The mine had one thing going for it, Nikolai thought —  it wasn’t nearly as cold as the fucking surface. The entire way here, he’d shivered in the back of the truck, all the rejects from Overlook staring at him the entire time, like they thought he was the wormhead plantfucker that was going to backstab them all. His gut still churned over it even now, days after they’d made it to the old salt mine. They weren’t alone there, with people coming from settlements all over the valley, from as far as Woolman and even Haviland. No surprise, communists the lot; even before the revolt Elysium was a shit job they gave to fuck-ups or people who pissed off their superiors due to the high rate of prisoner infractions.

The company had never bothered with the mine — they weren’t trying to live some kind of agrarian fucking lifestyle — so of course the communists had been using it as a base during the revolt. Half of it had collapsed in the quakes caused by the orbital strike, so it was a shelter of last resort — but that was exactly the kind of situation they were in. Anyone even vaguely able to do so was being pulled into work shoring the supports up in the livable section of the mine, and Nikolai was no exception. At least the work kept him warm, and they’d given him a respirator so he wasn’t sucking down salt dust every time someone had to drive a piton or something. Most of what he was doing was lugging lumber for nerdy communists who stood around arguing over where a support should go. If nothing else, it gave him time to think.

Fucking plants, he thought as he set down a beam and shuffled off back down the tunnel, almost whacking his head on a hanging light bulb. The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became: the weeds had gotten to Nell. Why else would she have tried to get rid of him like this, to sideline him where he couldn’t get anything done? They’d fought before, and she’d never actually pulled anything like this. It had to be the weeds, using her to fuck up their command structure.

The only other officer he knew for certain had gotten out of Twin Creeks was Trish — yet more evidence of weed sabotage, Nikolai now realized, they never should have been caught there — and Trish had always been useless anyway. A little medic training, and she thought that qualified her to be in charge. At least she probably wasn’t a wormhead, but she wasn’t doing anyone any favors. With Nell compromised, that left it to Nikolai to turn this clusterfuck around. How he was going to do that, he wasn’t sure yet, but no one else in this den of useless fucking convicts was going to pull it out. It was him or a worm in your brains — sooner or later, even these dipshits had to see that. They’d fall in line.

Yeah, he thought as he sat down on a crate in what passed for a refectory, the hum of air filters all around. He’d take a minute to rest, then down some of the weak-ass gruel they were serving up from a pot in the corner, and then it’d be full-steam ahead on taking back Solstice. No more stupid shitty wood-lugging time-wasting. He had real work to do.

“Waltz?” Nikolai looked up to see a skinny guy in coveralls, dark hair caked in dust, respirator still strapped to his face. He was familiar, somehow. “Is that seriously you?” he said, pulling the respirator down around his neck, revealing his long, equally skinny face.

“…Keeler?” Nikolai stared up at him, suddenly cold like he’d walked out onto the surface unprotected. “No fucking way, I thought you were dead!” He was on his feet and wrapping his fellow guard in a massive bear hug, followed by heavy slaps on his back — if a hug didn’t hurt at least a little, it was suspect.

“Nah, man! They shipped me out here two days before it happened,” he said, laughing and smacking Niko’s back in turn. The bastard might have been skinny, but he still had some punch in him. “Nice beard, guy, I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“Eh, beats shaving with freezing fucking water,” Nikolai said, scratching at it. That, he thought, and the fact that it looked pretty badass. “Never thought you’d go for work release, but I’m damn glad you did.”

“Hey, same, bud,” Keeler said, sitting down on a crate next to Nikolai’s. “Never took you for the sort to go along with a revolt.”

“Well, I had a plan,” he added in a low voice, sitting back down himself and grinning. “See, I had an in with a convict who it turned out was up to her fucking hips in that shit. I knew she was a fucking commie, I mean she never shuts up about it, but I figured, hey, I play along, I keep my ears open, and when the company finally decides to come back, oh look, I have a whole bunch of intel to hand them. That’s initiative, friend. That’s the kind of shit that gets you promoted.”

“Smart,” he admitted. “Didn’t work out, obviously. Fucking plants from space, can you believe it? I always thought that was some kind of joke the suits were pulling on us.”

