"You're still watching that?" Asked Cain Greshul, former capitalist contractor and current rebel collaborator. It was the year 2555 CE. He sat at the cramped controls of his ship, a midlife crisis purchase custom retrofitted to seat an extra person. His offspring sat next to him in that extra seat, haunched over a small screen. The same video played on it over and over. Cain didn't need to look at it to know which one. 

"I...I'm angry, too," he said in an attempt to be a good father. His heart broke for the smaller human sitting next to him. Seeing them so torn up on the inside over this had steeled his resolve in a way that no evidence of moral decay in humanity at large ever could. 

Cain's child did not answer. He sighed and punched in the coordinates of their next stop. The life of a collaborator was fraught with danger, and any moment could potentially be his last. He contemplated taking the device away, for their own good if nothing else, but it wouldn't do any good. The despair leaking out of the wretched device had infected them already. Even if he took it, they would simply play out the same cruel image internally on a loop. Cain knew better than anyone that when something hurt them they latched onto the pain and, like a crocodile seizing its prey, nothing would ever escape from their grasp. 

Cain finished the calculations. The same simple trigonometry that served him well as an architect his whole life proved useful for this task as well, albeit with help from a calculator to run conversions accounting for circular orbits. It was an old fashioned way of doing things, but sometimes a computer couldn't just be trusted to do everything. 

"I'm gonna take a nap," he said as he procured a bottle of sleeping pills, "and I advise you do the same." Cain Greshul took the pills, which was a several step process in his suit. It involved multiple hatches, a very uncomfortable sort of plastic arm, and a valve or three. Once that was over and done with, he leaned back. Before long he was fitfully asleep, the droning of the repeated video not quite reaching him. 

-----------

Mane sat in the cramped second chair of her father's ship. That didn't matter to her, though, in fact at the moment the ship didn't exist. Nothing did-nothing outside of her body, anyway. She could feel the pressure of her father's suit leaning on hers, the sound of his snoring, and the cables keeping her in place. She could hear the sounds of the various small fans that ensured she and he didn't form CO2 bubbles around their heads and suffocate in them. These things existed. Her father, the ship, the actual fans themselves, they didn't. Nothing did. 

She was staring blankly at the screen of her communicator, where a familiar face stared back at her smiling. 

The faint glow of the screen only emphasized how dark and claustrophobic it was, especially since the lights dimmed once long enough passed during which there was no input to the computers and no more than a certain threshold of movement occured. Her communicator's light illuminated Mane's gaunt face and dead eyes, just enough to show them behind the dome of her helmet. The sound was low, mute even, but she was still mouthing every word as they transpired on the screen anyway. Tendrils of regret and pain reached out through the video's five minute loop, inky masses of pain and loss, and they speared at Mane's insides. They assaulted her bones, her nervous system, her heart-even her stomach felt physically pained. 

"The affini mean well, even to the independent!" Mane mouthed with an emotion best described as feeling like the ellipses someone gasps out after being stabbed. "To you, the listener-" the speaker reached out towards the camera and pointed in its direction with a finger. "We love you!"

Rewind.

"We love you!"

Rewind.

"We love you!"

Rewind.

"We love you!"

Rewind.

"We love you!"

Mane let the video play out the rest of the way. Then it looped back around. This time, too, she looped that part over and over and over. Each time she mouthed those accursed words it was a knife in her soul, yet also the closest thing to joy she'd felt in what felt like years. Some dead part of her, from its rotting seat in the back of her mind, wondered why her father hadn't just smashed the device. Surely it was unforgivable, or at least infuriating or suspicious, that she was watching affini propaganda on a loop.

The video continued to loop. She'd spliced it out of a much longer presentation, about affini supplying starving worlds with all they needed. Was it toxic or pathetic to zero in on this part, but for the face on it?

Yes, obviously. This was one hundred percent stalker shit she was doing. Still…

"We love you!" 

Rewind.

"We love you!"

Rewind.

"We love you!"

Rewind. 

Over and over and over. 

I miss her…

Shut up, Mane told herself internally with a bestial snarl. You're being a possessive monster, just like him. Nobody saw it, but her blank expression broke for in instant into a sneer of white hot contempt. That spark of emotion quickly died though, and she was left as faded and empty as she'd been before it. 

You don't have a right to miss her.

You had your chance.

You didn't even fucking say goodbye.

You MONSTER. 

Tears came to Mane's eyes and floated about inside her suit. Ugh. She'd have to purge them at some point. She pressed back with her head and activated the relevant process. A quick vacuum eliminated all such liquid matter from inside of her helmet. 

A monster. A jealous, obsessive, controlling, venomous MONSTER. 

Why else would the vermin beside her express anything resembling compassion? He punished every human show of care or patience for Mane's fellow man, and celebrated the naked evils of capitalism even after it had been uprooted and demolished, so the only logical conclusion was that his concern should fill her with shame. And it did. 

