and whispered back, “Thank you, Mistress.”