The noodles were delicious. Better than anything Lily herself could make she would admit, though she was competing with a creature at least 20 times older than her. So it was to be expected that the flavourful dish in front of her made her almost moan with the sweet, salty flavors of the sauce. Elowin was watching, a smile plain on her face as a vine sat in a bowl of nutrient mix. Her flowers were blooming again, it seemed they never closed really. Lily wondered what the ones she didn’t recognize were.

They didn’t look like any xenodrug flower, the lack of pollen or needle was clear to see. They were ornamental, a pure white flower, with an almost hexagonal petal shape. It sat around her neck, like a choker or collar. Each petal moved to a pure black stalk that seemed almost dead to her eyes.

There were more flowers that she couldn’t even think of recognizing, much less name. An orchid like flower that seemed to open and close like butterfly wings. A deep blue vine-like flower that snaked up the affini’s left “leg”, spiraling around as if tied. It took only a few moments… seconds? Lily looked up from her reverie to see the facsimile of a face smile back at her, face turning suddenly hot as she tried to relax from the encounter. Her “heart” thrumming with a rhythm, she realized, was not hers.

Trying to shake off both the rhythm and the strange warmth on her cheeks, Lily quickly slurped up the last of her noodles before hopping off the chair. Quickly realizing that she was not in her own hab as the floor suddenly rushed towards the floor. A moment later, vines wrapped around her as her descent slowed before being gently placed on the floor, her blush returning. The cheeks warming, redness flowing around her face as she stuttered out a nonsensical response. “I- u-uhm th-han…”

“You need to be more careful, little one. You don’t have as much mobility and it’s best that you not hurt yourself further.” Elowin was upon her in seconds, a cluster of vines turning into a hand as it rubbed against the terran’s cheek. The touch was exultant, a moan escaping her mouth as a mewl. Her eyes started to flutter as the warmth crawled down her spine. She was lost in that moment, in a spark of pleasure that lasted only as long as the seconds the vine was placed upon her head.

The warmth didn’t subside until seconds later, her vine almost leaving a hot mark where the vine sat. Her mind almost squirmed as she felt her hand move

to grab at the vine, a sudden flinch coming from the flowered tentacle. She wanted more, the warmth it brought. The strange safety that followed such a show of affection gave. She heard words but she didn’t care. She pressed her face against the vines as the sudden sound of the hab piped up.

“Cutie! Your mistress has returned home! How about you meet her at the door~”

Lily groaned as the moment of bliss suddenly felt cold, she moved out of the now tangle of vines. Her mind slowly returned from the effects of her xenodrugs. A new warmth filled her face as it turned red once more. Softly muttering. “Mistress? Really?”

The exultant laugh of her second mistress caused Tara to scamper over. Her eyes widening along with her smile as she saw Lily and Elowin giggling to each other, whispering something unheard before their focus moved to the girl at the entrance. Lily’s eyes focused before softening slightly, her gaze moving away for a moment. That oh so familiar insecurity ripping at the terran in front of Tara before they moved up, decision made as she smiled.
“Welcome back Tara.”

Tara and Lily were sitting on the couch, the former excitedly jumping up and down as the former leaned against her. Lily knew that she shouldn’t. That one day, they will leave again, it was inevitable. Even so, she was gonna enjoy this moment, the fact that Tara almost tackled Lily to the floor at first sight made Lily feel… happy, it relaxed a part of her she never knew she tensed.

The flower on Tara’s hand looked like a lily, but it was a little odd. The petals were a strangely iridescent color, its pollen giving a slightly sweeter scent than Lily was familiar with. She prodded, inspected and pondered all the while Tara looked with a bemused expression.

“It has to be mixed with a xeno flower, something that produces a more iridescent color than most terran lilies.”

“You’d be right, but which one?”

Elowin was the one who asked the question, her and Echona were entwining themselves, something wholly unknown to Lily. The vines seemed almost to bind to one another, almost as if they were one in the same. The flowered vines parting to ensure they stayed up as the two heads seemed to find a middle point in which they merged. An eye of each affini as they stared at the pair of terrans. The hybrid soon moved towards the couch before seating themselves next to Tara, the terran girl leaning against the mass of vines and leaves, a soft mewl of content pleasure escaping her as she nuzzled closer into it.

“Hmmmmm… I’d say something that was not under terran influence. Perhaps one of the neon looking plants that I saw in one of the gardens? I don’t know the name of ‘em.”

“The sweetsinger lily would be the terran translation, and it is a mix of that and some terran lily. In reality the sweetsinger is not a “lily”, but some cute little floret said they looked like one and that was what we named it.”

“The flower was named by a floret?”

“A cotyledon, but yes. Most of the terran translations really are one or another floret who saw it and that was the first thing that came to their mind. The sweetsinger was named after its scent. Some terrans have said the scent is akin to the taste of cotton candy.”

It wasn’t far off, the sweet scent was almost like pure sugar. A slight hint of something more herby as well, almost warm like cinnamon. The scent was calming, making her eyes flutter slightly as she continued to take it in. It took far too long for Lily to realize she was getting lost in the scent. The soft encouraging voice of the hybrid lulled her back to reality as she looked up and focused on the trio.

There was a deep blush of course. Then a stammering as Lily tried to excuse herself, it was quickly shushed by a vine to her lips as she looked up at the monstrously gorgeous amalgamation of the two affini. Their spectral eyes seemed even more enticing as she tried to pull herself away from its gaze. Taking longer than she expected, the strange impossibility within their eyes, enticingly hypnotic as she, required quite a bit of energy to escape from its clutches.

