Wakefulness came slowly, fuzzy at the fringes. It was less an awakening and more a gradual surfacing, as if a warm tide were pulling away and leaving Cass half-buried in the sand. She became aware first of the weight of her body, then its shape. In fits and starts her surroundings made themselves known to her. She was wearing a tank top, nice and snug, and a pair of loose, lightweight trousers. She was lying on something soft and warm, and what she somehow knew on a bone-deep level was safe.

Eyes. She should open her eyes. She had them, she might as well use them. Color and light streamed in as she tentatively blinked. She was in some kind of a forest, the sun casting long shafts of light through the branches overhead, riotous sprays of flora crawling up virtually every surface. Memory tickled at the back of her mind, but she wasn’t quite in a place to go rooting around back there just yet — wakefulness and sensation were still new things, and she hadn’t yet exhausted their opportunities.

“Welcome back, little one.” It was the warmest, kindest, most beautiful voice in the whole world, and it immediately drew Cass’s eyes upward. Tsuga. There she was, bark and vines and moss and needles coalesced into a human shape, eyes shining down at her. A wave of love flooded through her, powerful enough to wash away her train of thought for just a moment, and tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

“H-hi,” she whispered, a smile stealing its way onto her face. A massive hand descended onto her head in a long, gentle stroke that set ripples shimmering up and down her neck, and she gasped in pleasure and surprise. Oh fuck, I’m still high, she thought, a giggle bubbling up from somewhere deep inside. It felt at once odd and so, so liberating.

“How are you feeling?” With the tenderest touch imaginable, Tsuga scooped Cass up out of her lap (ah, that’s where she’d been) and into her arms, squeezing her in an immensely comforting hug. The gentle thrumming from within her perfectly harmonized with the gentle thrumming in the back of Cass mind, a melody of pure love, delight, relief, and joy.

It took her a moment to catch her breath. “I’m…okay?” Something did feel off, not bad but off, like she’d walked into a room and promptly forgotten what she was there to do. Then again, she was high. She licked her lips — fuck, that felt good, little rippling waves of wet delight — and looked around. “…Polyphylla’s?”

“Mmhmm. Though, there have been some changes. A lot can happen when you’re blisteringly high for a few weeks straight.” She chuckled and stroked Cass hair again, another shivering wave of pleasure rocking her body. “We merged our habs. This way, you and Leah don’t have to be apart. I can report that she’s been absolutely delighted to have you around full-time.

“Leah?” Cass looked around. It was definitely Polyphylla’s hab, just as she remembered it. She was, on some level, aware that this should probably trouble her at least a little, but with Tsuga so close at hand, she knew, somehow, that she was safe. Tsuga would never let anything bad happen to her.

Memory slowly caught up to thought: because I belong to her. Cass felt a wave of vertigo as she reoriented herself around the idea — an old rush of revulsion and fear washed out by fresh new waters of excitement and fulfilled longing. I’m her floret now. I asked her for it. She looked up at Tsuga, eyes wide, uncertain how to feel, and it was the look in Tsuga’s eyes, the resonance that surged within, that decided for her.

“She’s having a little routine maintenance right now,” Tsuga said, nodding to the doorway of arched trees that led to Polyphylla’s office. “She should be up and about soon, and I know she’ll be delighted to see you awake too.”

Cass felt a warmth in her chest at the thought of Leah. Nothing got in the way — no fears, no frustrations, no distaste, no judgement. All she felt was her love for the other woman, an honest feeling she’d been struggling with now set free. Any moment now, she’d come out, lay eyes on Cass, and almost certainly break into a run, excitedly shouting–

Oh fuck. A wave of horror surged up and crowded out all the good feelings and comfort, all the ease and safety. I can’t remember my name! “What did you do? What did you do to me?!” she cried, staring up at Tsuga. “I can’t remember my name!”

“Shhh, shhh, calm down, petal,” Tsuga purred, stroking Cass gently. Her biorhythms grew louder, unrestrained, and helped to dampen out the fear. “It’s not gone, just put away for a little while until you learn to live without all the things tied up with it.”

“What do you mean!?” Even through the soothing wash of Tsuga’s biorhythms, the insistent but delicate touch in the back of her mind — oh God that’s the implant — she still felt the cold sting of fear.

“You created a persona and lost yourself in it,” Tsuga said gently, still stroking Cass in a slow rhythm. “To help you disconnect yourself from that persona, Polyphylla and I placed a block on that one bit of knowledge. It’s actually a very complex bit of mnemonic engineering and I don’t fully understand the workings of it, but Polyphylla can explain it to you if you like.”

Cass heart thudded in her chest. “But you said–”

One enormous finger traced a curve on Cass cheek, silencing her immediately. “Nothing has been erased, my love, I promise. When you’ve learned to live without the burdens that come with that name, I’ll let you remember it. But you do have another name, don’t you? A name you chose for yourself?”

Cass swallowed heavily. “L-Layla,” she whispered.

“My Layla,” Tsuga purred, her voice thick with pride and reassurance.

It wasn’t as if she’d forgotten the name. For many years, privately, she’d still thought of herself as Layla al-Tabari — certainly, whenever she had to interact with Solstice Administration — but over the years that name had been buried, used less and less, until she was living as…as whatever she’d called herself out of a fear that using her real name would make it easier for the company to ferret her out. There weren’t a hell of a lot of people with Arabic-language surnames on the planet.

