“You’re delusional if you think this will ever work, you stars-damned weeds!” Unfortunately, no amount of shouting seemed to dissuade either plant. Restrained as she was, Piper could do little more than watch as the shorter of the two weeds—dressed in an oversized white lab coat and ridiculous goggles—continued to fervently tap away at some towering console, lips twisted into a grin of manic glee. The weed finished typing, and, seeming satisfied, rubbed its vines together, spun around in its affini-sized spinny chair, and leapt to its feet. 

 

“That’s where you’re wrong, little terran,” it said, darting forward, and pausing once its face hovered mere inches from Piper’s. “With my newest invention perfected, your submission to your new Mistress is inevitable!” It tensed, then sprung backward into its rolling chair, using the momentum to cross the distance of the lab to a large lever embedded in the wall. “Eryngium!” the weed shouted. “Ensure that both you, and your pet to be are properly secured within… the device.” 

 

At that, the other plant—the one currently holding Piper in place—stood, and carried Piper kicking and screaming across the room to a terran sized chair, behind which lay a massive array of beeping panels, tesla coils, and flashing lights. She was set down, and then secured in place by a pair of large, strong, but soft straps. Eryngium then took a moment to fuss over her, brushing Piper's hair out of her eyes and straightening out her uniform. As she did so, Piper locked eyes with the plant, glaring. “I’ll never be your pet, the will of Terra is unbreakable.”

 

A soft, musical laugh rumbled from the plant. “Oh, little darling. You’re so silly. You’ll see. Once we’re both securely in place, and Bramble activates its machine, my will shall be beamed directly into your mind, breaking you in seconds. But it’s okay, I promise to take very good care of you once we fix that pesky little feralism problem of yours.” With that, she lowered a comically large dome-shaped helmet over Piper’s head, and sat beside her, hooking some sort of electrode up somewhere deep within her vines. Piper crossed her arms beneath her chest. “This is ridiculous, your machine looks like something out of an old vid from like, centuries ago. There’s no way that machine will do anything besides make you look like a complete ass.”

 

From across the room, Bramble grinned. “We’ll see,” it teased; it then began to cackle with unrestrained, diabolical jubilation as it flipped the switch. There was a spark. The lights flickered. Behind her, Piper heard whirring. Everything went dark. 

 

Piper felt weird; weird like the weeds had taken an eggbeater to her whole everything, then stretched her out like dough, and molded her back together. Nothing hurt, exactly; everything just felt weird and far away and close together and tangled up and pushed together and—someone was talking. “—Okay come on, what’s science without a little risk? Sometimes along the way there are little hiccups. It’s not a big deal. If anything we should consider this a new opportunity for learning and discovery!” That plant, the weird scientist with the crazy hair—Bramble, it was Bramble. At least, she thought it was Bramble; it sounded a bit different, more resonant? 

 

“You call this a little hiccup?” Another voice asked. This one was also familiar. But it wasn’t Eryngium—that other fucking weed. Still, Piper was definitely, completely certain she’d heard it before, just, also, something about it wasn’t quite right. Nothing was quite right. Piper opened her eyes. Except, it didn’t really feel like opening her eyes. At the end of the day, she achieved the same effect. Groaning, she sat up. Apparently she wasn’t tied down anymore. Moving felt weird, though, like all the muscles she was used to using had been jumbled around, but also everything still felt really instinctual? Weird. Was the room always this small? 

 

Hearing Piper stir, Bramble whirled around. “Dirt, she’s awake.” It took a step back, looking her up and down. “Erm, hey there… little terran? It turns out there was a bit of a mistake in the process. But don’t worry, we’ll get things all sorted out soon. It should only be a few days at most.” 

 

“A few days?” The other voice piped up, sounding shrill and panicky in ways that stirred something in Piper. Come to think of it, though, she couldn’t see that other plant anywhere, or anyone else. 

 

“What the hell are you talking about, weed?” A thousand thousand unfamiliar muscles seemed to tense, contort and contract as she spoke. It came naturally all the same. Definitely weird though. “What’s going on?”

 

Wincing, Bramble, glanced between Piper and something behind it. “Uhhh, maybe take a look at yourself?” it offered. 

 

“Look at myself? What are you—the fuck?” Green, so much green, also other colors. There were vines and flowers and leaves and—Piper bolted to her feet, frantically trying to claw off the weird growths. But it wasn’t coming off, all she found was more plant. Panicking, she stumbled forward, looking frantically around the room. That’s when Piper saw herself. Except that wasn’t her, because she was standing in front of Bramble. But also Piper was looking right at herself, and the herself she was looking at was hiding behind Bramble and looking back up at her with wide eyes and red cheeks. Then it hit her. “Holy fuckin shit you… you—”

 

“Yeah,” Bramble said. “So uhmm. The good news is I know what went wrong.” It looked down, scratching the top of it’s head with a vine. And wow, it was weird being taller than an affini. “So what was supposed to happen was after hooking you up to the new mind control device I invented, the device would establish a link between your mind, and Eryn’s, then use that link to beam the force of Eryn’s willpower into your mind, which would overpower you and make you submit to her. Instead, what happened is… well…. Basically instead of doing that what I did was I accidentally hooked you up to a different machine entirely. Specifically uhh… that wasn’t my mind control device that was my body swap device. Which is really embarrassing. I really need to stop labeling every single one of my inventions “New Untitled Bramble Project. Anyway it’s broken now so you two are gonna be stuck like this until I fix it which will probably take a few days.”

