The air didn’t smell quite as much of rust this morning. It was the new atmospheric scrubbers, Cass assumed, the ones the plants had dropped in just about anywhere the jet streams converged. If the news were to be believed, then they’d do more than just scrub the toxins from the air, but Cassiopeia kept her respirator mask close at hand anyway. Passing out from oxygen poisoning was just asking to get robbed.

 

She sloshed through sodden streets, grateful for having invested in a good pair of boots after her transfer a few years back, but still loathing the sensation of mud creeping up over the toes. Would the plants be paving the roads, too? Sure, most of the major ones were already set in cheap - if durable - asphalt, but the back alleys, the routes between habs, the roads that didn’t contribute to productivity, had either been kept in their natural state of clay-like dirt, or neglected so long that wear and tear had returned them to it.

 

Probably not, she assumed. If it was infrastructure they were interested in, then they wouldn’t get anything more out of unprofitable roads than the corps had. The scrubbers, at least, made sense - the planet was called Breakdown for a reason. Its oxygen-rich atmosphere had a way of binding with anything that could be rusted, leaving factories, machines, and starships alike in states of constant disrepair. The big corporate transports, at least, knew not to land planetside - expendable shuttles ferried the planet’s primary export to orbital docks, before being scrapped or refurbished above.

 

All this for cans full of dirt. Technically not just dirt, Cass knew - the planet’s bounty was bentonite, a clay that was utterly useless for just about any type of construction, and with better alternatives for most of the things it was good for. When mixed, however, into a water-based slurry, it could be vented from a starship into an opaque mist, a near-impenetrable defense against laser weapons. Thus, Breakdown was permitted to exist, a few hundred thousand people working miserable jobs dredging up dirt for which the only purpose was to be vented into space.

 

It was a miserable planet for certain, then, that an alien invasion had actually made it better. Since their landing four days ago, the Affini had done more than set up the scrubbers - they’d begun moving workers from dilapidated dormitories into individual housing units, shuttering the factories over safety concerns, and had recently started to adjust the atmospheric composition towards something more permanently breathable. All that and more, according to the pamphlets they’d been showering the settlement with. “Work to love, not to live!” “No more medical bills! Mental and physical health services available at your local consulate!” “Together, your dreams are in reach!”

 

Cass snorted, remembering the mud-caked copy she’d found of the last. A human had been wrapped in the plant’s vines, half-resting on whatever passed for its shoulders, one hand outstretched to reach for the stars. They’d definitely done their research - it was close enough to the corporate propaganda she’d seen to be familiar, but the bright colors and softer fonts distinguished it enough to not trigger the usual revulsion those motivational posters brought. They really did want to make themselves out like the good guys, didn’t they?

 

More people believed it than she’d expected. Of course, there were the zealots, the ones who listened to Radio Gaia their whole workdays and had bought the line that the plants were here to eat them, or experiment on them, or whatever. Most of the reasonable folk, though, they were exhausted enough, broken down enough by the system, to just accept any good thing that came their way - however wary they were about it.

 

For Cass’s part, she figured it probably laid somewhere between the two - they weren’t the horrors the media made them out to be, but neither were they the saints they pretended they were. As was the way of conquerors, they wanted the infrastructure, the labor, and they wanted it without having to fight a war against an entire population. So they were coming in, making things a little better to buy the people’s compliance, if not loyalty, and getting a workforce and manufacturing base without having to build it themselves. The zealots were xenophobic idiots, and the believers were more than a bit naive.

 

As if I’m one to talk, Cass chided herself, catching the eyes of a group of tired-looking miners as they were walking inside a clinic that they looked as if they sorely needed. She had it a fair bit better than most. Such was the silver price offered by the Antares Corporate Navy. Rooms with working heating, air that had been properly filtered, a paycheck to save for a rainy day - or even a dream of retirement. All they asked in return were life, limb, and soul.

 

She winced, leaving both miners and memories behind. Now was not the time to think about the union-busters. Sadists, she might have called them, but somehow the thought that they enjoyed it made it seem more redeemable. No, they simply didn’t care, as long as it benefited them. 

 

If the believers were right, then she wondered what the Xenos saw in her people to make them worth saving.

