Kira’s tooth brushing practices hadn’t been so rigorously structured in her entire life. ‘Two minutes in the morning and again at night, final twenty seconds spent on the tongue, unless you’d like me to take care of it for you~!’ Yeah fucking right, like I’d let you stick something in my mouth. 

She'd resisted the chore at first but found the vague threat of enforced dental hygiene unappealing enough and the act itself mundane enough to relent. Rather than stand by the bathroom mirror and stare at her own messy reflection she elected to spend those two minutes searching for anything else interesting enough to stare at in Cirsi’s hab. This morning she’d stumbled upon something actually intriguing.

On one of the walls of Cirsi’s office hung something that looked like art, but she couldn’t be quite sure. A series of complex concentric organic forms traced in lines almost like…where had she seen this before? The concentric forms laid over a field of blended color that seemed almost random at first glance but was clearly purposeful after even a moment of inspection. Between the concentric forms were spread a very precise series of dots and lines that carried the eye across them, giving the entire thing a pleasantly distracting flow. 

It reminded her of the time she’d asked a friend what psilocybin felt like and the friend had, very unhelpfully, told her it “made patterns make a lot more sense”. She’d hated the answer at the time but there really wasn’t a better one. This thing on the wall, whatever it was, felt like patterns making sense.

“Kira, did you finish? I don’t hear brushing- Ah. Right, that.” Cirsi’s head poked into the room and made her suddenly aware that in her staring she’d stopped brushing.

“Wha’s ‘is?” She gestured to the thing on the wall, mumbling around the toothbrush. 

"My…attempt at making my own kind of art. I have something of a fascination with cartography as well as astrography, a fixation that was fed during the work of my last blooms. I was becoming acquainted with Tetra at the time and she was quite the artist for most of her prior blooms. I'd never considered myself a particularly creative being and of course they couldn't leave that fact alone." Cirsi smiled an uncharacteristically dreamy smile, the sort that involved plenty of vine swaying. 

Oof, she's got it baaad.

"She helped me come up with these…compositions, I suppose. Topographical maps of intriguing geographies overlaid with local star maps and pigment printed with native ingredients, composed in patterns shared by the stars and the earth, reflections of a kind. They were an excuse to stop and enjoy the natural beauty on my travels. Tetra has always tried to get me to work less. Ah, if you're going to stand here listening to my old stories, don't forget the tongue."

A vine gripped the tip of the toothbrush and turned it to press down on the terran's tongue. Kira pulled away with a grumble but did reluctantly resume brushing.

"Wai', te'ra was a ardis'?"

"She was, before making the leap to captainhood.”

“How di’ ‘ey make tha’ leap?” Kira tired of talking around the brush and moved toward the bathroom.

Cirsi hummed, “You could ask that question in person later, I am sure they would relish the chance to tell the story again.” 

Right. Kira had almost forgotten the plan for the day. Cirsi was needed for some work in the first half of the day and rather than leaving Kira alone she’d elected to have Tetra and Bee watch her in their home. She’d never had the experience of being given a babysitter long past the age it was needed but she assumed this was the approximate feeling. She made it to the sink to spit and was met by the prying eyes of Cirsi. 

“Would you allow me to check today?”

“I’m a fucking adult Cirsi, I know how to brush teeth. The answer is gonna be no for as long as I’m still allowed to say no, so drop it.” She turned and stalked toward the hab’s front door, leaving the affini to simmer in quiet frustration. Even as their rapport slowly improved, the terran remained so closed off, so tightly wound. She understood it would take time, of course she did, and her patience was usually boundless. So why did the waiting strain her so much this time? She shook herself from her melancholy and followed her companion to the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a short rail trip the pair found themselves on the opposite end of the same ring in a residential area far denser with foliage than Cirsi’s. At points the streets carved tunnels through tightly woven trees that let light through to spatter on the ground in conspicuously precise patterns that Kira could swear twisted and wandered at the edges of her vision. Despite the wild surroundings, habs were carefully and playfully nestled into the growth everywhere possible among an endless stream of overgrown gardens and hidden mossy stone paths. 

Kira had to steal a glance at the crystalline shell above through the trees at regular intervals to remind herself that she was in fact still on a spaceship and not lost in the confines of some fairytale hamlet. After crossing a bridge over a river bookended by what looked like a sleepy cafe and a library of some kind coated in creeping vegetation, Kira couldn’t help but wonder, why the fuck doesn’t Cirsi live in this neighborhood? 

She broke the silence, lest she seem too awestruck with the locale. She couldn’t have the plants thinking her so easily swayed by a little scenery, now could she? “Sooo, you uh, you mentioned earlier that you got into cartography in your last bloom and I know Tetra said you’re a navigator. Was that always your thing?”