It had been years since anyone had called her Layla, and decades since anyone she really cared about had done so. It was the name she had chosen, the name she had agonized over for long months with her mother and father’s help, and somehow for all its familiarity it still felt strange in her ears, strange to think of herself as Layla.

But knowing that the other name wasn’t gone helped. She cast her mind back over the last twenty-odd years, methodically searching for any other telltale holes, but the only things she could find weren’t holes, but hazes. What had happened when she’d been captured after she’d blown up the Marama logistics platform? They’d tortured her, they’d…what had they done? She’d been treated cruelly and made an example of when she arrived on Solstice… but how? She knew things had happened, but could only recall the vaguest shapes, and not the insistent force of nightmarish pain and heart-pounding anxiety forcing its way into her mind. She shook her head. It wasn’t a forgetting so much as a misremembering, and it felt very strange to have the things she’d all but constructed her identity as Cass in response to suddenly slip through her fingers like a fistful of dust.

“…you promise you didn’t make me forget anything else?” she whispered, clinging to Tsuga.

“Not one thing,” Tsuga said, giving Cass a gentle squeeze. “So please don’t be worried, my love. I’ll take care of everything. Your only job now is to be happy.”

“O-okay…” Cass Layla closed her eyes and let herself go limp against Tsuga, feeling the gentle vibrations and the affection they carried with them. One hand drifted up to her neck, and as she felt around she find the thin little strip of scar tissue. It’s really in there, she thought. I’ve got an alien plant inside my spine, inside my brain.

“Arvense tells me it’s grown in beautifully,” Tsuga said, her smile obvious to Cass even with her eyes closed. She could feel the smile in the back of her head, the implant picking up on her owner’s mood. I make her happy, Cass thought, and a sense of peace and love blossomed inside her. “We’ll go see him later today so he can do a final checkup, just to make sure everything’s alright, but I don’t expect any surprises.”

“Okay,” Cass repeated, biting gently on her lip. Now that the tide of fear was ebbing, the warm and gentle feelings were coming back, tickling and rippling with every touch. It felt so strange to think that not long ago, being touched like Tsuga was touching her now would have made her want to crawl out of her skin. Now, she couldn’t imagine wanting it to stop. Tsuga had made sure of that, she thought with a sigh of relief.

But wait — wasn’t that supposed to be a frightening thought? Cass Layla thought for a long moment, remembering all the things she’d felt and said before. What was different, besides how she felt? All her memories except one very specific detail were still in place. What had Tsuga really changed? The way her skin felt? That wasn’t that critical, was it? And then there was the lack of a voice in the back of her head criticizing her, pointing out faults and flaws, demanding that she push herself harder and harder. Not that it had ever been a voice per se, just thoughts, thoughts that forced their way into the front of her mind and refused to let go. Where had they all gone? It was like this before, too, when Tsuga had given her the Class-E. What did that say about her, that she built an effigy of herself out of anxiety and lived inside it for half her life?

No, not half her life. She remembered that feeling from well before she came to Solstice. It was the self-critical urge that insisted she didn’t look good enough, that she should try harder first to be more masculine, then to be more feminine, the fear that no one really accepted her for who she was. It was the knowledge, certain and unshakeable, that she wasn’t like the others — didn’t think like them, didn’t feel like them, didn’t behave like them. She had watched all those differences grow and grow and grow, and had done her best to learn from it, to analyze what qualities others had that she lacked, and how to emulate them.

But all of that was gone now. She didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to live inside someone else’s skin. Tsuga had fixed it. She didn’t know how — it couldn’t just be the name, could it? It wasn’t just the drugs she was almost certainly on, was it? Was it the implant? Was the implant gently steering those thoughts away from her attention? However it was happening, was this what it felt like to not worry? To not have to analyze everything at all times?

“Am I really yours?” she asked, burying her face into the soft vines of Tsuga’s chest.

“All mine,” Tsuga whispered back. “All mine.”

The tears came then, and Cass couldn’t hold them back — but then, she didn’t want to. The love she felt, the relief, was too powerful for any words. Only these tears of joy could give them a voice. She clutched at Tsuga’s vines as if to somehow pull herself closer to the Affini, felt them curl possessively around her arms, around her body. Questions still whirled around in her mind, and there was so much she didn’t know, didn’t understand, about the way she was now, but the one absolute certainty she had was that Tsuga would always be there for her, would never ignore her, would never casually dismiss her, would never abandon her. She was an Affini, which meant she got what she wanted, and she wanted to be with Cass Layla.

How long she spent pressed up against Tsuga like that, tangled in her vines and cradled in her arms, she wasn’t sure. The comfort came with a timeless quality, like everything else had politely put itself on hold so as not to disturb something so wonderful — and when something did interrupt, it only made things even better.

It started with a gasp, a soft intake of breath that Cass only barely heard. She opened her eyes and looked to see first Polyphylla, a waterfall of brilliant carmine flowers spilling from her head down her side — God, was she always so pretty? — and then Leah, standing at her side and staring up at Cass with the widest smile she’d ever seen on her face. Leah all but shrieked in excitement and bolted over to the sofa, arms outstretched, and before she could even ask for it Tsuga had reached down and helped her up onto the sofa, and then her arms were around Cass Layla and squeezing her as tightly as they could. “You’re awake, you’re awake!”

“Y-yeah,” she said, laughing and wrapping an arm around Leah. “Yeah, I’m back.”

“Now, you do remember what we talked about, Leah?” Tsuga said, giving Leah a gentle stroke from her head down her back, which made her shiver happily.

