“And I just think that it’s a shame, is all, to mind control people,” Monica finishes her rant, having not once been interrupted all throughout, stomach churning in a sickly way.

 

Zoysia hums noncomittally. “If that was true, I can see how you would find it concerning. I can assure you that Mendelson is fine, however — completely free of mind. Or as free of mind as his owner has decided he ought to be.”

 

“He didn’t use a single choice well, that old git,” Monica harrumphs. “I’ve never seen a man farther up his own ass — and I was drafted, you know, when we first heard of the rinan. All the assholes flocked to the military. The rinans, unlike us, were perfectly decent folk.”

 

Zoysia nods, listening with an air of attentive silence. It’s nice. It’s also…wrong. 

 

Monica falters at the pause where Cinnabari would usually mention something or another from their seemingly endless font of experience. Offer up their own opinion. Contradict her. “Yes, they were good people, polite neighbors — respectful and generous and all the things you could ask for. I remember having friends who liked the rinan. I remember wanting to learn more — I remember the hope, the final certainty, the answer to our question of are we alone.”

 

Cinnabari would comment on human biology or add a snide comment about affini technology or regale her with a short diversion about one of their old florets. “…we’ve always been alone,” Monica admits, in this eerily uncontested spot. She’s back to being the equivalently — or is it relatively? — oldest being in the room again. She’s being given respect and the space to speak. It’s a relief. She can feel her opinion of Zoysia rising with every second she gets to wait before continuing. She can feel the weight of his attention on her. 

 

It’s not that this is bad. It’s just that this is wrong. “We were so alone, Zoysia,” she says distantly. “We sung to the stars, Zoysia, my grandmother used to tell me. Back before we’d even built the first homes on Luna — before we’d found darling old Persephone, even farther out then little Pluto — we sent out…robots. Little things. Simple, primitive…whatever you’d like to call it. We sent those things out and for decades we had no answer at all. Turns out that after a few years, the answer was no. Too bad that no was exploited to hell and back.”

 

Zoysia looks solemn. He says something, when she doesn’t speak up. “You didn’t stay alone. And that won’t happen again, petal. I can promise you that.”

 

“There were good people back then,” Monica says quietly. “There are still good people out there. And the bad ones want to be good, trust me, I’ve been them. But it’s easier to lie than change, Zoysia,” she lays a hand on his arm, pats it once or twice, and feels the electric shock of contact. It burns like a branding and the vine-to-skin pleasure lingers, throbbing along with her pulse, sending her into full-body shivers. “You can’t help us all. You need to learn that, all of you, one day. Even Cinnabari is so…so odd with that. You can’t help everyone. You’ll die trying.”

 

Zoysia looks at her, oddly, like he’s staring right through her. “You’re very young,” he says softly, deferentially. “But so old, as well.”

 

She blinks, a little bit surprised. “You know,” she smiles, a tired quirk of the lips, “I could say the same about you.”

 

Zoysia chuckles, all too human, and for a moment all she can think of is the space where Cinnabari could’ve been. The absence that is almost as powerful as her presence, the grandness of creatures which will most certainly outlive her, the surety that they will not remember her as anything particularly special. The horror of anything so old existing at all. The joy of anything managing to make it so far.

 

She feels a grief so familiar it’s almost an old friend. Maybe, if she’d been younger, if she’d never felt it before, if she weren't used to this place of mind, where she’s surviving and breathing yet not living at all…

 

Maybe then she’d cave. And maybe soon, she will cave. But every second spent away is a second where Cinnabari has her own time alone, emptied of a song, and Monica is such a petty, spiteful human being that the thought of that brings her joy. Part of it is just that Cinnabari has power and Monica hates people who have power. It’s part envy, part instinct, all irrational. But it’s real, in a way that she isn’t. It’s solid in a way that Monica clings to.

 

It’s a bright, searing light at the end of her tunnel. It fills her with a kind of divine love, twined so deeply into the want for more and hurting and worship that she’s not sure if it really counts as love. Maybe it’s something else. She wouldn’t know — she doesn’t usually feel like this. 

