Melody frowned. “Two more hoursssssss!” She groaned at her owner. Two cute humans in cute pajamas, wearing cat ear headbands (provided, of course, by her) nuzzled up on Melody together. They mewled at her and made big, cute, pleading eyes at her and it was so difficult to try and pry herself away. She turned to Cordelia and hugged the two cuties against herself. “Pleaaaaase? What if Airy comes to see us and we’re not here?” Cordelia wriggled around in place on the booth they’d been sitting at before the kitty friends demanded Melody’s immediate attention. She snuggled them more but maintained eye contact. Cordelia clearly wanted to give in. Melody knew that if she just stared and pouted-

“No, dear, I’m sorry. But do you wanna spend the night there? That way I get quality time with Aida too.”

“A sleepover??” Melody burst up to her feet in joy. She was grinning ear to ear and started jumping up and down. “Are you sure? I don’t think I’ve slept away from you in-”

“If you wish for it, you absolutely may,” Cordelia replied practically in song. Her leaves and flowers all danced rhythmically about and she did a little twirl as she stood up. "I'll miss you, of course, but it would be selfish of me to try and keep you to myself at all times, would it not?" 

"Yeah," answered Melody. Much of the enthusiasm drained from her body as a pit opened up in her stomach. Something murky tried to rear its ugly head somewhere in the back of her mind, its breath heavy and rancid with the odor of an infected wound. Melody said her cheerful goodbyes to the two adorable humans and with great reluctance stood from the human-sized snuggle furniture. They were sad to see her go...but only as long as it took them to notice how cute the other looked with their cat ears on. This translated to a timespan of roughly four seconds. 

The name "Greshul" had been bouncing around in her head since Cordelia mentioned it the day before. To many, this name called to mind an old money family that traced its roots to what was once Terra. To her, though, its implications were far lesser in scope. It was a big family-being Catholic (and not Space Catholic, Catholic Catholic)-so it was unlikely that the person who Cordelia's friend had taken in was her ex. Perhaps they knew each other, in passing-but even that wasn't guaranteed. They had joked a lot back in the day about only knowing something like a third of their same-generation cousins alone, for whatever worth a "generation" had in space. 

"Dear? Melody, dear? Is everything alright?" Cordelia fretted over Melody. The human girl snapped out of it and shook her head in an effort to clear out her thoughts. The implant helped her do this, of course. It sent a reassuring stream of hormones into her skull to help restabilize her mood as well. She quickly felt better and smiled up at Cordelia. 

"My apologies, Mistress-" Melody started, only to find herself hushed before she could finish. 

"Now, now, darling," cooed Cordelia over her precious first florette, "You know the rules." 

"And so," Melody sang out awkwardly, "do I!" 

"Why…" Cordelia murmured under her breath. She could never quite tell why Melody always did that, but it wasn't presently of much importance. "No apologizing for your brain, or for feeling bad, or for needing help, or for asking for it. Never ever, never EVER ever. Remember?" She ran a hand made of soft foliage down Melody's scalp and back. The human trembled and purred. The sound was music to Cordelia's senses. 

"Yes Mis-"

"And no calling me Mistress!" Cordelia chided her pet with a playful tone to ensure she wasn't mistaken for being angry. "If you simply must use a title of the sort, use Miss or Owner, but you know how I do so prefer cuter nicknames that aren't a show of dominance, don't you?" Melody nodded appreciatively. Cordelia hugged her little human close. She wasn't sure what had gotten to her like that. She'd have to give the girl a note to deliver to Effus. 

"Okay, Cordiiii," Melody complied comfortably. Cordelia pricked her (ever so lightly!) with a few thorns that injected microdoses of pleasant xenodrugs. The sensation of her owner's loving embrace magnified slowly and melted Melody's brain into a puddle of bliss. Cordelia stood there in public, holding her precious florette so very close. The two hadn't slept in separate hab pods for almost a year. This was a big step but Cordelia knew the girl in her arms could handle it. 