After all, Mane knew he didn't give a single fuck about the girl on the screen. Even if he had forgotten what he said early in the war, Mane remembered, she ALWAYS remembered, his call for the graphic execution of any who planned to submit to the affini, his invocation of that method of death most familiar to the Catholics, the utter confidence he said it with, the utterly ASININE idea that it would "deny" the act a platform. Her lips would curl in disgust if she weren't…

So…

Tired.

"We love you!"

Rewind.

"We love you!" 

Rewind. 

Had Mane's father ever done something like this, during the divorce? It would frankly surprise her if he hadn't at least once. The difference was…

In Mane's case, she was able to comprehend, if not accept, that awful question that she was forced to ask herself…

It's over, isn't it?

The video ended and looped again. 

The figure walked on screen, a little fatter than Mane remembered her being and with a healthy glow all about her. Her body language was demure and deliberately feminine, and any uncomfortable dissonance she'd once felt between that and her body shape had been erased. She wore a cute dress and had her hair in a bun. She smiled, completely without restraint, hesitation or emotional complication. She fidgeted happily as she spoke. 

"Greetings, Terran Protectorate! My name is Melody Sonstir, First Floret!" Sonstir. Had she changed her name, or taken an affini's? Mane didn't know. 

"I don't have my implant yet but I'm getting it soon! I guess there's a non-zero chance I will have it when you see this, though, especially if you watch a recording of the broadcast, hehe!" Mane could hear Melody's voice in her head, even with the sound turned off. "I know a lot of you are scared. The affini are new, and scary, and-let's be real here, they LOOOOVE to say, 'just trust us!' And then say and do the Shadiest-" here the recording censored her-twice- "-you have EVER SEEN. I get that, I do. But...my owner has been. Sooo kind. And patient, and…" tears. A vine reached out and petted her like an animal. She smiled and nuzzled in and regained her composure. 

"The affini are wonderful, caring creatures. I know it's hard, but...give them a chance, please?" She reached out with both hands like she was inviting the viewer to come rest in her arms. "My owner loves me, and...if you want one, they'll love you too. I've never felt more loved." At this part, Mane's spirit used to bleed. It was bone dry now. "So...please. If you're ever scared, or alone, or helpless...you CAN trust the affini. And us florets, too. We want to help. You, our owners…everyone."

She pointed to the screen.

"We love you." 

---------------

Melody stepped off the podium and backstage. Cordelia was watching her with a giant smile and welcomed her in open vines. 

"You did so well!!!" Cordelia cooed. The words pulsed through her core and her leaves and her flowers and even through Melody's body in a beautiful wave of song and delight. "I'm sooooo proud of you, my darling little human. You were so brave!" Melody smiled up at her owner, feeling treasured and feeling too a strong sense of belonging. 

"Thank you," she said and snuggled into Cordelia's bright pink vines. Pain struck at her heart. She clung to her owner and her face scrunched up. Cordelia whisked her away in seconds from all the prying eyes to somewhere safe. 

"There there, darling, what's wrong?" Cordelia asked, her face wracked with concern. Melody buried her face in her hands. 

"It...hurts," she groaned, "my heart, it...what if she's still trapped with her dad? What if she's-"

"There theeeere, precious." Cordelia pulled Melody into a soft embrace and lots of little vines and specialized leaves got to work fretting and fussing over Melody's hair. "No rebel will evade us for long. We'll get our vines on that awful man and rescue her from him, beyond a shadow of a doubt." Melody nodded shakily. That wasn't all that was bothering her. Did she blame herself? 

Effus had suggested using class B xenodrugs to erase this wretched memory entirely. Perhaps that was the right call, but...in this endless ocean of stars, only two things had ever put a smile on sweet little Melody's face before Cordelia. To destroy the other...felt wrong. Even if the memories hurt Melody, they were precious to her. 

"Let's take you home," Cordelia whispered. "You wanna go home, hop in bed, and just have a bit of time to snuggle with Mane until you feel better?" Melody nodded and let Cordelia lift her into a bridal carry. The immense plantlike alien strode confidently out of the station's broadcasting studio, past multiple other affini. 

"Can we go get ice cream later?" Melody asked, "and maybe go out and have shrimp for dinner too, since you said that if I was good-"

"Darling," Cordelia chuckled. "Of course you may. You're my sweet Little Flower, right?" 

Melody sniffled and nodded. Cordelia squeezed her close, very gently. A vine brushed the hair from Melody's face and gave her a better view of her owner's hot pink bark features, which her currently making a loving smile of pride and joy that radiated calming energy like a beautiful sunset. 

"Will the pain...go away?" Melody asked tentatively, "When I get my implant?"

"Of this? Slowly."

"Will I...have to forget?" 

"Not if you don't want to."

"Will I...change?" 

"Only into your best self, like one of your Terran butterflies."

"Will it hurt?"

"Probably. But I'll be right there with you, holding you."

"When I go under for the surgery, may...may I bring Mane with me to help me feel brave?"

"Yes, darling. Absolutely."

"....that's all my questions…"

"Good girl. Thank you for asking. I know your family didn't teach you how to ask for what you want."

"She….tried to…"

"I know, sweetie. Maybe you'll get to see her again, and someday together you'll shine."