“I’m not gonna forget something like my pinnate’s name, Miss Tsuga!” she said, giggling and burying her face between Cass neck and shoulder, kissing her way along the collarbone. “Layla Layla Layla Layla~ We match now! Leah and Layla, Layla and Leah, LaylaLeahlalelaylalee~” She dissolved into giggles as her tongue tripped over itself.

“Sorry I was gone for so long,” Cass Layla whispered in Leah’s ear. Her hair smelled as wonderful as ever, rich and fruity and warm.

“What are you talking about, silly?” Leah looked up at Cass Layla, her pupils wide and black and deep. “You’ve been here for weeks. I’ve been cuddling up with you every single day~”

“She has,” Tsuga added. “It’s been absolutely adorable to watch. I have pictures.”

“But now you’re awake, so I can do this!” She leaned in and kissed Cass Layla, her lips silky-soft, her tongue darting out to find Cass Layla’s lips, teeth, and tongue in turn. She made a soft noise of need and pressed her body up against Cass Layla’s, her hands seizing fistfuls of tank top as she straddled one of Cass Layla’s thighs. She broke the kiss just long enough to whisper, “Okay?”

“Mmm.” Cass Layla pushed back in, ever-so-gently taking Leah’s lower lip between her teeth as she ran her hands up Leah’s thighs and under the brilliantly red sundress she was wearing. Her fingers hooked on the waistband of Leah’s panties and tugged them down just a few inches, letting the head of her soft little shaft peek out beneath the dress. Leah whimpered into Cass Layla’s mouth as she began to buck, and as she reached down with one hand and slid it into Cass Layla’s own waistband.

For a moment, she felt a halting jolt of fear, the memory of skin that once feared skin, but the only sensation that came in the wake of Leah’s touch was a warm, gentle ripple that caressed her abdomen, skittering around her ribs and slipping around to leave her ass tingling. She was getting harder now, and Leah’s fingers were plunging deeper and deeper, perilously close, now touching it, now stroking it, and Cass Layla let out a loud, uncontrolled moan as her entire body lit up with the amplified and distributed sensations.

And if it felt like her entire body was being stroked, that was perhaps because it was. Tsuga’s vines were sliding across her, a slow and never-ending caress — Polyphylla had joined Tsuga on the couch, their vines intermingling, and was doing the same for Leah, sending her spiraling just the same as Tsuga was doing to Cass Layla. Affirmation poured into her from the whisper-quiet place in the back of her head, stillness and serenity at the heart of a torrent of sexual exhilaration, as she heard both Tsuga and Polyphylla in turn murmur “good girl” into their pets’ ears.

Their pets. Her pet. Cass Layla was Tsuga’s pet. Composure and restraint fell away as she gave herself up to the act of love, lost in wild abandon as she and Leah embraced each other, embraced love without restraint, embraced the freedom to simply be with one another however their hearts and their bodies felt best inclined to fit together. The borders between them had been abolished, and the tide of their passion flowed back and forth without any impediment. Cass Layla felt tears sliding once more down her cheeks as she gasped for breath, as she moaned out her need, as her heart sang joyfully, as she and Leah fucked one another in the laps of their owners.

It was a perfect moment, and it left Layla’s heart light as a feather.

“No. No. No. Oh definitely not. Hmm… maybe? No. Uuuugh! Fashion is haaaaard!”

Cass Layla smiled as she watched Leah swipe through dress after dress after dress on a tablet, the mirrorfall somehow projecting each one onto her reflection’s body in realtime — another technological wonder casually installed in a pet’s bedroom, courtesy the Affini. As far as she was concerned, Leah looked lovely in any of the dresses, or for that matter, she thought Leah looked lovely in what she was wearing right now, too, but panties and nothing else didn’t qualify as an outfit even at Cass Layla’s level of fashion knowledge. The fresh tank top and trousers she’d thrown on after their post-coital bath had taken her all of two minutes. The flowers on the floor of her bedroom were nearly as soft as the bed itself, and Cass Layla was sprawled out across them, idly teasing a bright yellow blossom with one finger and watching it spring back and forth.

With time to think, now that the rush of emotion on awakening had run its course, she could finally appraise her state honestly. She had given up so much to become what she was, to find an escape from the hell she’d created for herself. She’d given up things so important to her that she’d been willing to fight, to kill, and even to die in their name. She belonged, in every way it was possible to belong, to Tsuga. She loved Tsuga, and Tsuga loved her, a truth she knew beyond question. Part of Tsuga’s body was inside the implant that had coiled around her spine, had infiltrated her brain, and was even now an active part of her thought process. Every so often, buried in the background thrumming she knew ultimately emanated from Tsuga herself, she thought she could feel a nudge here or there, but maybe it was just her imagination.

(There was the issue of her soul, of course, but that got theologically complicated, and she was very out of practice with thoughts in that avenue.)

And yet, despite it all, her mind felt freer than perhaps it ever had. She wasn’t high, not really. Her reaction time was slower, and she was more prone to losing herself in sensation than before, but with just a little focus she was able to dig deep through the treasure trove of her memory as easily as she could before — perhaps with even better clarity. Without tension and anxiety standing like an overeager watchman in her mind, without the fear of slamming into something she’d rather not remember, it was easier to cast herself back to places and times otherwise forgotten. Without the reflexive need to push herself into a certain shape, it was easier to light upon the little kindnesses she’d forced herself to do without the memory of, to find the good even in times she’d always written off as bad. Her trips down memory lane no longer came with a sign advising that she was walking into an active mine field. That was a liberty that no amount of fighting could have ever afforded her.

