Daisy walked back onto the rapidly-becoming-mundane surface of the outer layer of the Genesis Moon. It was a truly massive labyrinth of steel and plant life, with chambers hidden every which way in the false planet's nonsensical architecture that contained various kinds of plant matter. She had skipped this step during her first visit, back when she was an enemy fighting to preserve the freedom of her planet. Though she had failed, she lived assured that Fresch's freedom was as secure as this structure's continued record of proving impregnable against human attack. She wagered that if it were to do battle with all of the Terran Accord at once, even in the Accord's prime- even with every single ship, weapon, agent and officer of humanity from across all of time united under its banner- the Moon would assuredly prevail. 

There was a horror to that thought, but its bite was dulled by the truly bizarre nature of the ship/station/planet's one and only handler. Daisy walked past chrome hallways and reflective walls designed to call attention to the beauty of this feat of engineering, which had the side effect of proving incredibly disorienting to anyone not accustomed with the unique thrum of each of the superstructure's dozens of engines. Additionally, some inexplicable quirk of its unique gravity meant that a short hop could help one orient themselves, if they knew what to look for in their own drift. 

Daisy marveled at the silver and mirror and gunmetal grey hallways that stretched in seemingly all directions. She liked this step of coming back, honestly. The hostile architecture and cold whites and greys were more...Terran that any other affini craft she'd ever seen. He'd based it on some villainous superweapon from a Terran science fiction film, apparently, which explained that part. She passed a room that held more terraforming equipment than she'd ever seen in any one other place. She passed another room with the same. Her tablet beeped. It was a message from Ursula. 

"You wanted to get coffee with me, pet?" Daisy blushed a little bit. Perhaps visiting Erias' clinic hadn't been a *complete* waste of time. Daisy tapped out a brief message in response, letting Ursula know that she would absolutely love to accompany the lovely lady on a coffee date sometime. She smiled absently at her device's screen as she walked through yet more monochrome shiny corridors. A few more minutes of walking and she arrived at what she hesitantly called the "proper" entrance of the station, which was a large silvery colored door. She rapped at it for a few seconds with her knuckles, then waited a while. The door creaked open and a human, a lad of about twenty, smiled at her from the other side. 

"Welcome back, Daisy. Did the meeting go well?" He asked with a bright and inquisitive smile. Daisy found his grin ever so slightly infectious, as if his enthusiasm were reaching out and contaminating her. In a good way, to be clear. 

"It was fun," Daisy answered with a smirk and the slightest bit of a laugh. The young man was significantly shorter than her, about five foot five or so, and his wild hair and bright starry eyes gave him an aura of fragile glee that made her want to protect him. "Thanks, Avel. How's Leaf?" 

"Leaf's taking a nap," answered Avel. He ran the long thin fingers of his left hand through his short, messy green hair. "I couldn't sleep, so I've just been pacing around. Good thing, too, cause that means I was here to welcome you in!" 

"There's not even a passcode to this part of the ship, ya dweeb," Daisy teased. She put away her tablet and reached down (even having to lean over slightly) to playfully ruffle Avel's hair with that hand. He pouted and did a bit of flailing, but both parties knew they were both having a good time. "Thank you anyway, lil buddy. You're very helpful." Daisy walked past and nodded slightly at the station's self appointed "guard," a blue haired boy named Selse. He sat on a chair with his arms crossed, looking like he was on the verge of falling asleep. It wasn't hard for those who knew him to tell he was alert and on watch, though. She turned to address Selse. "So how do you feel about this? The whole...murderer, thing?" Selse just shrugged. 

"What are the affini doing with them?" 

"Unclear. Right now a second bloom named Effuslucia has custody of her. Trying to rehabilitate her as gently as possible, looks like. I'm down with that, honestly, it sounds like they have a decent head on their shoulders." Daisy walked over to the cooler that Selse kept by the door. She opened it and retrieved a can of...some kind of drink made from a variety of different kinds of sap from plants on the ship. It was hard to describe, except that it tasted crisp and refreshing and like waking up ready to fight the world. She opened the can and downed half of it in one go. 

"If they're willing to heal, they should get to heal," Selse answered without looking up. He was about twenty two, but his smooth skin, feminine features and slender frame meant that one could easily mistake him for being two or three years younger than that. The boy uncrossed his arms and fidgeted in his chair. A long thin ponytail that fell to his tailbone wiggled along with him. "And I hope they do. The Greshuls have hurt a lot of people deeply and severely, even their own. It would be cruel to judge their victims from the outside." 

