Mane managed to get her tablet into her hand and operate her fingers enough to answer the call. The voice that promptly came out of it, to nobody's surprise, was that of Effus. She sounded a little worried, which Mane knew she probably should have expected. 

"Mane! Hey, where'd you go, little one?" Was she upset with Mane for going off on her own without permission? A fear stirred within Mane's mind that she'd abused the comparative slack of her leash. Her heart raced and she grabbed wildly for the correct string of words to put her caretaker at ease with. 

"Ahhhh, um, sorry, I went for a walk and I wound up getting kind of lost," she said with perhaps ill-advised honesty. "I wandered into some kind of arcade. I've made friends here!" Was it truthful of her to be calling her interaction with Uthris earlier "making a friend?" She felt as if it was, but could she be confident that Effus would feel the same way? "I'm sorry Effus, I meant to text you at some point but I just kept getting sidetracked-" 

"That's alright, little one, as long as you're not in danger or getting yourself into trouble," said Effus in an effort to reassure her. "I'm glad to hear you're permitting yourself to have fun. Your second appointment with Erias is tomorrow, and since you've been good the last day or so I wanted to see if you wanted anything. You said you were lost, dear?"

"Yeah, uh, a little bit-" Mane froze as she realized that she was massively understating the situation. "No, not a little bit. I'm lost. I'm a lot lost. Besides 'in a big-ass arcade, which is probably in the human part of the ship' I don't have a fuckin clue where I am." She hoped that nothing she'd just said would irritate the affini on the other end of the call. "It has a VR cabinet that Mort apparently made?"

"Mort made a…" muttered Effus, at a volume which was only barely picked up by her tablet's microphone. "Oh!" She exclaimed, much clearer and louder this time, "You mean the Trolley Problem Simulator?" Mane mumbled affirmation that she did indeed mean that one. "I know exactly where you are! I can come get you, if you want, or send somebody else, or just text you directions to follow back to my hab?" Mane considered her options and it didn't take long for her to choose one. 

"I'll wait here for you to come get me," she decided, "if-so long as it's not an inconvenience, I guess."

"An inconvenience?" Effus repeated, sounding shocked, worried, and almost hurt. "Mane, you're never an inconvenience. And your safety is FAR more than important enough to outweigh any possible time that it might cost on my end, okay darling?" Mane nodded gently, not that Effus could see it (probably). She didn't believe that. She wholeheartedly bought that Effus did, but she wasn't convinced Effus was fully engaging with its implications before throwing herself into it. Besides, the lifespans of affini were practically infinite. On a purely mathematical scale, the potential time an affini could put into her could not possibly fail to outweigh anything that was bound within the constraints of her time in the world of the living. 

Of course, a cynical mind might say the same of a human caring for a housecat. THEY would be objectively wrong, so Mane decided to put her faith in Effus...if not in the affini as a whole. Effus was trying, that much was clear. She had seen Mane's objections to being drugged into compliance and, for whatever reason, decided that she would respect them. Whether Effus held onto the affini maxim of putting happiness above everything else and merely put it aside out of spite or to satisfy her ego, or had actually seen and felt compassion for Mane's plight...the human couldn't say. Not yet, in any case. 

"If you insist," Mane settled on saying. "I'll see you soon. Should I stay by the entrance?"

"I'll text you when I get there," Effus said with a droning sort of tone, "did you take your medicine this morning? Eat, brush your hair and teeth, change your clothes?" A cold wave attacked Mane's skin. The instinct to lie came over her, but Effus would definitely sniff that out the instant she saw Mane in her new strawberry outfit. 

"I….I ate breakfast." She admitted, unable to hide her fear. She could already recall her mother threatening to brush her teeth for her, voice full of unrestrained agitation, and she knew full well the affini delighted in doing that sort of care to pets who couldn't be trusted to do it themselves. 

"Sweetheart…" murmured Effus. There was no anger in her voice, only worry. "Little one, are you...are you scared of me?" Effus sounded positively heartbroken (corebroken?). Mane again felt the urge to lie and cover things up. She didn't want fear numbing drugs. They'd lower her guard, they'd breed complacency, and complacency breeds death, if there was one lesson she learned from her father's colleagues it was that the affini were like cats, and humans rats, and fearing them kept you alive and allowing any influence to sap your fear was as good as drinking poison. At the same time, Effus had been kind, or at least patient, and even if it was only because of a patronizing sense of backhanded obligation that was still her only lifeline. 