She didn’t know if what she’d done was right, but she knew it felt good, and she knew that, with this as an option, there was no way she could have continued as she was. Part of her, she now recognized, had longed for escape from the life she’d made for herself from the very moment she’d known it was possible — and part of her, a part now blessedly silent, had been horrified by that impulse, and had burned ever brighter and harder to resist it until it ultimately burned itself out.

Had she abandoned her comrades? Well, in a way, perhaps — but in another way, she’d simply passed the torch, as she would always have had to do, one way or another. And it wasn’t as if she was dead, or her mind carefully engineered into amnesiac security like Leah. She could still help, could still advise, could still be there for the people she cared about. She’d done her bit for the revolution, and the Affini had done theirs. It wasn’t the revolution she’d fought for, but it was a revolution that had worked over what could arguably be called geological time. Could she live with that? Was that enough?

“Laylaaaaaa,” Leah whined, “you gotta help me pick!”

Cass Layla sat up. “What am I going to tell you about dresses that you don’t already know?”

“How cute I look in it, obviously!” She pouted and pushed the tablet into Cass Layla’s hands. “Come on, come look!”

“Okay, okay,” Cass Layla said, laughing and getting to her feet. “So it’s between this one and–“ She paused as she caught sight of the mirrorfall — Leah was there of course, one of the dresses on the tablet projected onto her body, but someone else was in the mirrorfall staring back at Cass, someone she didn’t recognize.

The woman in the mirrorfall looked a lot like Cass, to be sure: the same dark black hair, thick and wavy, going silver at the temples and pulled back into a loose ponytail to keep it out of the way; the same thick eyebrows that even now were furrowing in confusion, sharp green eyes beneath them staring back at her, the same dark skin that not even three years of winter could lighten. The differences, though, were what stood out, the narrower shoulders, the more rounded jawline, the skin that no longer looked as though it had seen forty-four years of trouble. Everywhere Cass's eyes darted, she expected to find one of the many reasons she did her best to minimize mirror time — and every time, they failed to find what they were looking for. Her gut reaction to look away failed to materialize, and she simply stared.

The years had fallen off her, and with them so much of what she’d always hated about her body. She could still see the echoes of those things, but they were fading fast, and leaving behind a version of herself that, somehow, didn’t hurt to look at.

“Layla?” Leah’s touch on her shoulder was feather-light, and sent the gentlest of shivers through Cass Layla’s arm. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?” She blinked, turned to look at Leah. “Y-yeah, I’m fine.”

“’Cause you’re crying, y’know?” She reached up and wiped a tear away from Cass's cheek. “Do you want me to get Miss Tsuga?”

“No, just…wasn’t expecting that,” Cass Layla said quietly. She glanced back down at the tablet. “Uhm…and to be honest? I don’t think I can tell the difference between these dresses, but I bet you’d be cute as hell in either, so I’m just gonna pick at random. Is that okay?”

“Sure!” She giggled, stood on tiptoe, and kissed Cass Layla, the soft touch of lips on lips calling back the memories of earlier. It was so easy to remember the good things now. “As long as you’re okay.”

“I’m very okay,” Cass Layla said, tucking a lock of hair behind Leah’s ear and cupping her cheek. “How could I not be? You’re here.” She gazed down into Leah’s eyes without the slightest discomfort, the jet black pools of her pupils seeming to reach out and swallow her. She’d lost herself in Tsuga’s eyes many times now, but for the first time she found herself lost in the eyes of a fellow human. How long they stayed that way, how long they simply fed on each other’s presence, Layla had no idea — it was only when they were interrupted that she was able to shake herself free.

“Layla, petal?” It was Tsuga, folding herself almost in half to squeeze herself into the arched branches that formed the door to Leah’s bedroom, one arm sweeping the flowering vines out of the way. “It’s time to get ready for your checkup.”

“Alright,” she called back, pausing to give Leah another kiss. “I’ll be back in a little while, okay?”

“Okay,” Leah said, throwing her arms around Cass Layla and giving her a tight squeeze. “But hurry up. I want aaaaall the Layla time I can get!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cass Layla said, chuckling and returning Leah’s hug before breaking away to follow Tsuga. “What do we need to do to get ready, exactly?” Tsuga had pre-compiled a small ready-to-go wardrobe loaded with outfits for her, and while at the time Cass Layla had eyed the dresses hanging in it with suspicion, in light of what she’d seen in the mirrorfall her mind couldn’t help but revisit the subject. Maybe they’d look better on her now. Maybe. As a sometimes thing. She still thought she’d look better butch, but it might be worth a shot.

“Well, you’re missing something very important,” Tsuga said, kneeling down in front of her in the common clearing and reaching inside herself. She produced a thick band of what looked like polished leather, with a ring set in the middle, a thin ribbon of shiny, flexible metal running around the outside, and a pair of metal caps on either end. “This feels like it fits your overall aesthetic, doesn’t it?”

Cass Layla’s heart began to beat just a little bit faster. “Is that…?”

“Your collar,” Tsuga purred, stroking Cass Layla’s hair with her free hand. “So everyone will know you’re mine. See? Look closely.” Cass did so, hesitantly, leaning in and examining the collar in detail. There, on the strip of metal, so delicately engraved as to be almost invisible, were words in half a dozen languages. She spotted Affini first, tried to puzzle her way through it, but gave up when she realized the other languages were ones she knew, English, Arabic, Farsi, Kurdish, and more. They all said the same thing: “Layla Sequi, First Floret of Tsuga Sequi.”