"Pfff," Daisy replied and rolled her eyes. "Their victims, absolutely. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. But let's make one thing perfectly clear: this one shared, to some degree, in the benefits of the family name. You don't get to categorize them along with the poor that their father and uncles crushed into paste in pursuit of money." She handed Selse a can as well. Selse opened it and, holding the can by the bottom and one side like it was a cup of tea, took a dainty sip. 

"No, of course not. I am merely saying that her family doesn't have that kind of power anymore. They're splintered into civilians, individual rebel actors, and...you know." He took another sip. His eyes were kind and soft just like Avel's, but there was a deceptively learned weariness behind them. "Are you angry that someone got to kill Cain and it wasn't you?"

"No." A pause. Selse's stare was unusually powerful despite his frame suggesting otherwise. "What made you ask that, anyway? I'm not some bloodthirsty vigilante, all I've ever pursued has been the wellfare of the common Terran. The Greshuls have just opposed that goal often enough that I...do admittedly get a schadenfreude out of seeing them dismantled."  

"Understandable." Selse took another swig of his drink. "You know how I feel about revenge. It's a bitter thing, a contagious thing. It drives itself into a person's very bones."

"And would you say that to the killer?" Daisy asked.

"Most certainly not." The boy took yet another swig. "That poison is often the only recourse of the broken. I am against inviting it in when one can help it, is all. And even then, consider my opposition a matter of pragmatism over moral judgment. To tell a peasant that the lord feasting each night while they starve should be treated with the same grace and kindness they should is to spit in the eyes of their hardship." 

Daisy chugged down, in one gulp, the entirety of what remained in her can and then smashed the metal cylinder itself on her thigh. She had a sarcastic smile on her face as she did. Then she said, "And is that not in direct opposition to the good book?" 

"I'm agnostic," Selse replied with the straightest face a femboy like him could make. "But if you're referring to my general rejection of revenge, like I said, I claim no moral or ideological high ground about it. Those who suffer at the hands of another have every right to their anger. To judge one who spent decades trapped under a giant's heel, when they bring that colossus toppling down under the weight of their righteous fury, would be to insist that all evil can and must be defeated through kindness, which is patently untrue." He took yet another slow draut from his can. "Does that explain my stance on the matter?"

"Heh." Daisy cracked a big smile. "You little dudes and your speeches." 

"You're not that much older than we are!" Avel piped up in between mouthfuls of a sandwich he'd just retrieved from a nearby compiler. 

"And you're all two feet shorter than me, so stuff it!" Daisy jokingly chastised him as her long legs carried her towards a decompiler, which she arrived at in moments. She typed in its activation code and then tossed her empty can inside. Lights activated and the can was swiftly and utterly disintegrated. Another beep from Daisy's tablet informed her that she had been given a reply. Sure enough, when she checked she saw that the sender was Ursula. 

"Lovely! Will you be on the ARGOS anytime soon?" Daisy grinned wide. 

"I have to go ask Thunder some questions. I have a date." This got both boys' attention. Selse just tipped his head up at her and made a quizzical expression as he did. Avel, on the other hand, became ecstatic. 

"Oh my gosh a date? A date!!" He fidgeted all over with barely contained joy and excitement. "Who is it? They gonna come on board the Moon? They from the Crest, the ARGOS? Are you gonna have Thunder take us on a road trip?" 

"Silly question," Daisy teased with a sharp smile. "You KNOW that Thunder hasn't taken me anywhere you haven't already been. If I have a date, you've seen more of whatever ship or station will house it than I have."

"You're no fuuuuun," Avel protested, running around Daisy to try and get a look at her phone. She, naturally, moved it all about to hide the screen while acting annoyed-but, while she could simply put it in sleep mode or put it in her pocket, she notably did neither. "Are they a he? She? They? It? Are they another species? OH MY GOD YOU DOMMED AN AFFINI DIDN'T YOU. YOU ABSOLUTE MADWOMAN." Daisy broke out laughing at this one, overtaken by a heaving wave of guffaws and chortling. Once she (quickly) regained composure she patted his head.