“I’ve seen ’em, they’re real,” Nikolai said, suppressing a shudder. “Fucking huge, bulletproof, creepy as shit, and they get inside your head. The worm thing is real.”

“No shit?” Keeler said, leaning forward. “Fuckin’ mind control worms?”

“Yeah. I don’t think the scar thing is real, though, or if it was, they’ve gotten better at hiding it, because I’m pretty sure we’ve got wormheads down here sabotaging us, same as they sabotaged the Cosmic Navy. You’ve heard, right?”

“About the weeds beating the Navy in three years?” He snorted. “Man, you don’t buy that, do you? Brain got soft from your ‘in’ with communists?”

“I dunno,” Nikolai said. “I mean, Nell said they’ve got a fuckin’ nine-klick ship up there.”

“Smoke and mirrors, man, psy ops shit,” Keeler insisted. “We’re in the ass end of nowhere, you think they’d come here after Terra? We’re what they’d lock down first, make us some kind of logistics station or some shit for the push inward. You think the Accord would fall in three years? We’re still in the initial stages, here. Like, sure, I’ve seen their ships over the valley, weird fuckin’ shit, I bet the fighting is real intense, a fuckin’ meatgrinder even, but total defeat? Not possible.”

Nikolai considered it. The weeds did have a lot of high-tech shit, but Keeler had a point, and before he’d washed out of Basic on a bum knee he’d been focusing on officer training materials, or so he’d said years back. He knew more about actual military practice. “You think the fight’s still going on?”

“Come on, you think Terrans are just gonna roll over and die like that? Real Terrans,” he added, “not these communists and convicts. Look, I get it, surrounded by this kind of scum, I absolutely get why you’d buy it. You said it yourself, man, they get in your head — it’s all psy ops shit.”

“Damn,” Nikolai thought. He’d actually fallen for it. Shame crawled its way, hot and stinging, up the back of his neck. “Fuckin’ insidious.”

“Hey, like I said, I don’t blame you, bud,” Keeler said, patting Nikolai on the shoulder just shy of aggressively. A little cloud of dust rose up from his glove. “What matters is you get to the right understanding in the end.”

“Yeah.” Nikolaid did his best to seize the shame and redirect it in a more productive direction. Shame didn’t get anything done, but anger sure as fuck did. “I had an idea,” he muttered, leaning in closed, “but it’s not something I can pull off myself. We have any more guys here, or is it just us?”

“Well, that’s the thing about shelters of last resort,” Keeler said, grinning. “All us guards they tried to keep separated all crammed into the same mine with everyone else. I know for a fact we’ve got Harriman, McCloskey — you remember McCloskey, right? — and I think I saw Luscombe the other day.”

“Good,” Nikolai said. “Because think about it — they’re plants, right? And what do we have a shit-ton of, lying around unused ever since the big freeze? Industrial motherfucking herbicide.”

“Ohhh, I like the way you think, brother,” Keeler said, nodding approvingly.

“Damn right,” he said. No wonder Nell had tried to shut down the idea, if she’d been compromised. “We dig that shit up out of whatever warehouse it’s in, we lay a trap for these things, and when they show up, we hose ’em down and rip off their ship. Those things have to be armed, I mean, ships that size, in a war zone?”

“Figures,” Keeler said. “Even transports have some armaments.”

“And they won’t expect one of their own ships, will they? So we fly it up there and hull the mothership, just vent it right to vacuum. Weeds aren’t gonna like that any more than we would! Then, we get us some vacsuits, take the ship for ourselves–“

“And go to join the fight!” Keeler said, grinning. “Shit, man, they’d have to invent new medals to give us if we can pull that off.”

“You read my mind,” Nikolai said, pounding one fist into another. “So let’s sound out some of our guys — real quiet like, we don’t know how many wormheads we’ve got here — and then let’s figure out where some of that shit is cached and work up a plan. And then,” he added, chuckling, “we get us some weedkiller, and we kill us some weeds.”

The stars stared silently down, and the butterflies had all fluttered away to their softly glowing nests in the trees. The gentle tumbling of the mirrorfall was the only sound, a soft white noise that, more than once, had easily lulled Cass to sleep — and yet tonight, she sat awake, staring into the dark spaces between the trees, dreading the artificial dawn that was to come.