Though her heart turned over at first, Cass Layla felt a broad smile spreading across her face. Layla Sequi, First Floret. That was her name now. The collar was an outward mark of what she already knew: that she belonged to Tsuga. Now her heart was welling up with emotions, and once again they found a way out her eyes and down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she whispered, wiping the tears away.

She wanted it. She wanted the weight of the collar around her neck. Was this her, or the implant talking? Did it matter anymore? She gasped just a little as Tsuga leaned in and brushed her hair out of the way, shivered as she felt the click of the metal caps coming together, bit her lip as the collar settled into place. Tsuga’s hands withdrew, and Cass Layla’s rose, feeling out the counters of her new, permanent accessory. The rumble in the back of her mind sang a song of deep, abiding love.

“How does that feel?” Tsuga rested her hand on Cass Layla’s shoulder, her eyes a snare that drew in her gaze. “Comfortable?”

“Very,” Cass Layla whispered.

“Good. Come along, then.” A vine slipped into the ring that rested against Cass Layla’s collarbone, and with a gentle tug Tsuga coaxed her forward. She took slow steps, so that even with her shorter legs Cass Layla could keep up. Her cheeks flushed as Tsuga led her out of the habitat and into the open air of the ship.

People would see her. People would see her like this. They would see Cass Hope being led through the ship on a leash like an animal. She knew this was a thing that would have bothered her before, but now that was only a memory. She was bothered not so much by the thing itself, but by the knowledge that before, it would have bothered her. One hand rested gently on the collar as she followed along at Tsuga’s heels, her eyes wandering as she thought it over.

She would have hated this because it was demeaning. It was demeaning, wasn’t it? For an independent sophont like she had been before, absolutely, but she wasn’t an independent sophont anymore. She was a floret. A pet. The collar around her neck said so. The implant whispering in the back of her mind said so. The vine, leading her along with gentle tugs whenever her pace faltered, said so. The love in her heart for the gigantic alien who had made her this way said so. The other Affini who, every so often, would stop the two of them and coo over her, petting her and admiring how cute she was, said so — as did her own meek acquiescence to the affection.

She was a pet, being led along on a leash by her owner, and she was entirely okay with it, because Tsuga loved her, because she was Tsuga’s pet, and this was where she belonged. That had to be the implant talking, right? But at this point, what did it matter? She’d asked Tsuga for this all on her own, without the implant. This had been her decision, her choice, and she was so grateful to the woman she’d been, to Cass, for allowing herself to make that choice. She remembered the anguish, the hurt, the self-punishment. She remembered how hard it had been to choose to become something else. In lieu of giving her past self a hug, she hugged herself in the here and now. Cass had deserved better than she had been given, and now she was getting all that she deserved and more as Layla.

She was still hugging herself when she and Tsuga arrived at Arvense’s clinic. Nothing about the place had changed, and yet something was different — there was another terran at the front desk, a young man, clean-shaven and baby-faced, his hair immaculately groomed and framing his face in ruddy-brown waves. He was wearing the loudest Hawaiian shirt that Cass Layla had ever seen, and from the enormous pupils peeking out from under half-lidded eyes, he was clearly high as a kite.

“Hello?” she said, peering at him.

“Oh hhhheeeyyyy Cass,” he mumbled, and despite the meaningless word he’d said his voice was deeply familiar, one she’d heard hundreds of times echoing off the walls of Bulwark in a loud argument.

“Nikolai?” she said, staring.

“That’s my naaaame,” he slurred out, grinning and drumming on the desk with his palms. “Don’t wear it oouuut, or Master’ll hafta compile me a new one~” He immediately cracked up laughing at his own joke. “Ohhh hey, you’re here for a vet thing! That means I get to press the Good Times button!” He reached out and mashed his palm against a small button on the desk in the shape of a flower, and a gentle chime sounded from the back of the clinic. It only took a moment for Arvense to emerge.

“Oh, good, good, you’re here. And good boy, Niko!” His arms were long enough that he didn’t even need to lean over to begin ruffling Nikolai’s hair. “Very good boy!” His vines snaked under Nikolai’s shirt and began to rub and stroke him; Nikolai’s eyes rolled and his tongue lolled out of his mouth as he shuddered and twitched, moans cut off by sudden gasps for breath. Cass Layla had a good idea exactly how he felt.

“He’s taking to his training very well,” Tsuga said, no small note of admiration in her voice.

“Oh, he’s very trainable, aren’t you Niko? Aren’t you just the most trainable little terran?” Arvense said, laughing and redoubling his efforts. Nikolai croaked out something that might have been a “Yes, Master,” underneath the panting and moaning and shuddering. After a moment, Arvense relented, giving Nikolai a lift out of his chair and onto his feet. “Alright, go ahead and get yourself freshened up, Niko. I’m going to be in back with Layla and Tsuga. Come back out here once you’re done, remember?”

“Yyyyes, Master~” Nikolai mumbled through the grin on his face. He stumbled off, down one of the hallways behind the desk.

Cass had watched the entire thing outwardly impassive, but inwardly there was a tectonic shift taking place. The last time she’d seen Nikolai, she’d been worried for him, had asked Arvense to make sure he was taken care of — but why had she been worried? It felt so odd to question her own feelings that way, but he clearly was being taken care of. He was happy, and no doubt he felt fulfilled at what he was doing if he was so enthused about pushing what he called the Good Times button, and so she was happy for him. She even smiled a little as Arvense led her and Tsuga back to one of the exam rooms.