 

“Excuse me, petal, are you lost?” A sudden voice broke Cass from her deprecative dwellings, one that carried the distinctive uncanny harmony of their new occupiers. Cassiopeia didn’t look up. It was a busy street, they were probably talking to someone else, she just needed to keep walking, and-

 

The sensation of a vine on her shoulder sent chills down her spine, immediately defied by the warmth it brought. She didn’t quite understand how that worked - plants weren’t exactly warm-blooded, right? She certainly wasn’t inclined to ask. “Petal?”

 

Act natural. Act normal. It isn’t going to hurt you if it’ll rile up everyone else. Cass tried to take reassurance in that, but couldn’t claim to be too keen on the idea of martyrdom. Someone else could die, thank you. “Yeah?” She answered hesitantly, before registering the question, and amending, “Er, no, I mean? I’m not lost.” She tried to shrug off the tendrils, oddly hand-like at the end, and move on.

 

The plant’s grip tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to insist. Its voice lowered in some emulation of concern - or perhaps it was real, Cassiopea wondered, though she continued to avoid looking at it. “It’s just, sweetie, this is the fourth time that you’ve circled this block, and while keeping a healthy exercise regimen is commendable, I can’t imagine you’re wading through mud like this for fun. I’d be happy to help you find where you’re going!”

 

“I’m fine,” Cass insisted. Her voice was weak, only a fraction of the emphasis she desired coming through. Stars, she hoped nobody else heard that, or she’d get no end of shit for it. “I’m just waiting for a friend, that’s it. Can I go?” She wouldn’t look, she didn’t want to look. Her eyes were scrunched shut, her body rigid, she wasn’t listening or longing or wanting to just believe, and oh stars, why did being rude like that make her feel so guilty? Wouldn’t it be more polite to let the Affini help?

 

“...Alright,” the Affini said, and Cass felt herself buckle in a wave of crushing disappointment. It didn’t make sense, of course it didn’t, but then, what about the plants did? She was about to turn around, to apologize, to plead for the plant to forgive her and give her the help she didn’t know that she needed, when the plant made the decision to turn for her. Tendrils-turned-hands swept out, grasping Cass’s shoulders to whisk her into a sudden about-face. The shock was enough to instill some sense of reason back into her, enough to summon a scream from her chest, but it died at her lips.

 

The plant, the Affini, was beautiful. Flowers sprung from tendrils as if they’d been braided into hair; vines sashayed in the wind like the rippling grass in a mountain meadow she’d never known. She smiled, and it felt like scarce sunlight - warm and welcoming, renewing, and yet so brilliant that Cass could barely manage to look at it. Its eyes fell upon Cass, and in an instant Cassiopeia knew she was caught, that she would stare forever if the Affini asked her to, that she would say anything and do anything to fall deeper into that irresistible cinnabar glow.

 

The Affini’s lips parted, and Cass’s mirrored them. Once more, it spoke, its voice an immaculate vibrato playing across her ears and her mind. “You can go,” it said, words playing Cass’s thoughts like bow upon string, “But if there is anything you need, petal, any way we can help, you’ll come to us, alright? You’ll let one of us know?”

 

Cass didn’t acquiesce, for that would have required even the slightest degree of conscious decision on her part. No, Cass obeyed, as she nodded a dull nod, matched the Affini’s smile with a vacant grin of her own, and put all worries about what that request might mean well out of mind.

 

The plant hummed a satisfied tone. “Good petal,” it praised, teasing a tendril across her cheek. Warmth blossomed out from the touch in all the vivid color of a fireworks celebration now-near-forgotten, sending an entirely different sort of shiver through her spine. Stars, she was a good petal. “Run along now,” she heard the Affini say, voice distant but words as clear as her name, “And do remember what I said.”

 

She would remember. Starlight and snowfall, how could she ever hope to forget? Its voice, its touch, its still-resonating words which had so easily defined the tune of her thought-strings, they were imprinted in a mark upon her mind that Cassiopeia hoped would never fade.

 

“Cass! The fuck are you doing? We gotta go!”