Cirsi looked almost startled before a soft smile bloomed on her mask. “Navigation has always been a part of my work, although not the only component. Before coming to the Mandragora I spent the prior few blooms as a…hmm, how to translate it. A…frontier operative of the compact. As much as the affini prefer to travel in style–” Cirsi gestured broadly over the quaint neighborhood through a window in their current treeline “–Our larger ships are not always the most efficient for the gritty knitting of cataloging the endless depths of space at the edges of the compact's reach, particularly the depths that lack sophonts to care for.”

“Nitty gritty.”

“What?”

“You said gritty knitting. It’s nitty gritty.”

Cirsi hummed dryly, “Thank you for the correction, little one, although I would not say this one makes any more sense than it did before.”

Kira shrugged. “Hm. Yeah, guess not. English is a finicky bitch sometimes.” She took a moment to allow her eyes to wander. 

The surface of their path had changed at some point to a spongy layer of some kind of moss. She found herself wondering what lay beneath, whether the ring accommodated a proper soil layer or it was simply mounted on a nutrient scaffold or something. And if it truly were soil beneath, how far did it go? Was decomposition facilitated on the ring? If she were to spill water over the moss would it be reclaimed or just left to the whims of physics? Not that the affini seemed terribly beholden to the laws of physics. And above every other wonder sat one she absolutely could not indulge; what would the moss feel like between her toes?

"What's on your mind? Has the ground become more fascinating since last I looked?" Cirsi's gentle voice yanked her from her daydreaming.

Don't say moss, don't be a fucking child.

She was lucky enough to have a question prepared for this lie. “Em, I was just wondering what the nitty gritty of a ‘frontier operative' actually entails.”

The affini cast a warm glance over the girl and for a brief moment a thrumming vibration passed over her in a wave originating from the plant. She couldn’t quite tell if it was actually audible or if it simply suggested sound upon meeting her bones. It was…not an unpleasant sensation. “So curious today aren’t we~? Well, my responsibility was to extend the edges of the compact’s understanding of space and its bodies in a meaningful capacity. To be less romantic, I was a forward scout at the edges of our border, compiling a litany of information on the systems assigned. Molecular composition and biogeographical profiles of planetoids, astrographical data, even occasional covert biosocial profiling of planet-locked industrializing sophont races. The information was used to inform infrastructural decisions, cosmic expansion policy, primary contact plans, and myriad other purposes. It is…kind of a lot.”

It was the terran’s turn to hum thoughtfully as they walked. After a moment of parsing the information dump before her she looked to the affini with an epiphany. “So…an explorer? Huh, that actually sounds pretty rad.”

Cirsi chuckled, “I suppose in a sense! Although there are plenty of affini who claim the title of explorer in a more…recreational sense. I… I envied them, the opportunity to take time in my wanderings and sample the unending beauty of the cosmos without concerning myself with data was often enticing. But there is always work to be done on the compact’s frontier, and I will never let it be said that I do not contribute...” She gazed wistfully over the picturesque neighborhood.

"Hm. Don't blame you. When I was a kid I used to dream about being a space explorer, stomping around undiscovered planets and digging through alien ruins and shit. Buuut reality is a cruel bitch and was never what the old bootlegs promised. First xenos we found just got a couple 3,000 ton shells courtesy of the Accord and a seat under the boot, nary an adventure or hijink in sight! And would ya look at that, now it’s our turn, only the boot is considerably cushier.” 

She gestured to the park they were in the middle of passing with a bitter laugh. “It’s funny, forward scouting, information gathering, and spying sound a hell of a lot like what I used to do. At least, the non-violent parts…” 

Kira kicked herself for spilling anything personal and  prayed to no one that the affini wouldn’t pry into the violent parts, she was in no headspace for the plant’s undeniable prying. Cirsi was mercifully silent on that topic. A few minutes of moss walking later another question occurred to her and she turned to ask but thought better of it and cut herself short. The affini wasn’t having that.

“More curiosities, little one?”

“Ya know, I do having a fucking name.” 

The sharp words took Cirsi by surprise. “What? What do you mean?”

Kira sighed, “It’s just– you use so many fucking pet names, all the ‘little one’s and ‘flower’s and ‘petal’s and shit, same as all the rest of them. You’re supposed to be the one entertaining my personhood at least until some other plant comes along to snatch me up, right? I mean, it’s not like you never use it or anything, it’s just… I dunno, just…whatever. It’s not fucking important.” The woman’s shoulders slumped in a way Cirsi was becoming distressingly familiar with.

Cirsi summoned her softest tone, “I understand. I will endeavor to use your name in place of those when I can remember. If I slip up on that, I hope you understand I do not intend to demean. Affini are…affectionate as a people, in both our verbal and body language, a predilection I am not immune to. And you…well, you are little.” The affini’s voice lilted in adoration at the last statement. Kira only grumbled next to her and drifted further away. “But I will do my best. Now, what was your remaining curiosity, Kira?”

The girl’s slump relaxed slightly, “It’s just…the compact has technology beyond anything the Accord could’ve dreamt of, yeah? Even we used remote satellites and drones for a lot of the work you described. Sooo, I dunno I just wonder–”

“Why did I even need to be there?” 