It was the inevitable end of the road she’d been on for weeks now, an end never far from her mind but which had nevertheless slipped from immediate consciousness. Polyphylla had completed her psyche map, and a meeting had been scheduled for her to present her findings and, potentially, end the wardship, one way or another. Come this time tomorrow, she would likely know if she was to remain free, to keep her own mind and thoughts and will, or have a piece of an alien surgically implanted in her spine to remake her in what they considered a more fitting image.

Leah stirred in her arms, soft and sweet-swelling, yawning and blinking up at her. “Can’t sleep?” Her voice was a soft murmur, almost lost in the trickle of the mirrorfall.

“Yeah,” Cass said, stroking Leah’s hair. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

She shook her head. “Do you want me to call Mistress for some Class-Z?”

“No.” The last thing Cass wanted was unconsciousness. She couldn’t shake the dread that any thought she had, any choice she made, might be the last one she ever made as herself. It was irrational, but the oblivion of sleep felt an awful lot like wasted opportunities to her in the moment. “I’m used to missing sleep, anyway.”

“Well…” Leah met Cass’s eyes for just a moment, then leaned in for a kiss, which Cass accepted gratefully. There was something marvelously comforting in Leah’s wholehearted love, and in her love for Leah in turn. Cass wasn’t sure when it had happened, but at some point this sweet, beautiful woman had wormed her way into her heavily-guarded heart, and she couldn’t deny it. Had it been when she’d seen how much work had gone into making her the way she was, and how much she had really needed it? Had it been that first time they’d made love, frantic and eager and confused and wanting it all the same? Had it been the lunch they’d shared at Cliff’s, or the first time they’d met at the grocery? Cass couldn’t untangle it all — it was all part of the same journey, each moment inextricable from the rest.

She lingered in the kiss for a long moment, then slowly ran one hand up the curve of Leah’s thigh, slipping under her nightdress and earning a shiver and a moan of delight. With her other hand, she cupped Leah’s cheek and gently broke the kiss. “No matter what happens,” she whispered, her eyes meeting Leah’s, the power of them almost overwhelming for all they were those same, gentle, unconcerned eyes she always had, “we’ll always have this.”

“Yeah,” she whispered back, her smile as pure and sweet as her heart. “I don’t plan on letting go of you aaaanytime soon~.” She leaned in and kissed Cass again, and the two fell back into the easy, comforting rhythm of lovemaking.

Sleep, when it came, did so without much effort.

“…leading me to conclude that the subject is entirely honest when she professes her intention not to engage in violence.” The diagram on the wall behind Polyphylla, for all that she’d explained it point by point, was still dizzyingly complex and inscrutable as far as Cass was concerned, but all the Affini present seemed to be following along. They, of course, weren’t nearly so distracted by what the Captain was doing.

“Even though she’s engaged in rather a lot of violence before?” Andoa said, running eir vines across Nell’s hair. At the far end of the table, she was half-embedded in the Captain, vines wrapped so tightly around her that all her struggles could barely produce a wriggle, a thick gag of knotted vines muffling her cries. Cass had very nearly seen red when she’d walked into the big, oval-shaped meeting room and seen Nell like that, but she’d managed to keep herself under control, forced a long moment of eye contact with Nell, and sat in the little elevated chair they’d provided for her, so that she could see above the glossy, glass-like surface of the table. At least it was comfortable.

“Oh, she’s willing to employ violence,” Polyphylla responded, “but only in tightly controlled ways — that’s obvious both from Neoxenoveterinary Archaeobureaucracy’s evidence as well as the psyche map. She actually displays a profound revulsion to violence in every instance, if you can believe it. She may be very good at it, but she certainly doesn’t enjoy it.”

“Hmmm.” Andoa’s gaze shifted to Cass. “Well, let’s hear from it her. Cass, you don’t believe there’s any way you could use violence to get something you want here? Say, the release of your little comrades back onto the planet?”

Cass focused on a point on Andoa’s forehead, roughly equidistant between eir six eyes. Focus, she told herself. Do not, under any circumstances, look down at Nell. “I can think of ways, yes. They might even work, short-term. Very short-term. I spend a lot of time thinking, and I have a habit of looking for the weak points in systems.”

“And what, pray tell, is our weak point?” the Captain said, leaning forward, resting eir head on eir fist, and smiling down the table at her. Nell, squirming helplessly in eir chest, was brought along for the ride.