 

A familiar voice shattered the reverie, like a high note upon glass. What had she been thinking?! Cass gathered her thoughts, prepared to chastise herself, and found herself falling utterly short. What had she been thinking? Something about the plants, something important, too important to remember.

 

She shook her head, clearing the hazy notions. “Right. Shit. Sorry, Jess. You get us a ride?”

 

A triumphant grin greeted her. “Bet your ass I did,” Jessine said, dangling the access code to a skip-shuttle right above her eyes. The grin was soon replaced, however, by a scowl, and behind it, a familiar look of concern. “Hell were you thinking, though, talking to a weed like that? What’d it want with you?”

 

Cass blinked, thought about it for a second, and began to walk, pulling Jessine after her. “Nothing,” she lied. “It doesn’t matter.”

Cassiopeia remembered, now, what the Affini had said to her. Three and some years distant, it was clearer to her than the face of her scorned lover. She wondered for more than a moment if that was to blame here, if the words of a plant hundreds of light-years away, one that she’d never even learned the name of, had driven her to make the most rash, most self-sacrificial, and possibly final decision of her life. Did it really matter if it had?

 

No, she decided, on both accounts. On the latter, what was done was done, and the reasons that drove her to it no longer affected the outcome. If they were going to domesticate her, punish her, eat her, she had no way to change that. For the former, she had no true argument to offer. It was entirely possible that, even without her conscious awareness, those words were still bouncing around in her mind, choosing her every action. There was no way to be certain, not that she could trust. And so, in the absence of any definitive evidence, Cassiopeia chose to believe that this reckless mission, an absolutely hairbrained plan that had somehow thus-far succeeded, had come about of her own moral impetus. At least, then, she could believe that she’d done something good.

 

Fate sealed, regrets put aside, Cassiopeia met her captor’s eyes. Her question hung in the air, and though she knew that what felt like hours had only been a second, a space for a breath, she wished the answer would come more quickly and end the agonizing uncertainty. Those eyes ought to have drawn her in, banished every question from her mind as the caress of that Affini on Breakdown once had. Indeed, she felt the tug of them, but it was faint, without intention or true presence behind it.

 

The plant was conflicted, wasn’t she? Or hesitating, questioning, one of many uncertainties that had denied her either an answer or the substitute of sweet oblivion. Get it over with already, gods dammit! Just decide!

 

“Cassiopeia,” Lysanthae spoke at last, “If you would accept me as your Owner, I would be absolutely delighted to make you mine.”

 

There. That was it, then. She’d presented it as a choice, but Cass couldn’t imagine it was much of one at all. Either she became this Lysanthae’s pet, or someone else would take her. Her future was decided, and soon, everything she could ever want, hope, or be would be too.

 

So why did she feel relieved?

 

She didn’t need to ponder the question for long. The answer was right in front of her, weighing on her chest in shades of guilt, catharsis, and the promise of the end of her war. Cass-the-Rebel would have been horrified. Cass-the-Rebel would have struggled, screamed, and shouted, until the plant was forced to fill her up with enough drugs to domesticate a warship. Cass-the-Rebel didn’t get a say, though, because Cass-the-Rebel wasn’t here, and she wasn’t sure if she ever had been. This had never been Cass’s fight. If anything, it was a long, cruel example of how the ACN had taught her not to say no.

 

Cassiopeia lifted her head once more, and met Lysanthae’s unwavering gaze with a smile. “Thank you, Lysanthae.”

 

If Lysanthae was taken aback, pleased, or anything in-between, she didn’t show it. Even so, Cass felt something inside her give way, some tension she hadn’t before been able to recognize as distinct from the constant mass of anxiety knotted within her. The words kept flowing. “Thank you, for rescuing me, and for healing me, and for waiting with me while I woke up. Thank you for making it easy. For being kind.”

 

A memory tugged at her unbidden, the words of a therapist she’d never been truly honest with, not any more than anyone on the ACN payroll. Was this some sort of fawn response? Possibly. Probably. But stars be damned, she was too tired now to be scared, and definitely too tired to go analyze some buried trauma that she - and every other human in this fucked-up society - had. If it was some traumatic response, then to hell with it, at least she was being a halfway-decent person to one of the few beings that had offered her kindness.