“Well…yeah.”

Another of the not unpleasant thrums vibrated through Kira. Whether it indicated thinking or contentment she couldn’t quite tell, but it definitely meant something in that realm. Shit, why am I analyzing the plant? Cirsi cut her thoughts short with a question of her own, “You said yourself that you performed similar duties, perhaps not the same but near enough. So why did you have to be there?”

Kira barked another bitter laugh, “Question of the fucking century there, lady! Go ask that to wasted-at-3am-on-shore-leave-Kira and watch her have a fucking field day with it.”

“Hm, I think you and I both know that Kira won’t be around to ask anytime in the foreseeable future, little o– Kira.”

We’ll see about that.

“Anyway, the answer to your question is deceptively straightforward. Holistic perspective. It is true that much of the work I did was automated, I was often the only affini on small teams of primarily drones and AIs. I was there to make the broader decisions concerning my travels and to interpret the findings in a manner effectively applied by compact administrators. As talented as the drone fleets are at data driven work, perspective is hardly their forte. It is usually best left to the affini in the room.”

“Sounds like a lot of time spent alone.”

Cirsi chuckled but the usual brightness was missing, “Indeed. Many, many cycles of it. I…have always been more accustomed to solitude than most affini...”

“...Did you at least fly the ship yourself?”

“Oh, of course! We can’t let the AIs have all the fun, can we?”

“Good.”

The end of their conversation aligned eerily with their arrival at Tetra’s home, as though its pacing were mathematically calculated to fill their time together. Kira hadn't been sure what to expect from the hab after seeing Cirsi’s, but she certainly expected it to be grandiose enough to match the captain. The truth was pleasantly much more complex. 

The structure she found herself in front of gave the impression that an affini hab had assimilated an unreasonably quaint 18th century terran old world cottage, bound its frame in plant tech, and continued growing more in its image. Wooden arches that may well have been grown into shape presided over stained glass windows in familiar fractal and floral patterns, interrupted by flower-speckled foliage that crept along most of the hab’s walls. Hewn stone, plaster, and terracotta mingled with architectural forms and hints of technology light years beyond them. And arising from the center of it all was a polyhedral domed roof of brilliant reflective tiles, lest she forget that she was looking at the home of a spacefaring demigod.

“Holy shit. It’s…it’s not what I expected but like…wow.”

“She remodeled a bit when Bee came around. The girl has the most whimsical taste doesn’t she?” Cirsi didn’t wait for a response, continuing down a path through the sprawling, beautifully maintained garden that wrapped around the home. Kira shook herself from her daze and hustled over to the affini’s side just as she entered. 

The entry parlor gave way to a massive circular common area ringed by several arching doorways to the hab’s other sections, housed by the domed roof, which apparently functioned as windows from the inside. The interior furnishings betrayed the cottage illusion somewhat, showing clear evidence of affini technology, scale, and craftsmanship, but were still tastefully whimsical and absolutely littered with plants and artwork of dizzying variety. There was barely an empty corner or square foot of wall in sight, every inch of it dripped with evidence of life. Now this, this was a fucking home.

Kira restrained her wonder as she spun in place attempting to take it all in. She was directed by Cirsi through one of the arches and past a comically long rack of eclectic mugs to what was apparently the kitchen, where Bee sat in Tetra’s lap at a round affini-sized table. 

She'd understood intellectually that the affini was large before but seeing Bee positively engulfed by the lap of the amazon carved that fact in stone. Tetra held the silverware for the pair and cut pieces from an unreasonably fluffy stack of pancakes-the affini seemed to take the 'cake' part very seriously-feeding them to the girl in the same manner as Cirsi had. A vine tap on the cheek and her mouth opened, another tap on the chin and she chewed, and finally a stroke along the throat and she swallowed. The drowsy glassy eyed grin she wore made it clear just how content she was to follow every measured, controlled step. 

Tetra had clearly been waiting for them and her resonant voice called out, “Well look who finally found their way to my humble abode! Were you traveling at terran pace or something? I know it’s a hike, but it’s not that much of a hike.”

Cirsi scoffed playfully, “Says the one still in the midst of breakfast.”

“Aha, that’s where you’re wrong! Bee has introduced me to the wonders of *brunch*.” She punctuated the word with a flourish of wiggling fingers that was probably her best attempt at jazz hands. “It’s like breakfast but you get to sleep in and have some extra lazy cuddle time first. A vast improvement in my opinion!” 

A head pat from Cirsi lifted Bee from her brunch haze. The pet aimed a glowing grin up at her and shuddered at the physical contact, before she turned her head to find the other terran and gasped excitedly. “KIKI! Oh my stars I almost forgot you were coming yayyy!!” She hopped down from the chair with a few vines’ help and once on the floor she wasted zero time scampering across the kitchen to absorb Kira in another of her paradigm shifting hugs.