"Yes, actually, I did. I...totally did, haha. But no, that's not who I have a date with. And to answer the other question, just a she. And she is human, but she does have cute little bear ears."

"Ah heck that's ADORABLE!" Avel was practically vibrating in place now. "You got any pictures of her on your phone I bet she's really pretty!"

"Aren't you gay?" Daisy said with more fake annoyance. 

"I can still recognize a pretty girl when I see one," Avel answered and crossed his arms. "Hmph. Hmph I say! How rude! Is that how you treat a pinnate, Selse?" 

"She's not a pinnate yet, cause she isn't technically a floret." Selse took yet another dainty little drink of his beverage. He brushed some hair out of his face and made an expression of mild discomfort. "Right, I need to stop drinking this with the gloves on…" he whispered. The lad set his can aside, stood up, and delicately removed a pair of bright white gloves from his hands. They had become slightly stained in places from condensation on the can. "Darn it…" he whispered again, before returning his attention to the others. "But anyway, could you tell Thunder I said thank you for the cooler?" 

"You've already said that a good dozen times, though!" Protested Avel. "Stop changing the subject! Daisy is being rude to me! Arr oh oh dee rude!" 

"And Thunder lets me break the rules when it's funny," Daisy said with a coy little smirk. "And I assure you, this right now? It's very funny." She made her way off towards the overgrown cityscape where she'd first fought Thunder. Echoes played out in her head of the bombastic orchestra that had assaulted her entire planet as this ship placed itself in Fresch's sky. She went through several electronic doors before arriving. The hallways and chrome gave way to a massive open space one could mistake for a planet. There was a sky (albeit a grey one), vast distances of "outside" and skyscrapers overridden with plant life that looked uncontrolled but were very much all deliberate. In the distance towered an unthinkably massive, world-sized tree. The rebels that called her master Thunder had never seen him in full- the monstrous, skyscraper-wrecking behemoth they faced was a monster. The figure in the distance? Just by being there, he physically altered the geometry of the horizon. 

Even now that she knew all that lay inside was a dork with too much biomass at his disposal, it put a powerful sense of awe in Daisy's body. She had to constantly force herself to believe that the gargantuan, literal mountain of bark and tree and leaves and vines was an intelligent being, that it could speak and think and feel. She wondered if she'd have been so brave in her duel against him, had she known from the start that thing was his body and not some kind of lair. 

Avel went quiet next to her. He, too, could never fully adjust to the majesty of this sanctum. Only one rebel (not counting Daisy) had ever seen this place and escaped with their independence intact, and he sat outside on guard duty. There was a serene quality to the air. Daisy took a deep breath. Apparently the atmosphere in this chamber was calibrated to imitate that of Terra back when it was livable. Daisy felt moss under her shoes as she followed roads and fences towards Thunder. Why he had designed this space how he did, none of them knew. Perhaps he pitied humans of the modern day, for having had Terra taken from them hundreds of years before they were ever born. Perhaps he wanted to restore the real thing, and this was practice. Perhaps it was simply a display of dominance or good will towards any rebel who managed to defy the odds and get here without his invitation. 

It was beautiful. It was quiet. It was...gentle. 

Daisy took a trench closer to him. It had seemed bizarre to her when she saw these earlier, as if an invading force had once dug them out to lay siege on his body. Later she learned that they were a reference to a Terran video game she'd never heard of. Perhaps one day she could play it, and best the beast that Thunder saw himself in. She and Avel followed a circuitous route around and towards Thunder. They eventually arrived at his feet, where Daisy's old sword was embedded in the earth. It functioned now as a way to get his attention. She flipped its vibroblade switch, and it rumbled uselessly. A vine extended downwards, then several, then they coalesced into a human shape, then a tiny piece of a core descended into it and brought it to life. 

Thunder resembled an exceptionally skinny human with an outrageous mop of hair wearing an oversized green coat. Why he chose this shape, she had no idea. 

"I have a date," Daisy grinned, "on the ARGOS. Can I get a ride there and/or a ship sometime in the next week?" 

"Absolutely! FUCK YEAH!" Thunder trilled in an off puttingly crackly high pitched human voice. If they were not literally standing in the shade of his body, which would be enough to blot out the sun of an entire postal code, this would have made the two humans laugh. "I wanted to talk to Erias about the subject of yesterday's meeting anyway, I'll happily take you if you drop me off by her office!"