"Gooood girl," she whispered to Melody as she rocked her body back and forth in her tender vines. Melody was her precious and nothing and no one could ever replace her. She plucked a flower from somewhere deep in her body-it was a nice pink one, with five roughly diamond shaped petals that had bright royal blue lining the edges-and placed it in Melody's hair. "In case you miss me." 

"Awwww…" moaned Melody. Her eyes hooded and fell halfway closed. "You're...so sweet…" Cordelia squeezed close. She wasn't sure she wanted to let the human go even for a night, but what she wanted wasn't the most important thing in the universe, now was it? 

THAT honor went to Melody, and nothing anybody said could or would change Cordelia's mind. 

"Let's go pack you a bag to take, okay?" Packing a bag for one night spent in the same ship might have seemed like overkill, but the ritual of preparing things alongside her first floret had always made Cordelia happy. She turned and walked out of the cafe. 

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

"What do you have to do so much paperwork about?" Mane asked. She was sitting outside a medical center in a sort of waiting room, where Mort was learning more and more about what he called "The Human Science of The Dead." It was originally going to be "of The Damned." The other affini had Cordelia to thank for the adjusted title. Effus took a moment to answer, in between pulling packets out of a small crate and filling them out at frankly irresponsible speeds. 

"Lots of things. Taking half a week off from my duties, which I suppose I could theoretically do anyway but it's good for my comrades to know," she answered flippantly as she slapped a form back into the crate. She retrieved another one. "Taking you in, confirming my intended plan of action with you, providing as detailed a report as possible, reporting what happened on the ship when we came back to it, requesting an audience at the station with a proper human specialist, the like." 

"I thought you specialized in that," Mane asked quizzically. She looked at Effus, not seeming bitter or aggressive so much as curious and a little confused. 

"I don't specialize. Not properly, anyway," said Effus as she made quick work of several sheets. "I'm the closest thing this ship has, but I'm a general all purpose human assistant. I can take care of medical problems, I can caretake, but your specific needs are...I can't tend to all of them alone, at least. Not with confidence you'll get the care you deserve. So I'm calling in a friend." 

"Psssh," Mane laughed. It was...genuine. effus felt her hopes growing. Was this human really improving so quickly? She could hardly believe it! "Not the first doctor to open me up and go 'I can't fuckin do this.'" 

"That's horrific!" Cried Effus in obvious distress. She'd been so close! "What human dared to-"

"No no it's fine it's fine! I mean it this time!" Said Mane, waving her hands in a gesture that Effus was fairly certain meant Mane wanted her to calm down. "I had...ear problems growing up. I'll spare you the details-it's pretty bad-but when I was eight I had a surgery to fix it." Mane pulled away some of her hair, revealing a small scar in a semicircle behind her right ear. "The doctor put me under, but then took one look at my fucked up eardrum and went," this next part Mane said in an impression of a proper man of medicine, "'I'm sorry Mrs. Greshul, this is beyond what I'm confident in my ability to fix. Here's my mentor's number.' Then he gave mom his teacher's business card and uh...yeah. A year later I got a surgery from that guy and it went as intended." Mane laughed again. 

"Ah." Cordelia relaxed. She'd been expecting another horror story about the distressing cruelty of humanity. If that's all there was to the story then yeah, she could almost see why Mane thought it was funny. "Was that...what you were trying to talk about last night?"

"Last...oh! Yeah!" Mane grinned wide. "So like, when they put the mask on, to put me to sleep? I started breathing through my nose, and it wasn't going to work properly so this one nurse guy tried to ask questions about movies so I'd breathe some in answering him. My smart ass child self tried to take it off so I could answer him. Good times." A brief pause. "Course, I was eight, couldn't sit still, and didn't know what an IV was. So, uh, my experience waking up from that one was a lot less pleasant." Mane's face soured. "Didn't stop my father from joking about it constantly though." 