 

“You know I thought, once the Compact got here and everything was done with, at least I can rest now,” Monica breaks their silence. It feels like sacrilege but right now that applies to existence in general. “I’ve been tired so long I think I forgot how it felt, to be rested. I’ve been kept alive past my friends, my family — my children are probably either dead or unrecognizable — and you know what? All I can think is that they got to live, Zoysia. They got to feel. They may have been breathing in smog-filled air but they were breathing and they knew they were breathing and I just — I don’t know. I think maybe this is what love feels like, to God. Maybe this is the divine.”

 

Maybe he really is young. Because he stares at her, uncomprehending, and Monica remembers (or realizes) part of why she loves Cinnabari so, so damn much.

 

Cinnabari looks at her like she’s one in a dozen faces but they look at her like she’s real. Zoysia looks at her, with an expression of deep pity, as if he’s finally seeing her and everything he sees paints a tragic picture. Monica has seen this happen, usually in reverse, when she finally goes from some old woman to an actual person in people’s minds. She’s never been reduced to a pitiable object after being someone, though. 

 

It’s worse. It feels worse. She wants Cinnabari back but if they wanted her, they would be here. They come here. They come here. Or else she finds someone else. 

 

And Monica Parolles is not finding someone else. She doesn’t want to find anyone else. Cinnabari is hers, she is Cinnabari’s, and until they admit that they need her to, they don’t get to have her. She can tolerate imbalance but she cannot tolerate insignificance. She needs to know they care enough to reach out. Not through snatches of weird, horny dream imagery. Not through frankly terrifying threats of care. Not through taunting and teasing and—

 

They’ll come, she lies to herself, after a week is out, they’ll come over. She knows she can do this. Because she will do this. Because she has the Stranger and their Zoysia and a whole world of possibility. Because the world is beautiful and she is the most stubborn person she knows and there is no way in hell that she’s losing to a glorified houseplant. 

 

She says this. But it doesn’t stop the aching. This doesn’t even distract from it. The aching is constant and it’s not getting better. She’s not getting better. 

 

She stifles a flinch as a hand kneads at her shoulder, strong and precise and so human that it hurts, kind as can be. She appreciates the contact a bit too much for her own liking. She really, really wants Cinnabari. Zoysia is not Cinnabari, is not hers, and that’s all her body can think of when it feels the sensation of unnaturally pleasurable touch. If only they were here, she thinks with her soul. If only they were here, she thinks with her twitching fingers. her churning chest, her sluggish pulse.

 

Monica is distracted by this until Zoysia manages to hit a bit of knotted muscle, and she lets out a creaking wheeze. “Jesus Christ,” she says, astonished. “Is that plant magic? Is that the newest affini tech — massages?”

 

Zoysia smiles, awkward and pained. “I…didn’t know what else to do,” he says. He sounds like he’s never said those words before. He sounds like he’s half-regretting the fact those words came out of his mouth. Monica is betting that he’s got a complex over letting lesser life forms see him weak. Cinnabari could — no, stop that. 

 

“Nice,” she says drily. “Off with you, young man, I’m going to take a nap.”

 

And then, she gets an idea. A wonderful idea. Possibly the best idea she’s ever had and it’s beautiful and the world is beautiful even if it hurts but Cinnabari is so much more than just the world to her— 

 

Monica struggles for a second. She doesn’t usually ask for things. People offer help, from time to time, and she pointedly makes it clear that she’s in need of help until people notice but…that doesn’t work when she’s not half-starved and freezing to death. It barely worked when she was homeless. 

 

Zoysia recognizes her expression. “Do you need something?” he sounds delighted. Of course he’s delighted, he’s Zoysia. He’s one of those affini, all soft and saccharine. “I’m happy to provide.”