“Uff! Well hello to you too! Since when is ‘Kiki’ a thing? I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

Tetra’s warm chuckle reverberated through the walls, “Since the moment we left Cirsi’s hab the other day and she wouldn't stop talking about you! She's been very excited to see you again~.” Well that made approximately zero sense. People weren't typically excited to see her again right after she blew up at them, why would Bee be any different? And Tetra knew what happened, there was no world in which she didn't. Where was the suspicion? The scorn for berating her pet? What was their fucking game?

"I just thought it'd be cute on you aaaand I was right! I know a thing or two about cute nicknames. Mistreeess, can I pretty pleease go show Kiki my studiooo?" Kira could feel the sparkles and hearts in her pleading eyes from the tone alone, no double checking required. The coy little twist and clasped hands she added were saccharine icing on an already saccharine cake. The coos that rippled out of both Cirsi and Tetra escalated nearly into squeal territory. 

Once they seemed suitably incapacitated by their addoration, Bee turned to Kira just enough to deliver a wink and a whisper, “They’re so easy~.” 

Dozens of strategy meetings on as many terran navy ships to ascertain the weaknesses of the affini to no success and Kira had finally been the one to discover their true weakness: this little creature in front of her currently playing them like verdant fiddles.

Tetra finally composed herself, "Of course, little sundrop! How could I ever say no to that face?" A vine extended to stroke slowly along the girl's jaw, pulling her into momentary stumbling bliss. "But first, you have one bite left! Why don't we let Kira have a taste of my handiwork as well?" On cue a pair of vines each with their own forkful of pancake hovered in front of each terran's face. A second pair of vines tapped their respective jaws in tandem, coaxing the expected bite from Bee but receiving only a flinch and a scowl from Kira.

The terran seethed, "'Scuse me, the fuck d’you think you're doing there?"

Confusion colored Tetra's mask. "I believe the term is ‘feeding’, you may be familiar.” They turned their confusion on Cirsi, “Have you not begun with her at all? I was sure she’d have worn you down at least a little by now. Is that iron-vined enforcer from a bloom ago truly buried so deeply?”

Cirsi whipped out a vine to wrap around Tetra's arm, silencing her companion, and spoke rapidly in affini. There was palpable tension between the two as they spoke, no animosity, but heavy with concern. 

Kira interjected, "You just gonna pretend you didn't just do that shit or what? Are we dropping the pretense that 'ward' earns me any dignity now?" She marked the word with aggressive air quotes. After a few moments more of hushed affini, Cirsi gestured toward a doorway leading away from the kitchen and Tetra addressed her floret again, “Bee, why don’t you take Kiki to your studio? Cirsi and I have some work to discuss.” 

Oh no. Don’t love that.

Cirsi bent down to address Kira individually, “I may be gone by the time Bee’s tour is done, she likes to be thorough. Be well and be good, alright? I will see you later, little– Kira.” She could see the affini’s vines straining against the urge to reach out to her. A stiff "whatever" was all she could muster before Bee’s arm looped into hers and beckoned her back out of the room.

Cirsi was telling Tetra everything. There was no other explanation that fit in Kira's head at the moment. The captain clearly liked to talk, soon every affini on the ship would know how irrevocably FUCKED UP she was, then the noose would tighten, the window would close, she’d never be allowed near Jolene again, oh stars oh fuck–

“Hey, you alright?” Bee’s honey-laden voice pulled her from her spiraling. She’d stopped the two in front of a set of tall double doors adorned with towering stained glass windows. “Hellooo, you with me Kiki?” a hand waved lazily in front of her eyes. How far down the spiral had she been?

“Uh, y-yeah, I’m here. Sorry.”

Bee’s features wrinkled with concern. It felt different coming from her, different than the affini. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to receive actual sincere concern from someone who felt like an equal, or…perhaps less than an equal in a sense? A cold shiver gripped her at the  thought. “You look upset, is something wrong? I can quit it with the Kiki stuff if you really hate it…” The girl’s eyes dropped.

“No, it’s not– you’re fine, Bee. You did nothing. I’m good. Just…brain being a shit, you know how it is.”

Bee swayed coyly, “I mean, I do, althooough my days of ‘brain being a shit’ are kinda over for the most part.” she tapped the back of her neck with a tongue click and a wink. Right. Implant. Brain fuckery. Real casual about it, huh? She felt the disgust from the other day bubbling within but wrestled it down. She needed to play the good terran, that was the only way shit panned out correctly. And besides, the compact's methods were hardly any fault of Bee's, the girl gave the impression that she wasn't even capable of culpability. Although…she did volunteer…

Kira collected her thoughts and spoke, “So uh, what's with the big doors?"

The glowing grin came back to Bee's face and she turned to grip the massive handles. "Right! Ehem. Welcome tooooo–" she threw the hefty doors open with ease and spun with a dramatic flourish into a deep bow. "My STUDIO!"

Yuuup, she’s Tetra’s floret alright.