“You know as well as I do that it’s florets,” Cass said evenly. “You’d do anything to keep them safe — and the moment you could guarantee that safety, you’d come down on anyone threatening them like a ton of bricks. But for a very brief moment, you could get almost anything out of one of you that way, if you didn’t mind spending the rest of your life doped out of your mind. I think that probably applies, to a lesser extent, to any non-Affini, frankly. It’s all tied up in your egotism, your bizarre and paternalistic obsession with the idea that no one else but you is capable of taking care of themselves.”

“Our bizarre and paternalistic obsession, as you put it, has brought endless joy to uncountable beings throughout multiple galaxies,” Andoa replied, eir tone light. “I think we’re entitled to just a little egotism in light of that.”

“Nevertheless,” Cass said. “You wanted to know your weak point. There it is. It’s not much of one, considering what you’re able to back it up with, but it exists. I don’t think there’s a way to exploit that for any kind of concrete ends, not in the situation I’m in. Even if I somehow managed to get my people back down to the planet where they belong, the minute I was neutralized you’d just bring them right back up. I’d accomplish nothing in the end, and I’m not interested in waste.”

“Well, she definitely understands the concept of consequences,” Andoa said, looking back to Polyphylla. ’I’ll give her that.”

“Ironically, the central pillars of her psyche are very relatable.” Polyphylla tapped at her tablet, and the psyche map shifted to another, even more impenetrable diagram. “It’s clear, based on what you see here, that one of her primary motivating factors is actually preventing harm. Unfortunately, this expresses itself in numerous unhealthy ways, both caused by and interrelating with much of the trauma she’s experienced.”

Cass shivered. It had been one thing when Polyphylla had simply watched her for a little while before bulls-eyeing her dysphoric longing (which she absolutely was not going to dwell upon right this moment), but listening to her describe her own cognition in such a mechanistic way was deeply unsettling. Of course she wanted to keep others from being hurt! It was such a basic impulse, a common ethic shared by humanity, that it boggled her mind that Polyphylla was even bringing it up.

“Well, that does explain rather a lot,” Andoa said, nodding. “And what about you, flower?” e added in an aside to Nell. “Does that sound like Cass do you?” Nell made a furious noise and did her best to thrash, but barely moved. “Mmmmm. Well put,” e added, chuckling darkly.

Cass’s shivers turned to a rolling feeling in her stomach. “Do you really have to do that?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Andoa said, grinning. “I value her input a great deal.”

The meeting went on and on like this, half disturbing psychoanalysis from an alien plant that saw Cass more as a machine in need of maintenance than as a person with things like dignity or natural rights, half the Captain’s commentary and occasional creepy asides to Nell. The other dozen Affini in the room, most of whom Cass had never met, interjected with questions or comments occasionally, and Cass found herself keeping a mental tally of who she thought was on her side and who would vote to scramble her brain.

At least Tsuga was there. They weren’t sitting near each other, but every so often their eyes would meet, just for a moment before Tsuga slid her leafy eyelids down to shade them. In those moments Cass recalled the feeling of being sprawled in Tsuga’s lap, things like worry and panic distant memories that slipped through her fingers whenever she tried to grasp them.

It had been the happiest she’d been in a long time, and that terrified her. Was Tsuga slowly domesticating her all on her own, no matter what she said? Was it all some kind of a long con, with her as the prize? Would Tsuga do that to her? She didn’t think so, but the fear was still there, even when Tsuga spoke up for her — and she did, several times. “This comes back to her wanting to prevent harm,” Tsuga was saying when Cass came back to herself. “At least, from her point of view.”

“By ordering her comrades to disperse into a freezing wilderness that can’t possibly sustain them?” This was one of the Affini Cass didn’t know, a Nephra Sero-something — Serotina, she finally remembered. “That doesn’t sound like harm reduction to me, and I know for a fact we’ve had several terrans come up with injuries on top of the malnutrition they all seem to have.”

“And given her history, I think it’s understandable why she would elevate personal agency in the face of overwhelming power to such a high value in her decision-making,” Tsuga replied. “Was it the correct decision? Of course not, and I think she’d agree with that herself at this point, given our progress in rescuing the terrans on the surface.”