 

“Why do you even have a body swap machine, how did you even make one?” cried Eryngium in Piper’s body.

 

Bramble shrugged. “Anything is possible through the power of kinky TF shenanigans.”

 

For her part, Piper wasn’t really listening. Instead, the gears in her mind—was mind still the right word? Did plants have minds? Was she actually a plant or did her brain get like put inside a plant or—

 

“Best not to think too hard about the mechanics of this… uhh… not so little one.” Bramble chided .

 

Right, anyway, Piper’s thoughts were spinning with possibilities. She could use this to escape, probably, and then, then she’d… she’d… be stuck in a xeno body with nowhere to go besides somewhere else in weed territory or back to the rebellion which would best case scenario run in fear from her. Fuck. Piper sighed, and slumped in defeat. “Okay so, I’m stuck like this for a few days, what am I supposed to do until then?” 

 

“Well…” Bramble began. “Subduing a resistant affini is… Complicated. So how about this? You behave yourself and I’ll let you wait out the time in the comfort of your own hab unit, then swap you back and bing bang boom, we try again with square one, huh? My actual mind control device oughtta be around here somewhere.” It bent over, and began sorting through what appeared to be a pile of scrap in the corner, randomly tossing small components and gadgets over its shoulder as it went. 

 

“Is that a joke?” Piper bellowed, standing to… well probably not her full height because she was pretty sure that wasn’t how the plants worked, but definitely standing taller than she had been before. “If you think I’m going to sit pretty and wait for you to turn me into a fucking pet you’ve got another thing coming. There’s no stars damn way I’m gonna let her—” as Piper cast her furious gaze toward her real body, now occupied by Eryngium, she froze. A strange feeling began overtaking her. 

 

Because there she was, right? This terran girl, looking all tiny and fragile and scared and embarrassed, staring up at Piper with big, watery eyes and hiding behind Bramble’s leg. And she was just… cute? Like, really fucking adorable. She was so small and looked so soft and huggable and Piper just wanted to scoop the girl up in her arms—vines?—and hug her and protect her and—shit, was this how all affini saw terrans? “Um, shit,” Piper took a cautious step forward, Eryngium flinched. “Wait wait no,” Piper blurted. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry please don’t be scared I didn’t mean to scare you I—I don’t want to hurt anyone okay? I’m not a bad person. I’m just—I’m just some random terran girl I don’t care about all that human supremacy and capitalism crap I just didn’t wanna be an alien’s pet okay?” Piper knelt, and showed her hand-vine things palm up in a show of harmlessness. 

 

It seemed to work, Eryngium relaxed a bit, and nodded. “O-okay. Fine I believe you or whatever,” she stammered. Then she started blushing extra hard, and looking away, which was also just so stars-damned cute. Piper could hardly breathe—actually, wait, did she breathe at all? Probably, Bramble said she shouldn’t worry about the details though, so she didn’t. 

 

This urge was building inside Piper, and she knew she shouldn’t indulge but—fuck it. “Would it, um… would it be okay if I gave you a hug?” Piper asked, kneeling and holding her vines out in a wide, welcoming gesture. 

 

Grumbling to herself, Eryngium looked at the floor, fiddling with her uniform—which really was quite drab, she would look even cuter in something more fashionable—and chewing her lip. With a sigh of defeat, she nodded. “I suppose it would be best for you if you got to have some positive experiences with affini… even if right now I’m not very affini looking. And your wellbeing is still my responsibility, so it’s important that I provide you emotional support in these uncertain times.” Eryngium peeled herself out from behind Bramble, and stumbled on unsteady legs across the room, then wrapped Piper’s arms around her own body but with Piper in it. And it was really nice. Piper wrapped her vines around Eryngium, and sighed contentedly. How had she gone this long without realizing just how soft and huggable she was? Eryngium closed her eyes, and visibly relaxed against her which was just the most precious thing Piper had ever seen; she could get used to this.

 

“Ahem,” Brambled called. “Sorry to interrupt the moment, but I kinda need my laboratory to myself if you want me to fix this. So I tell you what, terran. Plenty of terrans, most terrans, even, are eligible for citizenship as independent citizens of the Affini Compact. I give you my word that if you keep out of trouble until this mess is resolved, then we will grant you full amnesty for your feralist past, making you no longer eligible for compulsory domestication on those grounds. Deal?” 

 

In truth, Piper had no way to be certain she could trust this plant, but at the end of the day, what choice did she have? “Sounds like the best deal I’m gonna get.”

 

“Great!” Bramble brightened, and whirled around, grabbing a tablet and thrusting it toward Piper. “Since the original plan was to have you become Eryn’s floret, we didn’t exactly prepare additional housing. Which means—”

 

“You’re joking,” Eryn protested. 

 

“I most certainly am not… little one.” It flashed the shit eatingest grin to ever shit eat. 

 

“Which means what?” Piper asked, glazing between Bramble, and Eryngium—who was still half pressed against Piper’s chest. . 

 

“I’ll get to that if you’ll let me finish. Which means you two get to be roommates!” It threw its vines out in a display of flamboyant excitement. 

 

“Dirt,” Eryngium muttered. “Dirt roots and leaves. Fine. Somebody needs to make sure my pet doesn’t get up to any trouble, and somebody needs to keep an eye on my body, so it might as well be me. I already committed to being responsible for her, after all.”

 

“Whatever you say, cutie~” Bramble chirped, vines literally twitching with smug glee. Eryn groaned.