The room beyond turned the pleasant cottage aesthetic of the rest of the hab to eleven. Every inch of the space was filled with the aftermath of creativity, from stacks of canvases and shelves of paints and tools beyond anything she recognized to potter’s wheels, plinths holding half formed sculptures, and even a corner that was apparently dedicated to baking. The only space not occupied by artistic pursuits was the wall of windows feeding dappled light into the room from yet more garden that lay beyond. 

The room felt oddly small to her despite having ample space to move and relatively tall ceilings, which perplexed her until she realized where the feeling originated. It was the first room whose dimensions and furnishings were almost entirely scaled for humans that she'd entered since being captured, a scenario that was becoming novel to her far too soon. A fragrant, nutty smell found its way to her nose and pulled her attention to one of the room’s corners.

“Is that…were you making muffins earlier?” She took a few cautious steps toward an anachronistically rustic oven in the baking corner with a cooling rack of muffins and other baked goods atop it.

Bee skipped past her and over to the rack, plucking a muffin from it and holding it in front of Kira's face with a pleased grin, "I make stuff for the local cafes sometimes, try one!"

The gesture of food being held in front of her was somewhat bitter at the moment. "What, you gonna try to feed me too now?"

"Ooonly if you ask me to." The grin remained undisturbed. Kira huffed before taking the muffin in her good hand and sinking her teeth into it.

Oh fuck.

"Oh fuck."

"Soooo, good?"

'Good' was insultingly insufficient. She couldn't speak through the satisfied groans and moans that naturally come with eating baked goods, so she settled for a nod until her words returned, "I mean holy shit, is making bad food, like, illegal under the compact or something?"

Bee giggled through a blush, "Honestly it could be, I wouldn't know! I've never been accused of it."

"I mean fuck, I didn't know muffins could be this."

"Waaait, have you never, like, baked muffins at home?" Endearing confusion crept over the girl’s features. It was becoming clear to Kira that the two had likely had very different experiences living under the accord.

"Girl, I've never baked, I'm a full time spacer! I don’t spend much time around ovens."

“You mean to tell me that you’ve never looked at water, grain, and fire, the staple resources at the foundations of human civilization, and tried messin around with em? Then–” A gasp flung Bee’s eyes wide open “-shit, you’ve never baked while baked?! Ugh, this is a tragedy, I gotta fix this. Hold up, I thiiink I got a spare A puffer around here somewheeere…” The girl turned to rifle through the cupboards adjacent to her oven but was interrupted by Kira.

“Yeah no, I’m good. xenodrugs and I aren’t on particularly good terms. I’ll just stick with the muffin.” She receded somewhat at the prospect of yet another person on this ship trying to melt her mind with plant juice. Sweet and innocuous as Bee was, she was still firmly on team affini and willingly compromising her faculties around her was out of the question. Bee stood in front of her again and she could feel the chill that hung between them now.

“Ok, yeah, fair. Sorry.” The pet wrung her hands and diverted her eyes for a moment, clearly not expecting Kira’s mood to turn “I uuh…I'm glad you like it! Wannaaa maybe see some of the other stuff I make?" She gestured with her full body toward the remainder of the studio, clasping her hands and flashing those exuberant eyes in another saccharine display. Kira told herself that she wasn't as easy as Tetra and Cirsi, no matter how badly she did suddenly want to pick through every canvas in the room. Bee was happy to oblige. 

Kira's assumptions concerning florets' creative abilities had been decidedly uncharitable, or they would've been had she cared enough about the lived reality of florets to even posit on their hobbies before that moment. Bee cut those assumptions away with the brutal precision of a plasknife peeling apart naval grade hull alloy. 

The pair spent an enlightening while flitting about the studio and perusing Bee's work, Kira mostly just listening to the artist’s ecstatic rambling. She'd never heard the woman speak so quickly as she did when explaining her brief foray into underground outworld native-materialist meta-expressionism and the ways it'd influenced the new petal punk movement currently rippling through the nascent protectorate. Kira did a lot of quiet nodding. It wasn't until Bee had moved on to talking about her ceramic exploits and began a live demonstration on one of her potter's wheels that Kira's thoughts finally, inevitably turned sour.

It was just all so…so quaint, unnervingly so. The affini had fabricated the universe’s most comfortable and airtight lie and this woman, as intelligent as she clearly was beneath the chemical trappings of her subjugation, luxuriated in that lie. She’d clearly been well off enough before the affini’s arrival, no matter what her struggles truly were, and she seemed able bodied, intelligent, creative, intuitive, perfectly suited for a productive new life under the imperial utopia swallowing them all without the plants’ infernal help. 

So WHY? Why would she choose to do her painting in a studio she had to ask permission to be released to? Was providing her a dream cottage and some pancakes really all it took to allow herself to be…reduced? To be owned?

“Kira? What’s gettin you this time?”

“Hm?” Her vision snapped back into focus from the reality blurring distance it’d drifted to while her thoughts gnawed at her. Bee was holding a wet clay pot of some kind halfway decorated with floral engravings and giving her another of those looks. Concern without strings.