"How do...those things fit together?" Effus asked. She was confused. The only answer she got was that Mane shook her head no and shrugged. 

"Don't worry about it. Anyway! I thought you said you'd fill out my human prescriptions?" 

"I did. I, ah, I took care of it while you were in the bath with Airy. I can't help...but notice...do you like your beard? Usually trans women stay shaved." Effus hoped that wasn't an insensitive question. Mane sighed and looked embarrassed. 

"I didn't have it in me to let a stranger shave me, and doing it myself makes me dysphoric." That made sense. 

"Understandable." Said Effus. The door opened. The interview was ready. "Now, dear, Mort can be a bit...much, so don't hesitate to tell him if you don't want to continue or if you want me to come back. Okay?"

"Won't be an issue." Snorted Mane. She looked Effus over. "Where are you going?"

"Errands," Effus answered flippantly. "Grocery store, paperwork, acquisitions. If there's one thing I wish the affini would chill about, it's the paperwork." 

"God I HATE paperwork," Mane said in agreement. "But writing on paper hurts my hand so like. I'm biased." She got up and left for the interview. Effus stayed put until the girl was out of sight and then scurried off to see her two favorite guards. 

--------

"Hello, you two! Uthris, Aether," Effus greeted the Confiscated Materials Hangar's guards. She was most of the way through her paperwork, and that had her in a good mood. The two guards, as well, seemed to be in a good mood themselves. Aether, the guard on the left, saluted her. 

"Salutations, Lady Effuslucia!" They smiled at her. "Aether here found a lot based on your orders! All that the search before us found were two communications devices, but there was a panel in the wall that you helped us find!" 

"Good job, Aether!' Effus signed with one hand as she used the other to give a few pats to Aether's head as a reward for her excellent service. 

Aether smiled wide and signed back, "I found a book, a notebook, and a blue stuffed animal! It seems like some kind of spiky penguin. Trevor delivered them by foot. The book didn't bode well though." 

"The book didn't bode well…?" Effus said to herself in bewilderment. What did that mean? What COULD that possibly mean? 

"The book was a hundred year old novel that's popular in the crowds of many of the most...let's say, unreasonable Free Terranists-the ones that literally do JUST hate the affini for being aliens." Uthris elaborated. They gritted their teeth. "A terribly violent thing, that book. Not in the 'blood and guns' kind of way-though it is-in the 'whoever wrote this, their worldview is Terrifying' kind of way." Effus' entire body grew tense. That didn't make any sense! Why would Mane be carrying such a thing? 

"There's still hope though!" Signed Aether with a look of determination on her face. Once she was confident she had Effus' attention, she added on, "The book is signed Cain Greshul! That's the victim's name, not the killer's." Alright, Effus thought to herself, that tracked. Perhaps it was her father's. Certainly if her father had signed it then Mane, based on the information Effus had access to, would have wanted nothing to do with it based on that alone. 

"Well," Effus said out loud and also signed, "Thank you, both of you, for your outstanding service. The affini appreciate your dedication and I will be sure to reward you." The two guards both nodded and waved. Effus turned around and consulted a list. 

Mane's medicine? Check. Groceries? Check. The interview with Mort? Check. Making sure that Mane's valuables were safe? Check. The next step would be to-

"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!" Her tablet went wild. Effus flailed and dropped her crate. Paperwork spilled out and scattered in slow motion thanks to the area's Low Spin gravity. Oh no, oh no. Vines lashed out from all over her body and snatched up all the packets and pages and pens. She hurriedly set down the crate and refilled it, uncaring that all her paperwork was now in a disorganized chaotic heap. She glanced at her tablet, which was reporting the same message, from the same sender, coming in over and over. Two dozen times, minimum. It read simply: "SOS NEED BACKUP COME GET YOUR HUMAN"

"She's not my human," grumbled Effus. "Not yet, anyway." 

New objective, she thought to herself. Got it.