Was this adjusting to being a floret, seeing the world through a floret’s eyes? Or was this the implant talking?

Was there a difference?

The checkup had been swift as promised — the implant was growing in perfectly, her scar had healed perfectly, and as Arvense put it, she was a “perfect little floret.” The compliment had given her a short rush of elation, even if it confused her a little. He’d given her half a dozen pamphlets to take home with her, with titles like “What’s My Implant Doing?” and “Don’t Worry, Be Floret,” along with a lollipop. The lollipop, he insisted, was mandatory, and wouldn’t let her leave until she popped it in her mouth. It was delicious, a kind of spicy-sweet flavor somewhere between cherries and cinnamon, and it left her mouth tingling and her mind a little slippery in a way that spoke to a light infusion of xenodrugs. It was a nice surprise. Before, unplanned dosing would have been a matter for concern, but that was before she had the implant gently reminding her that the Affini would never, ever knowingly hurt her.

The next surprise was equally pleasant: when the door to Polyphylla and Tsuga’s shared’s hab slid open, it wasn’t just the usual riot of color that greeted her but a loud chorus of cheers. Her implant acted before the shock could turn to fear or discomfort, a heady feeling rolling through her brain as if she’d just sunk into a soothingly warm bath. The inside of the hab was full of sophonts, she realized as her eyes remembered how to focus, more than a dozen florets with Leah right out front, a big smile on her face as she grabbed Cass Layla’s arm and pulled her inside.

It was a party, Cass Layla soon found out, a surprise party that Leah had put together for her to welcome her to the Tillandsia’s floret community. She saw a few familiar faces, like Cliff and Sascha, who had brought a massive platter of finger sandwiches based on a modified menu from their restaurant, but even more florets she’d never so much as glimpsed before. There were Affini too, dotted around the hab in clumps of three or four, chatting amiably while their pets frolicked at their feet.

There were board games, digital games, improvised games, cuddle-piles, and more than a few corners not-so subtly claimed by couples or trios making out. It was a cacophonous display of sheer delight in every way, shape and form. Yesterday (weeks ago, really, but Cass Layla had missed that time), this would have driven her to distraction, and she’d have fled the place at a dead run, but now somehow the sound wasn’t drilling into her ears like it once would have. Was the implant doing that for her?

She ended up being pulled into a board game with Nell, who was wearing precious little save for the vines binding her arms behind her back (“Captain’s orders, no hands today,” she’d explained). She made a valiant go of manipulating game pieces with her feet, laughing every time she misplaced something or had to try to handle a card with her toes, and Cass Layla laughed along with her. Every so often, Nell would beg her or one of the other players to feed her, another of her Captain’s orders, and she’d flush bright red every time, embarrassed and elated all at once.

“I toooold you~” Nell had said through a cackle when they’d first encountered one another. “The great anarchist, a floret. It’s too good!”

“Yeah, yeah, get your licks in,” Layla had replied, drawing Nell into a hug. “I’m just glad you’re happy like this.”

“As if there’s any other way to be.” She’d leaned into the hug, and they’d held one another for a long moment. All the antagonism and discord between them, the meaningless arguments about the role of the individual in the revolution, were a thing of the past. All that was left was the friendship that had kindled beneath those arguments, the friendship that was now free to breathe at last.

The Captain was there, too. Cass Layla’s distrust of and fear for em had all but vanished, replaced with a kind of quiet awe, even as e knelt down to speak to her alone after the game had wound up. “Look at you,” e said. “I’m so, so glad to see you like this.”

“Really?”

“I knew from the moment I first saw you that you needed this, my dear Layla,” e said, ruffling her hair amiably. She sighed happily and leaned into the touch. “I have a lot of experience with terrans who are hurting, and I know the signs, and you, my dear, you were hurting. And do you know what?” E leaned in close and whispered, “So was Tsuga, and you’ve helped her just as she’s helped you. You two are good for each other. I know and you know that she’s always going to take care of you, but you take care of her too, understood?”

“Yes, Captain,” Layla said. “I will.”

“Good girl~” E gave her one last hair-tousle and left her there in the afterglow of affirmation. She knew exactly what the Captain meant, had known it even before she was domesticated, how she had helped Tsuga to grow beyond the ancient hurts holding her back. It made her heart swell and her eyes tear up to think that she could be something that good for her owner, her owner who loved her so much.

That was when the absolute knockout in the green dress had arrived, or at least, when Layla first noticed her. She met Layla’s eyes from across the room, her flaming red hair spilling down her shoulders and hiding half her face. It reminded her of Polyphylla’s cascade of red blossoms. It was only when the red-haired woman approached her, swept the hair back from her face, and said, “I didn’t believe it, but here you are,” that Cass Layla was able to place her.

“…Aletheia? God, I didn’t recognize you,” she said, grinning a little dopily. The party might have been starting to get to her, if only through the medium of her implant regularly dosing her to keep any anxieties at bay.

Her eyes lit up. “Really?” she said excitedly, and made a little movement somewhere between a dance and a happily little squirm.

“You look amazing,” Cass Layla said, looking her up and down with rather less subtlety than she intended to. Her curves were filling out, her face had softened, and her hair had gone from a curly mop to a long and wavy sheet that looked impossibly soft.

“You look really good too,” Aletheia said. “Hey, I’m sorry I was super out of it when you were feeling bad,” she added. “Mistress had me ramping up for my implant, so there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. Then I woke up after and found out you were getting an implant too and, well…” She grinned and hugged Cass Layla. “I guess it’s not what I expected, but I’m happy for you. For you and for Leah.”