“Brain being a shit again? Something you wanna talk about? I’m always happy to, ya know. Well, I guess that doesn’t mean much, you probably wouldn’t trust a floret with whatever it is…” Her smile remained on her face but it left her eyes behind. 

Cirsi’s words from the other day echoed in Kira’s head. She’d scared Bee, scared this delicate, gentle little thing. Kira swallowed hard and coaxed the words out, “It’s nothing much. Hey, um. I…I’m sorry about the other day, when I started yelling at you. That wasn’t cool, you didn’t…well, you didn’t do anything wrong. Just hasn’t been a great few days for me, ya know?”

Bee’s smile found its way back to her eyes. “Oh, it’s ok, I’d almost forgotten anyway! No harm done, we all have our bad days, right? Well, I meeean my bad ones are pretty few and far between lately, not to brag~.” She followed her statement with a playful wink and turned back to the pot in her hands, carving ribbons away with some tool Kira couldn’t have named. She was nearly stunned by the quick reception of her apology. It was far too easy. What was she missing? Why did something still nag at her? 

Kira spoke up again, “Hey, so. Can I…ask you something? I mean I asked last time, but, ya know–”

“Why. That’s it, right? Why did I volunteer?” The pot was set aside. The sudden firmness of Bee’s tone was startling. Still as gentle as ever, but steady in a way it hadn’t been that first day they’d met. 

“Ah, yeah…thought I’d ask without yelling this time.” Kira attempted a laugh but it came out sour and uncertain. Bee kept the same flawless sympathetic smile and turned away without answering to a table with a large hunk of wet clay. She produced a carving wire and lopped a few portions from it, then carried them to two potter’s wheels that sat side by side and dropped them heavily into place. She sat at one and patted the seat of the wheel beside her with an inviting flourish. 

A frantic corner of Kira’s mind railed against having to butcher clay in front of the far more talented woman, particularly with one splinted arm, but she sighed it out of herself and plodded over to take her seat. Bee flicked a switch and Kira's clay began a lazy rotation. She glared skeptically at it until Bee nudged her, "Just do whatever feels good, doesn't hafta be fancy, just has to be your fingers doing it! Should help keep those stubborn lil gears of yours turning~."

Kira scoffed, "Who says my fucking gears are stubborn?”

“Me. Just now.” Bee didn’t miss a beat. “Truuust me, I know gunked up gears when I see em. You can’t be spacing out the way you do and then tell me there’s nothin jamming up here.” A damp finger tapped Kira’s forehead, leaving a spot of clay behind. She conceded and placed her hands on the lump of clay in front, pinching and pushing and finding the cool textured resistance beneath her fingers more calming than she’d ever admit. 

“Sooo you gonna answer me or no?”

Bee hummed thoughtfully next to her, “Actually Kiki, I thought maybeee I could ask you a few questions that might answer yours in the process. Nothing tooo personal, I promise!” Kira glanced over to find an already impressively neat…whatever it was Bee was making. Some kind of bowl maybe? 

“Hm. I guess. I’ll decide what counts as too personal, copacetic?” 

Bee nodded enthusiastically and spoke, “First things first. What do you think I’ve lost by becoming a floret?”

Kira thought for a moment. “Well–”

“And DON’T say freedom!” Genuine frustration bubbled up in Bee’s voice for the first time since they’d met. “I’ve had that conversation enough times already. You’re a bright bulb, you understand how freedom worked under the accord perfectly well.”

Kira bristled. Freedom wasn’t going to be her first choice but it was certainly on the list. But regrettably Bee had a point. Freedom under the accord meant little more than the freedom to quit your job or schooling, starve, and die for most. And for those with money it meant the freedom to milk fleeting pleasure from an unjust system in exchange for the misery of an unseen other. And maybe buy a gun or two while you’re at it. 

However it wasn’t freedom under the accord Bee would be contending with, it was freedom under the compact. And Kira knew very little about that particular brand of freedom, not enough to counter her in a meaningful way. She temporarily conceded the point to Bee internally before answering, "I wasn't gonna say freedom, I was gonna say agency. Something I personally value pretty highly and have less of every day.”

“And how much of that do you think I’ve lost?”

“A non-zero amount, which is too much for me. You can’t tell me your agency is perfectly preserved when you have to ask to be released from a meal, to be released to your own studio. I mean that shit is fucking infantilizing isn’t it?”

“And I used to have to ask for a bathroom break from my controlling boss so I wouldn’t piss my pants. The difference is care. Any gap in my agency, any action taken from my hands, any corrections to my behavior, are made because Tetra cares for eeevery cell in my little body. And I’m not too proud to admit that she knows how to care for me in a way I never, ever will, and it’s…it’s glooorious~.” 

Kira could hear the eyelash flutter in the words. She stole a glance at Bee’s bowl and found she’d already stopped her wheel and begun bending its edges around some kind of tool, creating a sort of wave pattern around its rim. Not wanting to fall behind, she dug into her own, pulling upward, out and away until her clay formed the beginnings of a vessel of some kind. Its proportions were like a mug, but a little on the too big side.