 

“Look, I… I won’t fight it, okay?” She continued, words coming faster than thoughts now, as if some invisible timer heralded a point when she would no longer be able to express them. “I won’t make any trouble for you. Just… make it go okay, alright?” Her eyes stirred, trying to flick shyly downwards, but she found not the will to break from Lysanthae’s intensifying gaze. “And make sure Blue is looked after. It’s… Complicated, but it’s not a bad person.”

 

With each word, Lysanthae seemed to stir more, delight building behind that gently-pulsing glow. Vines came alive in excitement, shifting and stirring as she seemed to grow even taller, even more imposing. The light itself above Cass silhouetted Lysanthae in a halo of gentle gold, dulling all detail save for the glow of her eyes and the weight of her presence. Cassiopeia breathed in, and the world around her came alight in lilac and lavender.

 

“Oh, Cassiopeia,” Lysanthae sang, notes of promise struck up in every resonant chord, “How could I possibly say no to such a precious petal’s request?” One hand braced the affini against the wall, the other drawing blunted thorns across Cass’s jaw. Each touch brought a memory of starbursts, each line traced another strand binding her to her bed. Lysanthae’s voice was the universe, and her hands were the divine instruments by which it was shaped. “If this is what you want, my perfect floret, then I promise you everything that you will ever hope for, and more.”

 

Cass stared, Cass listened, and Cass knew it to be true. No, more than that, Cass knew it was Truth, undeniable, irrevocable, a pact bound in a power not even the heavens could challenge. This being’s word, its promise, meant more than any law of man or nature, and She would shatter them both if it meant upholding it. In divine Truth, it was written.

 

And yet, one word nagged at her. One word held her back, the final, prickling thought that hadn’t warped around Lysanthae like light at an event horizon. ‘If’.

 

Perhaps she’d be the fastest rebel to ever crumble, Cass thought, but she’d be damned if she did it with even one regret.

 

“If?” she managed, breaking her spiraling train of thought away from Lysanthae’s point of no return. The effort itself was monumental, a rocket’s meager delta-v against the pull of the singularity that was Her, but Lysanthae must have noticed her hesitance and offered some manner of mercy. Cass seized it. “You, you mean I have a choice in all this?”

 

The predatory grin hadn’t diminished. Lysanthae was just as close, the light just as bright in her eyes, the floral aroma still so utterly overpowering. Whatever deleterious effect it had had on Cass’s cognition had been dulled, but she remained at the mercy of her own hopelessly-longing psyche. Again, Lysanthae sang, and again, her lips were still, leaving the sound to resonate in isolation as if her voice had usurped Cass’s inner thoughts.

 

“Do you want a choice, starblossom?” She taunted, or at least, that’s what Cass assumed it to be. Perhaps she sought a genuine answer, and simply expressed with all the beautifully oppressive weight of her nature. “Is that something that you’d ask me to give you?”

 

A war raged in Cass’s mind, one fought between racing and stilling. The very sound of Lysanthae’s cello-string voice had her thoughts breaking apart, wanting to quiet and nod and wait for the inevitable bliss it promised. The words she’d spoken, however, had poured gasoline on a dying fire, once more sparking questions she’d not expected answers to. This sounded like a choice. This was a choice.

 

“I…” Cass hesitated, trying to put together some semblance of coherent wording, without pouring it all out at the pace of a back-alley auctioneer. “I… wasn’t really expecting to get one in the first place. You know, being a rebel, and all. Even the most generous propaganda didn’t really suggest, well…”

 

The pressure faded a little further. Was Lysanthae actually trying to give her the chance to think clearly? Awfully generous, for the domestication-happy plant people. Not that Cass had ever gotten the most reliable news, as far as they went.

 

“Let me make sure I understand correctly, petal.” The hand fell away from her jaw, and Cass only then realized she had been shaking. Was the room this big before? Oh, wow, it really felt big. What had she been even looking at before- Right. Lysanthae was talking.

 

“You defected from your people, risked life and limb, and flew yourself all the way here to request asylum… Under the assumption that even in the best-case scenario, you would still end up domesticated, regardless of your own desires?”