Once she finally escaped its encapsulating effect, she looked away, her eyes moving to the floor as she started to fiddle with her clothes. The dress was one of her own, though in relation to Tara and the two affini, it seemed more like a companion dress more than anything worn by an independent. Its long flowing skirt, adorned with long twisting vines of flowers. The colors meshed into a kaleidoscope of colors, each a different type of terran and terran spliced flower. The torso textured to create an almost wood like finish, with the deep brown of spruce bark. The sleeves slowly turn from a uniform length to several vine-like pieces of fabric that wrap nicely around the base of her fingers.

The merged entity pulled a datapad from their chest, flicking on the screen for a few moments before a large screen was lowered from the ceiling. It’s floral design, much akin to the datapads. The only seemingly non-organic substance being the glass from which the screen lit up, a soft tune playing as a floret cut of some old-world show played. It seemed like something Tara often watched, as it was playing in the middle of a plot. Lily found it strangely easy to follow along, even as she knew none of the characters or any of the previous plot points.

Tara on the other hand, shot up from her embrace with the affini, her excitement returning as she pulled Lily close. The latter let out a yelp as the still scarily strong woman pulled her into an embrace.
“The sole expanse! Oh I love this show, I remember watching it when I was younger.”

Wait… Tara remembered something? Lily froze in the grasp of Tara, the affini were looking down at her as realization slowly grew from a seed planted in her mind. Growing its root deep within her. She’d read up on many of the xenodrugs, half due to general consideration of what they do, and the other for the medical concerns she might raise as a trained physician within the human anatomy.

She found class B’s problematic, as the research of amnesiacs within human medicine was debated on whether or not it was ethical. After realizing her own lover was subject to its effects, she expected it to cause a full on removal of Tara’s past. It wasn’t something she could blame the girl for doing, she was well aware of the sleepless nights that kept her tired or into a screaming fit as she was reminded of the abusive and traumatic experiences of her childhood and adulthood.

The fact she remembered something like a show that would be in the middle of her traumatic memories seemed almost impossible. As if reading her mind, Elona answered her enquiry in affini as to not have Tara overhear.

“While memories are a tricky part of the human psyche ro regulate, we have a lot of experience with finding where to cut, and where to leave it as is.”

“Wouldn’t that create massive gaps in her memories? I’d assume that would be stressful for most people who undergo such a procedure.”

“Always so attentive” The affini mused, a vined hand, one that seemed more of Elowin’s biomass than Echona softly scratched her scalp as they talked. Lily found it hard to not lean into the comforting gesture, managing to keep her from sinking too far into the blissful state it was luring her towards. “There is always a risk for sophonts who undergo such a procedure for the worries you stated. It’s why class-B xenodrugs are used sparingly. However, such issues become less prescient when the introduction of a haustoric implant.”

“So, for someone to have their frosted history removed or changed, they need to be a floret. Sounds about right.”

“It’s not because of some evil scheme Lily, the implant merges with your nervous system and assists in producing and regulating what xenodrugs go through your body. It also helps veterinarians with pinpointing which memories are distressing and which are not.”

Lily sat in silence for a moment, letting the words mull over in her head as she looked from Tara to the amalgamation. She felt… off, worried, anxious. She realized just how little she understood and how much she misunderstood of the plant creatures that had dominated an entire interstellar empire in a few years.

“Something on your mind, little one? I’m sure that after you get domesticated, we can help the past that’s been haunting you for oh so long.”

Lily’s hands clenched, her fire starting to flare before sputtering as she found little purchase. Even so words of pure chilling poison fill the room as she does her best to emulate her speaking rhythm to inquisitive. “What do you mean?”

The hand on her scalp froze, slowly pulling away as the affini disentangled, their forms seeming to almost rip from each other, like some large scale version of mitosis. Elowin moved to set the two girls on her lap as Echona moved towards her office.

“While you were in a state of emotional turmoil, you started to have… outbursts. Apparently the attack set off a chain of traumatic triggers that sent your mind into a state of shock. In such an event there are only two options. One is to put the subject on class-Os, so they may never experience the emotional pain again.”

Lily sat there, silent, her mind trying to process the flurry of emotions filling her simulacrum of a heart. Her eyes looked up into the ever encapsulating eyes of Elowin. Why were they flashing blue, why did she feel a sense of mourning all of a sudden? It took a moment for her to realize Elowin was continuing.

“Luckily, that kind of… option is often off the chair for most such events, only reserved to permanent, non-reversible damages. The second…”

There was a silence like a play at a theater, even the show seemed to follow the silence in the room as even the seemingly impossible breeze of Elowin’s leaves ceased to flow.

“The second option is… well…”

A vine moved to pull her hand, slowly moving the arm up towards the back of her head. Wait… The vine slowly inching down towards the back of her neck. Lily’s breathing was growing sharper, faster, tighter. Even as she felt her lungs tighten in fear, something stopped her, forced her to calm, sputtered that deep carnal panic that was filling her mind.

The vine slowly made Lily feel it, the scar, the unavoidable end that she thought she had more time to avoid, to escape from. It was too late.

“I’m sorry little one, it was the only way for us to bring you back to a stable state…”

Lily, even in the veil of the implant’s effects still felt tears run down her cheek as the vine moved to comfort, her body squirming in the pleasure that she could not avoid.