 

“There’s an old affini at the outskirts of town,” Monica says slowly. “Name’s Dracaena Cinnabari,” she can’t keep the deep font of conflicted emotion out of her voice. She can hear herself sound lovesick and it’s humiliating enough to make her blush. “And they…I need you to tell them something for me, ok?” 

 

Zoysia looks unrepentantly smug in her general direction. It’d be insufferable if she wasn’t still too empty and too full to feel anything normally. “I take it they’re a friend of yours?” he asks teasingly. 

 

Monica stares at him flatly. “Don’t you speak to me with that tone,” she snaps. “Now, I want you to tell them that I’ve got a deal to propose, when they’re ready to speak with me.”

 

“Dracaena is not quiet…” he winces, blinking, as if he’s just realized she’s serious about this,“they’re not as tolerant of disrespect as I am. They’re…a bundle of thorns with a very sharp center. And you’re a human. An independent human. Who is…look, I’m fairly sure you’re going to get yourself forcibly domesticated one of these days—”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Pah, kids these day. Hmm. No respect at all for their elders.”

 

“I really, really suggest going to somebody else,” Zoysia almost pleads. “If you’re looking for an owner I’ve got my hands more than full — but I have a few friends I could recommend to you. If you’re looking for a scholar then…” he falters for a moment. “I know a friend of a friend who’s floret is very into Shakespeare and  I could introduce you! You don’t have to do this.”

 

“I thought you people liked florets,” Monica replies. 

 

“Dracaena is very…intense. And you’re very,” he pauses for a moment, “very strong-willed. Dracaena’s going to see you as either a volunteer or a challenge and while I can guarantee you won’t be hurt, I can’t guarantee you’ll come back out of there without a collar on. Or that I’ll ever be able to see you while you’re coherent enough to recognize me, which would be a shame given the conversation we just had.”

 

She blinks, realizing all at once that her Cinnabari has a reputation, and that she has a chance to sow absolute chaos. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I’m already setting up for the whole pet thing. Sides, they’ve been waiting for…adding on today it may actually have been more than a week?” she frowns. She imagines another week of this. Dreams full of brief, saturated joy and days full of dragged out, hollow grieving. She could survive the separation but she can’t imagine doing it for much longer. “I want them with me, right now. So, I’m going to march over there and…”

 

“How are you still an independent?!” Zoysia gasps. 

 

Monica glares. “I called them a bitch and left,” she says, which is an exaggeration but not necessarily a lie. “Then I spent five days depressed before I just…well, then I had company so it was better. Awful, but tolerable. My point is made, Zoysia, it’s been…so many days, God, I need them here with me. It’s been too long.”

 

“I’ve known you for ten days,” he notes dully, distantly. “You called Dracaena Cinnabari a bitch. And then you…you left them stewing in that for fifteen days while hanging out with another affini — and I’m the other affini — and clodding, verdant, mulched up roots they’re going to have you on Os by the end of the day. Do you even know how badly you…Monica,” Zoysia reforms rapidly, leaning in to stare at her with eyes glowing fearful reds. “I can apply for your form before she does.”

 

“No, thank you,” Monica declines politely. “Send my message, Zoysia. Send it now.”

 

Zoysia stares at her, nervous energy turning his steady march into something cowed and scattered. “Alright,” he says reluctantly. “But only because fifteen days of no contact with a flo — sophont that you’ve bonded to is a fate I wouldn’t wish on any affini. Not even Dracaena.”

 

“Good,” she nods. “Go on. Tell them to come over tomorrow in the afternoon. They can send me a message on one of those newfangled datapads you’ve made but things’ll be ready at noon.” 

 

Zoysia leaves. He’s visibly fretting but he leaves. 

 

It’s over, she thinks, either way, it’s over soon. 

 

“House robot?” Monica claps her hands together to summon the wretched thing. “House robot, I’m gonna need to…fah-brick-at two rings, with very specific descriptions. Get on that. Have it done by tomorrow at noon or else you’re fired.”

 

The house robot does not respond. Good.