 

Oh. Oh, oh stars, she felt foolish. Foolish, and rude, and so damn xenophobic, when all they’d shown her was kindness. She’d eaten right out of the Accord’s palm, hadn’t she? Oh, stars, they probably all felt sorry for her, didn’t they? Poor little Terran, not able to see past her people’s propaganda. Maybe they even thought she believed the bits about the Affini eating them.

 

“I just…” She squeaked, too ashamed to even be embarrassed at her tone, “I just thought that was what happened to rebels.”

 

If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought Lysanthae was staring at her in disbelief. Then again, she thought, if their conversation was anything to go by, she apparently didn’t know better. Gods, she was such a naive idiot, and now they all knew it, just as much as Jess, or Callow, or everyone back on that station. Maybe, if she asked nicely, they would mulch her, so she could disappear. Anything to stop Lysanthae looking at her like that. Anything to end this awkward silence.

 

Cass scrunched her eyes shut, turned away from Lysanthae, wondered if she could just ask them to toss her back out into space on her ship. What could she even say? Right. An apology is probably a good place to start, even if it’s, ‘I’m sorry for being a xenophobic ass.’

 

Her lips parted, only to find an unraveled tendril upon them, shushing her.

 

“Well, darling,” she purred, with all the self-satisfaction of a huntress upon her prey, “You’re absolutely right. You don’t get a choice, because I’m making that decision for you.”

 

Wait, what? Cass stared, confused, too taken aback to even let herself be caught in Lysanthae’s eyes. That hadn’t all just been the plant toying with her, had it? “Hold on. I don’t understand, you just were making it sound like I was wrong for thinking I’d get domesticated, or at least, like I’d have some choice in the matter. And now, you’re…” She trailed off, struggling to get the words out of her mouth. Why was the idea that she’d had a choice in the first place more intimidating than what she’d been told was going to happen to her?

 

“Hush, floret,” Lysanthae said - no, commanded, and all sounds fell still upon Cassiopeia’s lips. Floret. The word had struck Cass with all the weight of the Cylina’s Mantle, and yet she couldn’t manage so much as a whimper in response. Lysanthae was making her into her floret. All the screaming, struggling, and stubborn refusal in the galaxy wouldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop it. The burden of choice had lifted from her, leaving her feeling floaty, drifty, so very free in her lack of freedom.

 

She couldn’t feel guilty for wanting this anymore. It wasn’t her choice.

 

“That’s a good girl.” Stars, that voice brushed across her mind like tender fingertips, weaving between form and thought alike, soothing and seducing at once. “Trust me,” she said, and how could Cass not? Her voice was Truth. “It’s better this way. I’m simply saving you the weeks of tussling with your internalized guilt and repression, and the slow, painful self-discovery that you’d otherwise go through before you inevitably realized that you didn’t know where to go from here, and threw yourself at my roots anyways.”

 

Some distant part of Cassiopeia managed a murmur of indignance, one that never passed the barrier from thought to word. Lysanthae was treating her like… Like a pet? Of course she was. As far as she was concerned, that was what Cass was, now. No, it wasn’t any indignance over what she was becoming, but the implication that she’d have dithered helplessly around for weeks, before eventually stumbling up to Lysanthae like some sort of lost, mewling kitten. Did she come off as that clueless? If Lysanthae hadn’t wanted her, she’d have just moved on. She’d have been fine. She didn’t need any… any…

 

Oh. Oh, stars and divines, those eyes. She needed those eyes, that lavender light now dimmed to violet that even still radiated all the light of a star. Cassiopeia stared, slackened, smiled. Speckles of starlight shone in Lysanthae’s gaze and, lost in their vespertine glamor, Cassiopeia at once understood why humanity had once worshiped their sun. If it was even a candle to her Lysanthae’s supernova, then it warranted such devotion.

 

She basked in the warmth of Lysanthae’s light, letting it shine upon pain and fear until all trickled away in the first melt of the coming spring. Faintly, she was aware of motion around her, pressure upon her body, petal upon skin and song upon mind. A hand brushed across her head, drawing a line of magnesium-spark flashes of bliss from forehead to temple. Her hair parted. Something sharp prickled against the side of her head. A needle? One of those implants, that would strip her down into a drugged-up pet, never able to leave Lysanthae’s side?