“It was definitely not as effective as I’d hoped,” Cass grumbled. “And for the record, we’re not just running off into the woods. We planned this over three years, and we established supply caches. Honestly, now that we’re on emergency footing, there’s a lot of people who are probably eating better now than they have been in three years. You need calories to be alert, to defend yourself, to run.” In a darkly amused tone, she added, “You know, if you were an Accord warship, you’d be pulling your hair out over this. It was a good plan.”

“Thankfully, we’re not,” Andoa put in. “Though your reticence in offering assistance in locating the remaining hideaways your people are using is not casting you in the best light.”

Cass squared herself, sitting up straight and once again looking Andoa right between eir six eyes. “Even if this isn’t working as the leverage I wanted it to be, I won’t betray them.”

“It’s not betraying them,” Nephra said, “It’s helping them.”

“They chose to hide,” Cass said, glaring back across the table at her. “I’m not like you: I won’t take that choice away from them.”

“Cass, you told them to hide.” Andoa was once more leaning eir head on eir fist. “We haven’t forgotten that.”

“I recommended it, yes. Just because I recommended it doesn’t mean I made them. That’s not how we do things.”

Andoa chuckled. “You think so? Because from my conversations with little Nell here, I have had a very different picture of the great Cass Hope painted for me. You, my dear, are the Great Revolutionary, despite your choice of politics, an inscrutable genius whose thorn-sharp mind manages a thousand thousand inputs and outputs all at once. You know you’re the only person she’d trust to handle logistical issues besides her? From Nell,” e added in an aside to the other Affini, “this is extremely high praise. And she assures me that she’s far form the only one who sees you in this way. A hint from you might as well be an order to a fair proportion of your comrades.”

Cass felt her blood run cold. “Nell told you that?” she said, her voice far weaker than she would have wanted it.

“She did. Oh, but don’t fear, little one! She’s told me nothing that compromises operations. She’s a fighter, this one. Oh, I’m very fond of her.” The vines around Nell slithered and tightened, making Nell squeak.

“Stop that,” Cass hissed. Every time the Captain teased Nell like that, it was like someone had seized her by the gullet and was squeezing.

“But she loves it so,” Andoa said, running eir fingers through Nell’s hair.

“Captain, please,” Tsuga said. “You’re distressing her.”

“Oh, very well. It’s about time for her to get a break, anyway. Nell, how would you like to catch up with Cass, hmmm?” Nell nodded frantically, and Andoa laughed. “Alright, shall we take a break and reconvene in just a little while, then?” There were noises of assent from around the room, and Andoa’s vines slipped loose, gently guiding Nell to the ground and rubbing at her extremities. “Remember, flower, don’t just sit still, walk around and get the blood moving.”

“I know,” Nell growled, hugging herself and shivering — she wasn’t wearing anything besides her underclothes. Andoa pulled a brightly-patterned green and yellow blanket out from inside emself and wrapped it around Nell’s shoulders, and she added a grudging “thanks.”

“Have fun, you two,” e said, standing up and patting Nell on the head. Cass was on her feet and had her arms around Nell long before even half of the Affini had filtered out of the room. The two simply stood there for a long moment, leaning into one another, before Nell finally spoke.

“Sorry,” she muttered into Cass’s shoulder. “I kinda fucked it all up. Everything that went wrong is because of me.”

“No,” Cass whispered, shaking her head. “No, I didn’t think it through. I missed obvious things.” She wasn’t about to let Nell take all this weight on herself. She was the one who had ruined everything, as usual.

“Just shut up and let someone else take some responsibility for once, okay?” Nell pulled back, looked up at Cass. “Are you alright? They haven’t been fucking with you or doping you up or anything? Like what the fuck even is this psyche map thing?!”

“It’s just…” She took a deep breath, collected her thoughts. “They put me under and replayed all my memories and took notes. I don’t understand half of it, but they didn’t do anything to me while I was under. Tsuga was there the whole time, and she promised me she wouldn’t let Polyphylla do anything like that.”

“And you trust…her? I guess it is her, huh?” When Cass nodded, Nell went on. “You trust her to not fuck with you, the alien plant from the species of alien plants whose entire purpose in life is to fuck with you?”

