Any remaining delusion that the interior of the affini grocery would be anything but dazzling was immediately shattered the moment Curbita led Irene through the door. For a moment, Irene had to wonder whether the affini had found a way to make buildings bigger on the inside; then she realized that she probably had just underestimated how far back the building extended. There was also the matter of the aisles and shelves being scaled up to affini height, which created the illusion that Irene was smaller than she really was. Either way, as far as she could glimpse in any direction were shelves upon shelves fully stocked with food, along with the bustle of countless humans and affini wandering about.

Taking a few steps forward, Irene gawked at the sight before her; she’d never seen so much food in her entire life, and this was just one floor. Wordlessly, Curbita slid up beside her, pushing some sort of shopping cart, only it was—”of course you made floating carts.” She couldn’t help but roll her eyes as Curbita giggled.

“I’m glad we see eye to eye! Floating carts are just far more efficient, their propulsion keeps them from getting heavy so nobody will have a hard time pushing them, they can be set to any height making them easily usable by any species—also making them easy to maneuver over or under someone else’s cart if there is a block in the aisle—and to top it all off, they’re powered by the happiness the food they carry brings cute sophonts like yourself!”

Irene narrowed her eyes. “You’re just messing with me now,” she murmured, at least seventy percent certain Curbita was joking. 

Another giggle, and Curbita ruffled Irene’s hair, causing the girl to blush and squirm. “You caught me, dear! That sort of technology is still in the early stages of development. Now then, let’s get to it! What sort of food would you like? We’ve got a whole affini-sized cart to fill!” 

The cart really was massive, there was no way Irene was going to be able to carry that many groceries home. “Well I um, I’m not really sure where to start but I really only need a week or two’s supply of food. I’m sure by then I’ll have figured something out,” she explained. 

All it took was a handwave, and apparently any and all notion that Irene would be allowed anything but the greatest of indulgence and excess was completely cast out. “Nonsense, little flower, I will personally ensure you get all the food you want back to your home. Now, surely there’s something you’ve been wanting lately. A craving? A little indulgence? You’ve certainly earned that much for yourself after how brave you were to come ask for help.” The notion that asking for help was bravery struck Irene as so strange. Truly the most alien thing of all about the affini wasn’t their size, their biology, their appearances, even their unparalleled technological superiority; it was just how much value they seemed to place in the worth of every life. That alone was honestly enough to get Irene blushing all over again. She barely knew this plant and yet Curbita seemed so intent on ensuring she was okay. 

“I well, um… I suppose if I were to really indulge myself, the thing which made me decide to come here in the first place was I saw this article with a really tasty looking pizza,” Irene explained. 

Excitement lit up all over Curbita’s face. “How lovely, dear! I’ve heard that’s quite a popular Terran comfort food. Do you fancy yourself much of a cook? Depending on how much effort you want to put in we have a few different options.” 

“Well, I’m not bad at making food but um… I guess I’m maybe not always the best at mustering up the motivation to actually do the work.” Irene blushed; how could she not feel inadequate in the shadow of someone so competent and willful?

“Of course, Irene. There’s nothing to be ashamed of; lots of humans struggle with such things. In that case we should stick to pre-prepared meals!” Gesturing for Irene to follow, Curbita set off toward the right side of the store. “We’ll want to head downstairs; that’s where they keep the meal kits and pre-packaged meals. As far as I’m aware they make things like raw pizzas fresh every day from scratch for people to take home and bake in their ovens—” Curbita trailed off for a moment and gave Irene a rather intense, almost concerned look. “You wouldn’t happen to have one of those old Martian ovens, would you? I’ve heard they can be quite dangerous.” 

Perplexed, Irene shook her head. “No, Duri kind of has its head way up its own ass. The old government didn’t like relying on other colonies or Terran for their goods. All our ovens are made on world.” 

Curbita seemed to visibly relax at that. “That’s good to hear. Anyway, there’s also the option of frozen pizzas, for if you want something that will last long in the fridge, though I’ve heard fresh is always better. Either way I’m sure they are miles ahead of whatever your old Duri grocery… stores—” she practically spat out the word, her entire body stiffening in distaste, “—used to carry. I’m sure the selection is better as well, we try to make meal kits and ready-made meals to match as many of the different Terran cultures we stock ingredients for. That being said, from what I’ve heard we still haven’t really figured out your local erm… ‘Duri cuisine.’”