 

“Cassie? Come on back to me, Cassiopeia. There’s a good girl.”

 

Colors streamed back in as Cass’s eyes focused, not the conceptual starbursts behind her eyes in Lysanthae’s every touch and tease, but those of the room around her - unchanged, tangible, real. She glanced left and right, taking in her surroundings again, grounding herself against them. She felt a little silly for being so preoccupied by them, given how Lysanthae had so easily deconstructed far more than just her surroundings, but in reexamining them, it drove home how far gone she had really been. One moment, she had been in a hospital, and the next, in a world of nothing but Lysanthae, a realm belonging to and utterly mastered by one being. It was the contrast, the sudden shift and realization of it, that left her winded and wordless.

 

“Are you still with me, petal?” Lysanthae asked, waving a tendril between unfocused eyes. “Stars, you humans really are a little fragile.”

 

Cass blinked again, and only then realized that she’d fallen back into drifting. “I’m. I’m here. I think.” Even so, Lysanthae began to pull back, offering her a little more space. Cass found that her mind was grateful to be freed of that oppressive presence, but her heart was already fluttering, longing for its return. She leaned forward as far as the weighted blanket would let her, intertwining fingers with a loose, thin vine. The longing dulled, replaced with the faint background hum of satisfaction. Lysanthae smiled. Cass matched its enthusiasm.

 

Oh, stars, was she already starting to feel things for this plant? She didn’t usually get attached so easily, but who knows what Lysanthae might have filled her up with? A blush tinted Cass’s cheeks, and she flicked her gaze nervously away as if it could hide the feelings bubbling inside her. She felt shy in a way she hadn’t since first coming out of her shell, now years of life, treatment, and war behind her. Dirt. If she didn’t want Lysanthae to notice, she’d need to say something. “So. Uhm. Is it always like that? I mean, that intense, and, uh, brainfucky?”

 

A giggle bubbled up in Lysanthae’s core, still without even the slightest twitch of her lips. Roots, that was uncanny. “Language, darling,” she chided, and immediately Cass found indignance and sheepishness vying for control. Neither had the opportunity to win out, as Lysanthae stroked the back of her hand and dissolved both impulses in more starlight-sparks.

 

“No, pretty thing, it won’t always be that extreme. You seemed to be having some doubts, so I decided that it would be best to make an impression on you.” A tendril waved out at the door, as if to gesture to the world outside their chamber. Why did the Affini even bother to weave them into hands, if they worked fine as they were? “Certainly, there are many aboard that would delight in shattering you straight from the start, plunging your pretty, helpless mind into a drug-fueled haze, where they could break you over and over and over again, until nothing was left but a ditzy little pet who couldn’t remember what ‘resistance’ means.”

 

Cass wasn’t certain if her whimper came more from Lysanthae’s words, or the stroke of a tendril upon her cheek. Was that how far she was going to go?

 

“But,” the tendril curled up further, wrapping around the back of her neck and toying at her ear, “You’ve decided to be cooperative, plus or minus a little bit of uncertainty, and with that sorted out, I think we’d both enjoy it more if we took. Our. Time.” Each of the final three syllables was punctuated by a flick against Cass’s ear, sending shivers of increasing intensity through her until the last nudged something solid above it.

 

A flash of a memory surfaced, the sensation of something sharp against her head, a distant wonder of what weapon of Cassiopeia’s undoing it was. A chill ran through her, more frightened now than excited. Had they already implanted her? Furtive late-night searches on the Affini Overnet had told her that the implants were custom-grown. Her mind began to race with possibilities. Had she been out longer than she realized? Had they never intended to give her a choice? All of this, was she even wanting it, or accepting it, of her own free will?

 

Her hand brushed against the side of the object, and a second later, a still-smirking Lysanthae raised a mirror in front of her face. It wasn’t a haustoric implant. Cass felt quite immediately silly for thinking as much - it wasn’t even in the right area. Rather, what appeared to be a small flower had been tucked behind her ear. It looked like a prairie gentian, Cass realized, a flower she only recognized for the massive exposition center on Mars built in the shape of one, but it didn’t crumple between her hand and head like fragile petals might. It was pretty, she had to admit, even if she’d never been the flower-accessory sort.