“I do,” Cass replied. “She and I, we… we have an understanding, and she doesn’t trust herself enough to domesticate anyone. That’s enough for me. How about you, are you okay? What the hell is the Captain doing to you?”

“Oh, stars,” Nell said, rolling her eyes actually smiling a little. “It’s fucking ridiculous, Cass. E hasn’t done anything! E just ties me up, fucks me until I can’t take it anymore, then just cuddles me and brushes my hair and cooks for me while we talk about Marxism. That’s it!”

Cass stared at Nell. “You’re fucking the Captain?” This was not what she’d expected to hear from Nell of all people.

“Ugh, it’s not like that,” Nell said, the smille falling away. “I’m not some plantfucker, I mean, I guess literally I sort of am at this point, but it’s just a fucking game. That’s what e calls it, anyway. E just fucking… tickles me, slaps me, does shit to me, and I’m supposed to try to outlast eir fucking timer without begging for… for it to stop.” She flushed bright red and looked away. “If I can beat the timer, if I can hold on long enough, e says I don’t have to get domesticated.”

“And you believe that?” Cass didn’t ask what the look was about — maybe there was something else the Captain was doing to her that was too much for her to talk about, and she was simply putting on a brave face. That was very Nell, Cass thought, and so she didn’t pry.

“Well, I mean… e could just do it whenever e wants to, I don’t exactly have a lot of options,” Nell said. “And if e does keep eir word, I think I can probably convince em to keep gambling on this game even after I win. Gamblers are like that, they always have to chase the next high! Maybe I could even get everyone turned loose, get us back to the planet!”

“Nell, they’re never going to do that,” Cass said, sighing and crossing her arms. “Even if the Captain keeps eir word.”

“E’s the fucking captain!” Nell protested. “E can do whatever e wants!”

“Yes, but they won’t let it happen,” Cass went on, not entirely sure that the Captain had that kind of authority in the first place — Tsuga had told her the position was elective, after all. “You heard them during the meeting! And anyway, you haven’t beaten the Captain yet, or you wouldn’t have been sitting there all tied up!”

Nell grinned and leaned in close to whisper, “Yeah, well, see, at first, every time I got close to beating the timer, e would just extend it. Provide a better challenge for me, according to em, the fucking liar. So, I’m lying too. That’s the real game, I realized.” There was a vicious little twinkle in her eye that Cass recognized, familiar from oh so many arguments when she thought she had the upper hand. “I’m sandbagging. The last few times, I’ve tapped out way before I was spent. I’m building up my stamina and maybe in a few more sessions, I’m going to go for broke, and I know I can win!”

“Flower~” Andoa called from across the room, where e was chatting with Tsuga one-on-one, “I don’t see cute little terran legs walking~”

“Uuuuugh!” Nell spun on the spot and began walking further away, and Cass followed. “Look, I know what this looks like, but I have it under control, I promise. I’m going to get out of this, and I’m going to do whatever I can to get you out of this. That’ll be my first raise of the stakes once I win, if they vote to implant you — me and you, all or nothing.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Cass said. “I…look, I don’t want to be domesticated, obviously, but I have a fallback.”

“A fallback?” Nell bit her lip. “Some kind of escape plan? Did you hack their computers?”

“No, I just– Tsuga put in paperwork that says that if they do vote to domesticate me, she gets first crack at it, and she’s promised not to screw with my head beyond maybe doing something about my nightmares.”

Nell froze on the spot, then turned to stare at Cass, eyes wide. Cass almost ran right into her. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

“Nell, sweetie, don’t yell,” Andoa called, obviously enjoying having to do so judging by the massive grin on eir face.

“Fuck off, this is a private conversation!” she shouted back across the room before turning back to Cass. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!” she hissed again. “You want the fucking tree to domesticate you?!”

“No,” Cass said through gritted teeth, “but if it’s going to happen, I want it to be the tree that likes me the way I am.”

“Have you seen what they do to people when they domesticate them?!” Nell said. She still hadn’t blinked once. “It’s like they take a fucking ice cream scoop to their brain! They’re strung out and barely aware of what’s going on around them!”