"N….no?" Mane knew as soon as she said it that nobody who had ever spoken to a human in their life would believe her. The sound of pained thrashing on the other side informed her that Effus probably didn't either. Shit. "I'm sorry please I trust you I promise please don't-" don't what? Brush my teeth? Give me the medicine yourself? What a ridiculous fucking request. She might as well save her breath and pretend to have some dignity left. 

"Mane," Effus said, sounding hurt. "I'm not going to do anything to you. You've been doing wonderfully and you didn't have your medicine until yesterday. Now breathe, okay, can you take a nice deep breath for me?" Mane reluctantly did as she was asked. "Innnnn...out. Innnn...out. Good girl. It's not your fault you struggle with these things."

"Of course not," the destructive part of Mane's mind lashed out, her tongue practically sizzling with sparks of impotent anger. "I'm just a silly Terran, right? I can't be trusted to do basic tasks, isn't that right?"

"No," Effus patiently reassured her, "what I was going to say is that you have things getting in the way. Your ADHD, your trauma...it's not your fault that you can't overcome them a hundred percent of the time. I didn't ask because I was upset with you, sweetie, I asked because I want to help you...okay?"

"Oh...okay," Mane said, already feeling guilty. "I'm...sorry for lashing out."

"Sweetheart, it's okay. I'm coming to pick you up now, there's a sophont care station nearby where you can brush your teeth, take your meds, and take a shower."

"I can shower at ho-at the hab," Mane grumbled. She knew Effus would probably just trample over that, but-

"If you insist, dear. I just thought maybe you weren't showering because the bodywash here all have xenodrugs in them." 

"They all have what." Mane's skin felt cold. Was Effus just fucking with her? 

"Yeah, relaxing xenodrugs! They smell nice and feel nice but given, you know. Your…"

"Care station it is." Mane mumbled. "Can we get some normal?"

"Sweetheart, xenodrugged hygeine products are normal-"

"You know what I meant." Mane's body had wanted to growl it, wanted to hiss and bare her teeth, but she knew that by her customs Effus had done nothing wrong. She was young, after all. To Effus, the default state of other species was being drugged out of their mind with a brain-altering parasite tangled in their nervous system like mold growing from a busted-open old machine. Mane was the weird one, the exception, an anomaly she was tasked with...fixing. By that metric, Effus hadn't just done no wrong, she might...NOT know what Mane had meant. "Some not drugged ones, please."

"Thank you dear. I know things must be confusing to you." Confusing? Mane scoffed. She understood plenty. It just made her angry. "I'm on my way, sweetie. It'll be okay." Effus hung up. Mane sighed. She figured she'd be better off if she calmed down, so she wandered the arcade. It wasn't long before she found a cute lil glass shelf with a bunch of those old handheld virtual pet toys. She borrowed one and paced in circles tending to a little lion looking creature that she promptly named Baron Von Buddyfriend in her head. Buddyfriend came with a little yarnball, one of those stick-string-feather toys cats like, and two dishes for food and water. She filled both of his dishes and watched with a happy smile as her new companion fed himself. A couple little pixelated hearts danced around his body signaling that he was happy. 

That was nice. Mane liked Baron Von Buddyfriend. 

"H-hey!" Mane looked up from the toy holding her attention and saw a human in some kind of leather punk jacket. He had two noserings, beautiful locks of curly vibrant purple hair that fell from one side of his face (the other side of his head was shaved almost bald) and ripped up jeans. He was...definitely sporting a look. "You there! You're the pipsqueak that took out Cain Greshul, aincha?" Shit. Was this a floret, a rebel, a free terranist with no proper affiliation? Mane knew from experience that affini security could be lax dealing with individuals-getting away with an attack could be near impossible, but with fake IDs it wasn't difficult to access the human civilian sectors of certain ships and even their stations. This was very different when they had reason to be on guard, like after the stabbing on the station by the Baiera, but…did she count?

"Y-yeah," Mane muttered. She tried to circle him to get a better look at his neck. It was hard to see where his scar would be, on account of the jacket, which alone meant he might not be a floret. He seemed to be amused and pivoted in place to keep his eyes meeting hers. 

"Pretty ballsy to be wandering the ship on your own after a stunt like that," he said with a menacing smile. He was shorter than Mane but looked considerably more fit. "Not every independent Terran is happy with you."