 

“Do you like it, little flower?” Lysanthae asked. There was a hint of tremolo to her voice, not from nervousness, but what Cass took to be excitement. “I intend to wait on collaring you until we’ve properly signed our contract, and I feel that’s something worth a little bit of ceremony. Even so, I wanted something to mark you as mine, so I had this compiled while you were under.”

 

Cass poked at it again. “It’s… pretty, I guess.” It sat comfortably, which she was grateful for, as she didn’t seem able to adjust it. Trying to move it around behind her ear only prompted a tugging sensation, as if it was simply another piece of her body that she couldn’t quite feel. “So it’s like a tag, then?”

 

With another laugh, Lysanthae guided Cass’s hand down and away from the gentian, a tendril leading it into her own. “Just an accessory, darling. Though, it does come with a little surprise, one that I think I’ll save for later.”

 

Cass’s nervousness inverted again, once more founded in excitement more than fear. In the back of her mind, a few worries still lingered, but no longer did they fester. She was certain Lysanthae had a hand in that, but she didn’t feel bothered by it, nor did she want to. The choice had been made; there was no point in stressing over it now.

 

“Well, cutie,” Lysanthae said, immediately drawing Cass’s attention once more, “You won’t be in here too much longer. Just another couple of hours, to ensure your new organs are in perfect shape, and then you’ll be coming back with me to my hab unit. There’s plenty of space, don’t you worry about a thing.”

 

It was all moving so fast. Treatment, an owner, a new home. Cass was too swept up in it to do much of anything but follow along. She’d probably have some sort of dissociative breakdown whenever she was finally given the chance, but for now, settling long enough to do that was out of the question. Even if Lysanthae was done with doing… Whatever she was doing to Cass’s mind, the fountain of questions Cass had been suppressing since she awoke was now finally getting ready to burst.

 

Lysanthae, however, beat her to the punch. “Oh, something else, my precious floret-to-be.” The title summoned flutters all throughout Cass’s chest, and deepened the blush on her cheeks to the point that she felt ever-so-slightly lightheaded. “Earlier, you mentioned the name ‘Blue’. Which of those adorable little rebels would that be referring to?”

 

Frightening clarity replaced Cass’s comfortable warmth, and it was all she could do not to tear the blanket off as it held her upon the bed. They didn’t know. Fuck, of course they don’t know! I didn’t tell them! “I’m such a fucking idiot.” Only Lysanthae’s weight above her kept her from ripping out the IV cords, jumping up, wounds be damned, and dashing for whatever hangar she’d left her ship behind in.

 

“Language, Cassiopeia,” Lysanthae warned. Cass wanted to bite back, to scold her for worrying about that right now of all times, but her tone brooked no argument. “And dear, you are hardly an idiot. In fact, from what little I saw of your ship, I imagine that you’re quite resourceful.” A vine wrapped around Cassiopeia’s arm, tip stroking affectionate circles on the palm of her hand. She knew that it was only to distract her from the needle near her neck, just out of her line of sight, but roots, it was working. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“Blue… I… It’s… You didn’t… I…”

 

“Look into my eyes, darling.” Cassiopeia couldn’t. Cassiopeia wouldn’t, because if she did, then she’d fall, and if she fell she’d stop worrying and she’d abandon Blue and all of this would have been for nothing and- “And just breathe.”

 

The scent of lavender shattered the foundations of her train of thought. She began to tumble, mind plunging into those eyes, into that scent, into the voice and the rhythm that were infinitely more real than the world they existed in. She was falling down, she was falling in, she was falling… apart…

 

Lysanthae caught her. “No further, darling. You’ve gone far enough. Take another deep breath, and steady yourself for me.”

 

Cass obeyed before even realizing it. She wasn’t under, she wasn’t enthralled, she was, in fact, quite the opposite. She was here, the spiral arrested, the room once more in vivid color around her. That was all Lysanthae had done. She’d helped.