“Some of them, yeah,” Cass said, feeling a mote of irritation growing behind her eyes. “I’ve been living with someone I thought was like that when I first met her, actually, and it turns out… there’s a lot more going on than I thought there was. It’s true she’s not the person she was, but… the person she was was miserable, actively suicidal, and wanted that to stop, and now she’s happy. And I can’t bring myself to be mad about that. And I’ve met other florets who are totally lucid, lucid enough to run a restaurant!”

“And you think Tsuga’s going to let you be you enough to run a restaurant?” Nell spat. “You don’t think she’s just going to core you out and make an emotional chew toy out of you, like this girl you’ve been living with?”

“No, I don’t,” Cass retorted, an edge of anger creeping into her voice, “because I trust her. And Leah’s not an emotional chew toy.”

“You are walking into the lion’s den,” Nell said, glaring, “and you don’t even see it! She’s got you wanting to be a drugged-out little w–“

Cass’s hand snatched out and grabbed a fistful of Nell’s blanket, jerking her forward. “Don’t you dare call her that,” she snarled, her free hand a half-cocked fist.

“I… I wasn’t gonna,” Nell said, going pale. “I could, I just… fuck, Cass, why do you want this?”

“I don’t,” Cass replied. Every muscle in her body tensed as her anger peaked, a heat that she was sure even Nell could feel before it began to fade. “But I’m not enough of a fool to not have a backup plan, and this is the best I can swing.” It was pointless to fight. They needed each other if they were going to make it through this. She let her fist drop and sighed, her other hand releasing Nell. “I don’t want this… but I want one of the ones who don’t respect me to get me a lot less, and I’ve met exactly two Affini I think are decent people. One is Tsuga, and the other, well, he’s nice, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life programmed to laugh myself sick at dad jokes.”

Nell stared at Cass for a moment, then chuckled. “Okay, fair,” she admitted. “He’s not bad, but I wouldn’t want that either.”

“Look,” Cass said, putting a hand on each of Nell’s shoulders, “you have your plan. I have mine. Neither of us like them very much, but it’s what we’ve got to work with.”

“Alright…” Nell nodded. “If nothing else, there’s still Operation Double or Nothing. So if they do vote against you, just do what you can to delay it, alright?”

“I appreciate that,” Cass said, “and Tsuga might even go along with it, but I’m not going to tell her about Operation Double or Nothing — which by the way is a terrible name for opsec purposes — because I’m sure she’ll feel compelled to tell the Captain.”

“…fair enough. Just dig in your heels, and I’ll do the same,” Nell said. “…sorry about yelling.”

“It’s alright,” Cass said. “We’re in the shit. It happens. You’ve just gotta push through it.” She pulled Nell into another hug, and held her there for a long moment. “…is what the Captain said earlier true? The way you think about me?”

“Fuck you, Cass,” Nell said, softly and without any ire, as she let her head rest on Cass’s shoulder.

“…it means a lot to me. Thank you,” Cass said, smiling. Even she could read what Nell really meant by ‘fuck you,’ and while she may not have deserved the affection or the respect, considering how badly she’d botched everything up, it was nice to know she had a friend who understood her.

“Are you sure you want this?” the Captain said, fixing Tsuga with a hard stare — but Tsuga’s eyes were still on Cass, across the room, where she was hugging Nell. It was very sweet to see the two of them together again. Hopefully, they could spend more time together in the near future.

“I know what I’m doing,” she replied, stilling her vines confidently. “And I know what I want.”

“Because it sounds an awful lot like you’re trying to convince the committee to let your terran go,” Andoa went on. “And you’re doing a good frosting job of it, too. Are you aware of that?”

“Well, I wasn’t certain, but I was hoping, yes,” Tsuga said. She finally glanced down at the Captain. “Why, do you have a problem with it?”

“Not a problem so much as a tremendous amount of confusion. Why would you file a Notice of Intent to Domesticate if you didn’t intend to domesticate?”

“Oh.” E must have checked before the meeting. Well, that was very Andoa-like behavior — from what Tsuga had seen and from what she’d heard from colleagues, the Captain was extremely thorough and detail oriented, even if e didn’t always seem it outwardly. “Yes, I did file that, but I didn’t file it for me. I filed it for Cass.”

“… for Cass.” E put eir hands on eir hips and cocked eir head — a very terran gesture that reminded Tsuga of the way Cass would look up at her when she got annoyed. “Explain.”