Cass Layla returned the hug without hesitation. Even if Aletheia was smaller, there was a weight to her, a presence she hadn’t had before, and it felt so good to have it up against her body. “Thank you,” she whispered. “It… wasn’t easy, but I’m okay. I’m through it now.” She reached up to touch her collar, her fingers sliding against the cool metal strip and feeling each individual letter one by one. “I’m where I belong.”

“Good,” Aletheia said. “But…am I where I belong?” She met Cass Layla’s eyes, lip firmly locked between her pearl-white teeth, and Cass Layla saw in her a need that time had not abated. It was a familiar look to her now, the sign of something she felt within herself as well. Cass would never have entertained what came next, but Layla had nothing to hold her back. Aletheia’s lips were soft, yet became firm and commanding as the kiss went on. One of her hands reached up to cradle Layla’s cheek as she took the lead in the kiss, her tongue probing gently into Layla’s open mouth. If Tsuga had led her on a leash before, Aletheia led her now, and she gave herself to the moment just the same.

Was this the start of something new? Layla hoped so. After all, Leah had a half-dozen other girlfriends. (She wasn’t entirely sure that Aletheia wasn’t already one of them, in fact.) It would balance things nicely for her to do the same. She deserved good things, and she deserved to be loved — and she was, and she would be. That was what it meant to be a floret.

The party was wonderful, but it was also much more than Layla had been prepared for. She’d ended up plastered across Tsuga’s thighs on the sofa as the implant medicated her more and more. So much, alas, for the guest of honor, but everyone took it in good cheer and made sure to come by to pet her while she lazed there half-aware, and that was a lovely feeling. Even after the party wound down, Affini and florets slowly filtering out, she stayed there, exulting in the touch of her owner and the feeling of absolute safety it brought.

The artificial sky above the flowering branches was turning shades of pale pink and purple when her head finally cleared, and she sat up blinking as her mind slowly reassembled the last few hours into a coherent memory. “Oh… party’s over?”

“Mmmhmmm,” Tsuga said, stroking Layla with a heavy vine while she tapped away at her tablet above. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Layla said, sighing happily and rolling over to lean against Tsuga’s torso. The rumbling within matched the rumbling inside her perfectly. “Thank you.”

“Oh, it wasn’t my idea,” Tsuga said, “but when Leah brought it up to me, I thought it was a wonderful one. Did you have a good time?”

“Mmmhmmm.” She closed her eyes and let the world spin gently around her. “It was a lot, but… a nice a lot.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I know today has brought a lot of changes all at once for you, but you’re adapting beautifully.” The pride in her voice was almost too much for Layla. She let her mind roll back over the day’s events — even the bits that were hazy felt good and warm and safe. There was one thing that bubbled up, though, that made its way to her mouth in the form of a question.

“Are you and Polyphylla… I don’t know, is there an Affini-specific word for ‘couple?’ I’m sorry if that’s off-base, I just felt something from you earlier, and–“

“No apologies,” Tsuga said, giving her long, gentle stroke. “And yes, you’re right, we are. Well spotted.” She chucked and gave Layla a gentle squeeze. “Does that worry you? I know you and her had a bit of friction before.”

Cass Layla paused in thought for a moment, held in place by Tsuga’s hands and vines. She remembered everything that had happened during her wardship with crystal clarity, remembered the frustration, the anger, the feeling of powerlessness. Polyphylla had upset her, but that upset was in the past. Tsuga wouldn’t live with Polyphylla, wouldn’t be in whatever the Affini version of a romantic relationship was, if it was bad for Layla. “I’m yours,” she asked, “not both of yours, right?”

“Exactly. You and Leah are Layla Sequi and Leah Aptenia, First Florets pinnate,” Tsuga said, giving Layla a gentle pat on the head. Such a small gesture, and yet it meant the world to Layla, a thrill of affirmation. “Now, if Polyphylla tells you to do something, you listen, but anything big, anything important, I’ll be the one making the decision for you, just as she would for Leah.”

Layla nodded. “Okay.” Nothing bad would happen. Tsuga would always be here for her. And besides, she knew Polyphylla didn’t hate her or anything — she just didn’t get her. Now that the two of them were living together, and she had Tsuga to back her up, they could figure it out together.

“Good, good. Now, are you feeling clear-headed enough for some big news?”

“I think so,” Layla said, stretching and taking a deep breath and trying to clear her head. Her implant played along, and she felt a cool clarity slowly make its way through her. “Yeah, I think I’m okay. Why?”

“Well, once we made things official, I took it upon myself to do a little bureaucratic digging on your behalf. Specifically, I got in touch with Xenoveterinary Archeobureaucracy on Terra and asked them to try to track down a few people — and I’m very happy to report that they were successful.” She held her enormous tablet out so Layla could see it and tapped on what looked like one bit of email in a long inbox. It expanded into a video of a familiar room with sunlight peeking in through narrow windows and an older woman — in her 60s or maybe her 70s — sitting on a tattered old sofa, the bright red Layla remembered from her childhood long since faded.

And then the woman started speaking, and though her voice creaked with age no small amount, Layla recognized her at once. “Auntie Ashtî?” she whispered, too stunned to properly listen. When her brain finally caught up with her watery eyes and began to actually parse the Kurdish, she’d already missed the first few sentences.