 

A squeeze of her palm drew her attention back upward, and Lysanthae gently restated her question. “Now, dear… If you’re comfortable talking about it, would you please tell me who Blue is?”

 

Tightening her hand around the tendril in return, Cass nodded. It wasn’t as if she’d intended to hide it, wasn’t as if she could. She knew better, after seeing what had become of the Terran Accord, than to think she could actually one-up the Affini. With a deep breath, she put thoughts of their futile little rebellion aside, tugged Lysanthae’s tendril a little closer, and explained herself.

 

“Blue is the reason that I’m here in the first place. On this ship, I mean, not like, alive. Though, maybe that, too?” She shrugged. Blue had gotten them out of tight situations before, but nothing that was quite life-or-death. Then again, for people like Callow or Jess, maybe it was. “It didn’t choose to fight for the rebels. It never got to choose in the first place. Please, understand, it isn’t bad. It isn’t your enemy, even if it has to think it is.”

 

Lysanthae made a consoling hum, another cello-string murmur from her chest. Two tendrils danced across Cass’s hands, now, their patterns soothing her but not quite pulling her attention. “The poor dear,” she said, emphasizing it with a squeeze. “You needn’t worry. I promise that we aren’t going to hurt any of your friends.”

 

Cass’s hair fell into her eyes as she shook her head, forcing a moment’s delay as she blew it off to the side. “No, you don’t get it, it’s…” She took a breath, beseeched her still-nervous heartbeat to calm. “Blue isn’t one of the rebels. Not, uhm, one of the human rebels, I mean.” She paused, and then quickly appended, “Or rinan.”

 

Lysanthae tilted her head, and Cass wondered for a moment if that was a truly universal gesture of curiosity, before pushing the thought aside and continuing on. “Blue is an AI. A Fleet Direction and Control Intelligence, or something, designed to be the mind of an entire warship. They were going to force it to be a weapon, and I couldn’t, I wouldn’t let them do that.”

 

Even her faint background calm was beginning to fade, now, as memories of constant arguments and even outright threats began to resurface, along with the more recent battle she had narrowly survived. “Please. In my ship, behind the seat, there’s a panel; it was supposed to be a maintenance hatch but I repurposed it. It’s in there.” Probably alone, afraid, maybe malfunctioning over damage to the ship. “Don’t leave it alone in there. I know it sounds silly, but it’s a person too, I promise. Please, don’t leave-”

 

A clatter against the door interrupted her appeal, seeming to startle both of them in equal measure. “Ah! Sorry!” A muffled voice called through the door, softer and higher than Lysanthae’s, but still definitely Affini. Seconds later, the door swung open, revealing what seemed to be a disheveled mass of vines pulling a wide metal handcart. 

As she finished maneuvering it through the doorway, only slightly wider than the cart and its contents, she pulled herself together into a vaguely humanoid shape, still beautiful, if not as elegant as Lysanthae. She wasn’t quite as precisely groomed, she hadn’t even tried to hide the seams on her hands and face, and her bright orange and yellow flowers lent her a distinctly different energy than the two affini whom Cass had previously met. This one looked notably more alien, and by virtue of that, a little less uncanny.

 

“Lysa, darling, look at what I found!” She exclaimed, still facing entirely away from the pair. As she broke away from the handcart, Cass finally managed to get a clear view of it. Stacks upon stacks of familiar server towers had been carefully placed upon it, all blinking with the same color of light, as steady and healthy as she’d ever seen them. The cooling conduits, previously jury-rigged with duct tape and plumbing seals, had been replaced with fresh transparent tubing, and what must have been fresh coolant as well, based on how soft the chassis’s current fan noise was. At the rear of the cart’s metal bed, an impossibly-small fusion reactor had been rigged up to connect to the computer’s hefty, intricate power supply.

 

The newcomer finally turned, and immediately froze as she seemed to notice Cass. Her vines curled inward slightly - did Affini feel sheepish, too? - and she shuffled to the side, putting a little more space between herself and Blue.

 

“Oh, ah, hello! Cassiopeia, right?” She said, radiating far more warmth than confidence. “I believe that I found your friend; it’s been asking to see you!”