Tsuga’s eyes went back to Cass. “She was nervous about the wardship coming to an end, because she was afraid given her history we’d all summarily vote for domestication. I offered her the Notice to give her a bit of comfort that, even if our decision goes against her, she gets to be with someone she knows and trusts, and who will restrain herself to a minimum of changes in the domestication process.”

Andoa stared up at her, eyes roiling with a confusing whorl of colors. “You want to domesticate this terran.”

“Yes,” Tsuga admitted. “Very much.”

“A terran under wardship who could, by the end of the day, be slated for domestication.”

“Yes, I’m aware of the possibility.”

“But you’re arguing against it!” Andoa said gesturing at Tsuga with an open hand. “Why?”

“…it’s hard to explain,” Tsuga said. She riffled her foliage to signal she was still in thought while she tried to put the words together in her head. “I think that… I want her to want it. I don’t want it to be that she was forced. I want her to want me. And I want her to want that herself.” Yes. Yes, that would do.

“…well,” Andoa said, a grin breaking out across eir face. “I had you down as a romantic, sure, but I had no idea you were that much of a romantic.” E laughed and glanced over eir shoulder. “Flower~” e called. “I don’t see cute little terran legs walking~” Nell made an irritated noise and started walking. “So,” e added, turning back to Tsuga, “you don’t want a win by default, you want her to come to you. That I can understand. I had no idea we were so alike! I’m almost there with Nell, in fact!”

“Oh?” Tsuga glanced back at the Captain and matched eir smile; that was good news. “She still seems to have a lot of fight left in her.”

“She does, yes, but I think within a few more sessions, unless I’m much mistaken, I’ll have her good and ready to break. And then, oh, the fun we’ll have. The boots will be off at last!”

“The…boots?” She glanced across the room to make sure she’d seen right, and yes, Nell was barefoot already.

“Oh, it’s a terran expression. It means I’ll be done going easy on her.”

Across the room, Tsuga saw Nell suddenly stop and turn to face Cass, staring up at her wide-eyed. “…out of your fucking mind?!”

“Nell, sweetie, don’t yell,” Andoa called, eir grin growing wider.

“Fuck off, this is a private conversation!” Nell shouted back before lowering her voice.

“See? She still sounds awfully feral,” Tsuga said, watching her and Cass carefully.

“Oh, she is very feral,” Andoa went on, cackling softly. “That’s why she’s so much fun. Surely you feel the same about Cass, considering this gambit of yours.”

“It’s not a gambit,” Tsuga said. “I care about her, and I want her to be happy, and yes, I think she’d be happiest domesticated, but– but she’d be my first floret. Is it selfish that I want it to be special? I really do think she’s able to function on her own…but I also think that she’s going to volunteer for it before too long.”

“Mmmm. I agree there,” Andoa said, nodding. “She’s not a creature for a universe like the one we’re building. She’ll be a restless mess on her own.”

“You’re only seeing reports, don’t forget. I’ve spent more time at Polyphylla’s hab than my own of late.”

“Glad to hear that,” Andoa mused, and when Tsuga gave em a confused twisting of her vines, e added, “Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“…yes, well, anyway, she is changing, slowly, now that the pressure she remade herself to endure is gone. She allowed me to entrance her not too long ago, and she’s developed a very strong relationship with Polyphylla’s floret, Leah, after being equally reticent about such things not too long before. And I’ve been preparing myself, in case the committee voted for domestication.” She flexed a few of the blossoms she was keeping hidden inside her, essentials for domestication as well as one little present for Cass she’d had grafted over the last week, the last just the night before.

“Good to know you’ve got this well in vine, then,” Andoa said. “But be careful she doesn’t slip away from you after this.” E paused for a moment, and used the hand-on-chin gesture to indicate thought. “Hmmm. What if, say, I officially ask you to keep an eye on her, just in case? Not a wardship, just frequent wellness checks, from someone she demonstrably gets along with?”

“I certainly wouldn’t mind an excuse to see her,” Tsuga said. “I was thinking I might invite her to continue to stay with me, if she wanted, but…having a safety net of my own would be appreciated. Thank you, Captain.”

“Just doing my part,” e said, grinning and giving Tsuga a very terran clap on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I have no doubt your cute little grey-stripe will find her way to you soon enough.”