“I’m so glad to hear you’re alright, kiddo,” she was saying, a big smile on her face. “We didn’t hear much about Solstice, but what I did hear told me you had to be in the thick of it. Reading between the lines of bullshit, remember?” She leaned forward just a little. “Your mother would be so, so proud of you. I know your father was. And I’ve always been proud of you.”

There was more, so much more, but Layla barely heard it. She had to watch it three times, crying all the while, to catch the details — how Ashtî had gone to ground for five years after Marama, how after the heat had died down she’d made her way back to Zerqamîsh and had looked after her father for the last years of his life, how the Affini had already reduced the average outdoor temperature around the city by five degrees. There was so much, and yet it was scarcely enough. She wept, clinging to Tsuga, as she unburdened herself of ancient strata of emotion long buried.

And Tsuga held her the entire time, never wavering, never hurrying her along. The harmony of her natural biorhythm and the mirror of it inside Layla’s head blanketed her in a soothing, loving presence, and what might have been an uncontrolled spiralling meltdown instead became a cathartic release. As the tears tapered off, and as she became aware of Tsuga’s slow, gentle petting, she finally got her breathing under control enough to ask something she never once thought she’d say: “Can we go back?”

“To Terra?” Tsuga smiled, and the relief that single gesture carried was almost too much for Layla. “Flower, I’ve already started making the arrangements. I think it’s for the best if you have a couple of days to grow accustomed to conscious life with your implant, to ground yourself a little, but after that, you and me and Polyphylla and Leah will all take a little trip.”

She almost began crying again, but managed to hold in the tears if not the emotion in her voice. “Thank you. Thank you! Thank you for everything,” she croaked out, looking up at Tsuga with nothing less than total love in her eyes.

“Layla, my petal, it’s my pleasure. And, I’ll admit, I’m also a little curious how the ecological reconstruction process is going,” she added with a wink.

Layla couldn’t help but snicker. “When did you become so suave, huh?”

“I may have been observing the Captain’s mannerisms. Just a little.”

“It looks good on you,” Layla said, closing her eyes and leaning into Tsuga with a deep sigh of relief. She was good for Tsuga, just like the Captain had said, as good for Tsuga as Tsuga was for her. Apart, they were perhaps the most hopeless members of their respective species imaginable, but together, they just fit, and everything worked. They were together now, and would always be together. How was she so lucky, to have met the perfect Affini the instant they arrived on Solstice? And how foolish had she been to try to deny this to herself, let alone to others?

That thought stayed with her, through the cuddle session and into the evening, all through a dinner and all through the bath that came after — one she happily shared with Leah, her implant secreting the counteragent to the Class-A shampoo so that all she felt was a gentle tingling as it was rinsed off into the water. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought, wasn’t guilt or unhappiness, but something to mull over slowly.

Her notes. Her grand plan for human freedom. In hindsight it all seemed a little like spitting into the wind, pointless and likely to backfire. On some level, Layla had always known that, but it wasn’t in her nature to just lie down and give up. Even now, as a floret, that just wasn’t who she was. Becoming Tsuga’s pet hadn’t been giving in, it had been a choice. In theory, her last, but she knew Tsuga liked her independent. She had room to maneuver, still, and leaving things unfinished was not her style.

But her notes were incomplete, she realized. She thought she’d finished them that day, the day that she finally, blessedly begged Tsuga to domesticate her, but in hindsight she’d only written down half of what needed to be said. She’d spent so much time and effort on how to avoid domestication, how to toe the line of feralism to keep the ember of freedom alive, and yet she’d spent so little time on how to live with the Affini, how to accept that their presence wasn’t inherently negative, how to love and be loved by them without losing yourself to it. The simple truth was, her notes lacked the perspective she now had as a floret. She had seen both sides of the equation, and was still lucid enough to describe how that equation was balanced.

So she would. She would revise her notes, and add onto them, and when they were ready, she would hand them off, to Raeburn or to Trish or to whoever she felt was best suited to the task. She really should get in touch with them, she realized. She hadn’t said anything to them before she went under, and she should really let them know she wasn’t permanently tripping on xenodrugs like a lot of florets were. She might not necessarily be the same as she had been before, but she was still her, a better version of her, a Layla who didn’t hurt all the time, who didn’t need to hide that hurt under a layer of cool bravado and competence.

She could still be there for them, and she wanted to be, because she loved them. It all came down to love, in the end.

But that would come tomorrow, and the days ahead, after her trip back to the homeworld to hug the closest thing she had to family from her old life. Now, she was slipping into a long nightshirt, admiring herself in Leah’s mirrorfall and not hating what she saw — someday soon, she thought, I’ll give one of those dresses a spin. Now, she was hugging Leah, her face buried in her sweet-smelling hair; now, she was kissing her, her hands sliding down her body in slow, uninhibited exploration. Now, she was being lifted into bed by her owner, warm and soft vines ensnaring her in a blissful cuddle. Some of those vines were Polyphylla’s, and she didn’t care — she knew Polyphylla loved her, too. What had gone before was just a series of mistakes, miscommunications, misunderstandings, unfortunate but a thing of the past. Now, a new chapter in her life was beginning. The two Affini let themselves intermingle, let their vines tangle around their two florets, cocooning them together in a perfect spoon. Layla had never been so comfortable as she was in that moment, with Leah cuddled up in her arms.

Sleep began to catch up with her. The day had been long and very, very busy, but it had also been the best day of Layla’s life. No doubt the days to come would be busy, too — she wasn’t the sort to stay idle, not even as a beloved pet — but no doubt, too, that they would be even happier.