"I'm...well aware." With no cuffs or collar or scar, Mane didn't look identifiably like a floret. The only visible indication of her association with the affini was that her face and coat were iconic for belonging to a murderer that, in all likelihood, everyone and their mother knew was in affini custody. If she screamed, would Uthris come protect her? Was Uthris even in earshot? She had a knife, but if she grabbed it without concrete proof she was in peril...then this guy would be the least of her problems. Besides, if he wasn't a threat she really didn't want to pull a knife on him. "What of it? Did he help your family financially or something?" 

"No, no," the man shrugged. "I'm from Fresch. The Greshuls don't mean shit to me." Fresch...that was the planet that seceeded during the war. Terran propaganda had called them traitors and deserters, and gone on long tirades about the people expunged from it. Those people were inevitably rich asshole investors. So this guy might be a rebel, then. But if she remembered correctly, Fresch actually had a fair bit of independence now. It was only technically under the Affini Protectorate, and it even had laws protecting its citizens from forceful domestication. Affini laws, mind you, and ones that were no doubt written with easily accessible loopholes, but it was better than most. 

"Then who am I to you?" Mane frowned, her mind trying to foresee the conversation's branching outcomes like a game of chess. Unfortunately, her ineptitude at doing exactly that had always been one of the reasons she was kind of trash at chess. "The Son of Cain?"

The man narrowed his eyes slightly. What was he thinking…?

"I'd not call you that, no." His nostrils flared as he used them to do a little snort. He put his hands in his pockets. "I assume you had your reasons." Damn right I did, you fucker, Mane wanted to snap back...but she managed to force herself not to say that. "You're something of an ironic celebrity on Fresch's media network right now. The youngest and most spoiled scion of an old money household striking their father dead? In his own ugly personal use privatised fighter jet?" Mane resisted the urge to point out that her father's ugly disaster of a vehicle didn't actually have any guns. She wasn't certain that made it not count as a fighter anymore. 

"Yeah, yeah, what a terrible irony that is," Mane said as she tightly gripped the little device that housed Baron Von Buddyfriend. "That's me, I killed him. I'm in affini custody now but I still wander about on my own sometimes. It probably isn't the wisest decision but here I am, deciding to do it anyway. What, do you want my autograph or something?" 

"No," the man shrugged yet again. "I just thought I recognized your face, is all." Mane noticed, before he slipped his hands back into his pockets, that his nails were painted: grey for the thumbs, black for the others on his right hand, and white on the left. "My name's Frank. I'd ask for yours, but it's Mane, right?"

"Yeah," Mane answered. Her grip on the little toy pet loosened somewhat. "Yeah, that's my name. I'm Mane. Not Mane Greshul though, I just don't have a last name."

"Interesting." Frank chuckled. "So...I have a few questions, about the Greshul manor. I know you didn't live there-"

"Nobody did," Mane answered. She sounded bored. Frank, on the other hand, his face lit up. 

"NOBODY?" Not even Seth?" Mane shook her head.

"No, Seth had a much smaller home on a different planet. And his mother also lived on a smaller house on the same planet as Seth did, but that one...that one still had handmade stained glass windows made of recycled materials from Terra-when, you know, Terra was still livable." 

"Christ," Frank muttered to himself. "That's...NOBODY?" 

"Nobody. People from the family would occasionally use it for a few days or a few weeks, but it was mostly just a spot where we had parties." Mane chose to leave out the fact someone died there once. Or the story where her sister had a nightmare there about a ghost...BEFORE learning about the death. Her brain went through those to itself anyway, though, which gave the same tiny spike of humor it always did. 

"But...that house-"

"It could easily house at least fifteen people, both comfortably and permanently, without any modifications to furniture, and not counting the property's land or the little makeshift barn. Yup, that part's accurate-as far as I can tell anyway. It was where we all had our weddings...wasn't an option for me, but I'm not stupid enough to bitch about that."

"Heh," Frank laughed. "First planet problems?" Mane nodded. He nodded back. "I getcha. It was nice meeting you, seeya." Frank turned and left. Mane sighed with relief and the unresolved tension graciously left her body. She was safe again. She resumed pacing and played with Buddyfriend, whose reaction to the yarn ball was absolutely precious. Watching the little guy knock it around and pounce on it made her feel okay. It was hardly ten more minutes before her tablet beeped. It was from Effus.

"I'm here, sweetie. Come meet me at the entrance."

The entrance?

Oh, fuck.

Where was the entrance.