Kira huffed, “Yeah well, not everyone is you and Tetra. Suppose for a moment that she treats you in a way you don’t care for, rips a bit of agency away that you wanted to keep. Doesn’t it bother you that you can’t just tell her fucking no? That you have no recourse if she doesn’t respect it? I hope all those drugs haven’t made you forget the importance of consent.” The words came out sharper than even Kira had expected. Bee didn’t seem particularly affected.

“Aaah, consent! I looove me some consent~. Ya know, the idea that florets are unable to say no to anything is kiiind of a myth. In theory, yes, a floret’s owner can do whatever they wish to them without any approval. And I know that’s gonna rile you a little buuut, the much comfier reality is that I’ve never met a floret whose owner even gave them reason to say no to anything except in the wonderful throes of play! Well, maybe not never, mandated florets tend to resist a bit at first…buuut they all see the light sooner or later! Usually sooner~.” For once the cheer in Bee’s voice tainted her words rather than softening them. She had to see the horror in that statement, right?

Kira snapped back, “You do understand how fucked that last part is right? Bee, I’m the fucking mandated one! I get that you gave your consent up front but I sure as shit haven’t! And being brainwashed into ‘seeing the light’ sounds like a starsdamned nightmare.” 

Kira’s fuming fingers pressed too hard, puncturing the wall of whatever she was making and collapsing it into a roughly circular spinning mess of clay. "FUCK. Idiot." Kira slumped backwards and glared daggers into the brick red mass, a paltry substitute for an affini to glare at. 

Bee reached over, turned the wheel off, and picked up Kira's lump of clay. She pulled a portion of it away, setting it to the side, and in barely any time at all she reshaped the mass into a more promising lumpy cylinder base set in front of Kira. The wheel turned on once more.

Bee gently broke the silence, “I…you’re right, I’m sorry. That was…a careless explanation. And, Kira–” A wet, clay stained hand rested gently on her forearm and she barely kept from flinching and pulling away. Bee’s warm concern was back, “I empathize with you, I really do. And I want you to know that. People in your situation…they aren't just brainwashed into being ok with it, I’ve known plenty of florets who came from the war and every single one is happier now than they would ever have imagined.”

Bee leaned back and hummed to herself for a moment, sorting her words more carefully this time. She resumed with an easy smile, “Domestication isn’t just a doctor’s appointment where they fry your brain, fill you with pet juice, and call it a day. It’s…a process. It’s communicating, bonding, trusting, growing alongside someone who watches over you in every way you never thought possible. And, yes, there’s a medical element and yes, it’s also submitting. But there’s beauty in those things Kira! Even if it may be difficult to see right now…”

Kira looked down at the still misshapen and malformed lump on her wheel and wondered if Bee saw beauty in it too. She grumbled to herself for a long moment, poking and prodding her clay into shape. “Well, I’m perfectly content to do my growing on my own, it’s worked perfectly well for me til now.”

“Mmmhmm, that’s why you crashed your spaceship and got yourself captured by an enemy you never could’ve hoped to fight.”

“Hey, growth comes in different fucking varieties alright! I'm working on it.”

Bee threw up her hands, “Fair enough! How bout a question with a more pleasant answer? Iiiif you’re still up for it…”

Kira sighed heavily and watched the undulating rim of her vessel spin lazily in the light from the long windows. This conversation was proving far more tiring than she’d hoped. But not yet tiring enough to fully chase her away. “Why not? Shoot.”

"Alright, lets the gears reeeally turning for this one. Let the motion of your fingers on the clay untangle everything.” Bee’s voice was always soft as the rest of her but when she really put her mind to it the effect was downright criminal, almost meditative in its lilting cadence. Kira found her thoughts calming despite her best efforts to remain grumpy. “Now, what do you think florets gain from domestication?"

She pretended to think about her answer, "Mm. Tasty food. Fancy house. Guess the endless vacation days don't sound terrible."

Bee giggled knowingly and moved to sit opposite Kira at her wheel. "Not a bad start! But we're a little surface level right now, how abooout-'' 

she gently took Kira's hands from the rim of her probably-mug and shifted her fingers with her own before guiding one hand down inside her creation with another matching it on the outside. Kira could feel the portions where the clay distributed unevenly, too thick and heavy at the bottom and clumsily mixed in the center. A gentle push from Bee's fingers and she began to correct it, pushing and pulling clay into a uniform and gently curving wall. 

"-let's try to think a liiiittle deeper than that, ok? What could a person gain from being placed under the care of a hypercompetent and benevolent guardian?"

"An inferiority complex." Kira snapped in her finest deadpan.

Bee's laugh danced in her ears. "Perhaps! Although in my experience that inferiority can be faaaar more pleasant than you may expect~.” Bee’s composure melted, sinking her into the seat with a dreamy grin spreading over her face. A moment later her eyes popped open again and she adjusted herself with a blush. “B-but I digress! What else might someone gain? Reeeally dig into it, look for the silver that lines that dark cloud I’m sure you’re stuck in.”

Kira grumbled and slipped into a long moment of thought, searching for any more imperfections with her fingers. The words came quiet and uncertain, “I guess…it sounds…calm. And safe. IF you can find a plant you trust not to dig out your fucking brain and call it care.”

A roughly shaped curved tube of clay was placed in front of Kira, just to the side of the wheel. She looked up to find the angelic glow of Bee’s smile reaching new heights. She could almost taste the honey in the air. The joy in Bee’s voice was palpable, “Safety and peace. The bedrock of a floret’s existence. Only a fraction of the full reality, buuut still, I’m very happy you see them!”

Kira could feel the heat growing in her cheeks and pointed her face down to her work to hide them. The wheel had stopped at some point while she’d been stari-looking, just regular looking at Bee’s face. She picked up the clay tube and began smoothing it into a more calculated shape, one to match the vessel’s side. At the edge of her vision bee took a tool to the side of it, doing something she couldn’t see. She cleared her throat and prepared her rebuttal, “Well don’t get too proud. My reservations with all this shit still stand. Gilded cages are still cages.”

“Well, for some of us our gilded cages turn out to be cottages~!” Bee rotated Kira’s now-definitely-mug to reveal the two sets of score marks she'd placed vertically on its side. "You'll wanna wet the ends of that." She pointed to the now-definitely-handle in Kira's hands and then to a small cup of water nearby before returning to work on her own creation.

Kira did as recommended and affixed the handle in its place, pressing and smoothing around the edges until she was marginally confident it wouldn't fall apart. She regarded her work with pleasant surprise; a little gentle guidance from Bee and she’d managed to make a perfectly serviceable, if still very plain, mug. 

Bee’s own creation was set beside Kira’s, a large flat bottomed bowl decorated on its sides with carvings of broad five petaled blooms and its rim distorted into a number of uniform rounded channels around its circumference that curved down the sides to the base. An oddly particular shape for a bowl. She wondered if it was purposeful or if Bee’s whimsical taste simply extended to her serving ware.

"Not bad Kiki! A little glaze and a little fire and it'll be ready for snuggle time tea!" Bee gingerly lifted Kira's mug for inspection and found nothing to fix. A slight smile tugged at Kira's lips despite her best attempts to remain aloof. "Theeere we go, clear gears! That's what we like to see~."

Kira chuckled dryly at her instructor, "Yeeeah well, don't get used to it. Gotta keep up my moody reputation, ya know. Keeps the girls swooning."

"Mmmm, maybe some of em. I kinda like the little glimpses underneath though, the moments of openness~." That firmness was back. Kira met her eyes again and found them filled with golden determination unbefitting of a fragile pet. "Well, I hope that despite your reservations you at least have the slightest idea as to why I volunteered. No?"

"Em…sure. Yeah I guess I understand like, ten percent more, at least for your case."

"Good~." Her eyes wouldn't wander away even as Kira's tried to."I have ooone more question, Kira. Now that the gears are turning smoothly." A soft hand found its way to Kira's knee, then crawled at an agonizing pace up onto her thigh. The hungry glint in Bee's eyes now startlingly resembled those of her mistress. "And think about this one for a moment. Divorce it from your preconceptions, keep the feelings pure, ok?...How does the concept of submission make you feel~?"

This should've been easy. She'd heard the same question from at least two different girls in at least two different offworld bars and managed to turn it around on them handily both times. So why did her tongue suddenly feel so fucking heavy?

"Ah, em…any context?"

"Nope~."

Bee's latest grin had an impish quality that felt oddly out of place on her seraphic face. Kira’s mind scrambled and groped for a right answer, something that would end this interaction as quickly and harmlessly as possible, and it came up empty handed. “I mean, I guess it’s…it’s not reeeally my typical–

The amicable thunder of Tetra’s voice from the studio’s doors came to her rescue, “Darlings, I’m about to go meet a friend at that teashop you so love, Bee! Would you care to come?” 

The mischief melted from Bee’s features the instant she turned to her affini, swept aside by the smiling daze that marked her as happily owned. She nodded animatedly and her whole form seemed to bend and shift toward Tetra with the motion, as though every joint and ligament in her body individually yearned to be pulled close. A spark of realization crossed her face and she turned back to Kira, “You like boba tea?”

Kira was too stunned by the rapid change in demeanor to conceal anything, “Uuuh yeah, I fuckin love boba actually.”

A red vine wrapped around the ring of Bee’s collar and made a show of gently tugging her to Tetra’s side. Bee responded with a quiet, animated mantra of, “Walkies walkies walkiiieees~~!” and an excessive bounce in her steps.

Right, pet. Remember she’s a fucking pet. A pet who paints like a master. Stars, this is a fucking headache.