Irene giggled, “oh that’s not you, that’s us. Duri food just sucks. The planetary government has always had this ridiculous ego. Imagine bullish American Exceptionalism mixed with the holier-than-thou, unjustifiably smug incompetence of the British, then wrap that up in a politically irrelevant colony. That’s Duri identity in a nutshell. They’ve always had this very sad one-sided rivalry with Terra ever since the Accord rejected their petition to rename Duri to ‘New Terra’ a few years after the colony was founded. Ever since it’s been all ‘Duri Pride’ all the time, right down to completely throwing out thousands of years of culinary tradition, culture and science to start from scratch and make a ‘superior Duri cuisine.’ They have no fucking clue what they’re doing, though. No matter how much they incentivise local food, everyone but the most diehard Duri Colonionationalists prefer Terran food.”

For once, Irene completely understood the perplexed look on Curbita’s face. The affini looked like she had been anticipating the punchline of some joke, only to grow increasingly baffled as Irene’s explanation continued without a hint of irony. “Well then, I can’t say I understand this bizarre human obsession with claiming superiority over another person based entirely on what patch of dirt one was born on, but I suppose this is the exact sort of thing we’re here to fix.”

To be honest, Irene was still a little hung up on the fact that apparently the affini prepared meals from scratch daily in their fucking grocery… not stores. Grocery depos? Still, it was just another in a long list of small surprises which turned out to completely be on brand in hindsight. The pair descended into the lower floor of the grocery—which Irene hadn’t even been aware of during her initial count of how many floors the place had—and, just as Curbita had suggested, the place was lined with refrigerators all holding a variety of different meal kits and fresh-made meals. At the far end of the floor was a kitchen proper with hot storage for other fresh meals. What surprised Irene most wasn’t just the volume, but the variety. Irene hadn’t really put much thought into what Curibta had said about there being fifty different styles of terran cuisine stocked comprehensively in the store, but now that she saw it all laid out for her it was a dazzling sight. Just about every type of cuisine Irene could think of was accounted for, including several she’d never heard of, and that was just the ones they considered their stock to be ‘comprehensive’ to. 

Twenty minutes later, Irene had enough food to eat three—relatively healthy—easy to prepare square meals a day for the next entire month. She wasn’t even certain the food would keep that long, but Curbita had insisted that affini food preservatives were effective, completely non toxic and tasteless. At that point Irene insisted she had enough, to which Curbita responded by indicating that their cart was far from full, and surely Irene would want, “some little snacks and treats.” As such, she begrudgingly allowed herself to be led back up to the second floor of the megagrocer, and was told to just take whatever caught her eye.

The place was, as far as Irene was concerned, an offshoot from some quite literal paradise. They had literally anything and everything she could think of, along with an incredibly intuitive and convenient digital inventory tracking system that allowed anyone to look up whether certain goods were stocked, and if so, where to find them. One section of the store was literally an entire room bigger than her apartment full of shelves stocked top to bottom with fermented goods, organized not only by type but by how many days they’d been fermenting.

The bakery was full of all manner of delicious looking breads, cakes, pies and other pastries. Information kiosks throughout the building had tips for preparing, experimenting, pairing, cultural histories of the products, and even algorithm-driven food recommendations based on what the users favorite foods were. Really though, despite all the height of options, what Irene really wanted, was just some classic Terran mass produced junk food. Or, at least, the affini prettied up version of that. So, after getting the cart mostly full, Irene set off for the snack aisles. 

It was there, amongst bags of chips and little boxes of cookies, that Irene glimpsed her first real interaction between a floret and her affini up close. A lovely young woman in a pretty, flowing dress of greens and purples snatched a box of something from the shelf right next to Irene. She held it up to her face, grinned, and clutched it with both hands as she half-ran, half-stumbled toward the approaching shape of a tall affini. “Mistress!” the girl cried. “Can we get these please?” she begged, staring up at her owner pleadingly as she thrust the box forward. 

With a chiding little chuckle, the affini ruffled her pet’s hair—which was a strangely familiar looking display, now that Irene thought of it—and crouched low to look her human in the eyes. “Remember what I told you, precious? You don’t need to worry about taking too much or what you can afford to have anymore. The only thing that matters in your food selection, is your continued health, which is my job to worry about. You can take whatever treats you like, I just may or may not limit your access to them depending on how much you indulge yourself.” Something about the patient, empathetic affection in the affini woman’s voice struck Irene. Of course, like most humans, Irene knew all too well the struggle of wanting something she couldn’t have. This woman’s owner though, her words seemed so carefully chosen to both empathize with, and excise that worry entirely. 

There was also, of course, the matter of just how much love and affection, mixed with benevolent condescension she spoke with. It sent tingles all over Irene’s body and, undeniably, sounded very similar to the tone Curbita would use when addressing her. The connotations there were impossible to ignore; Irene tried to anyway. Just then, a leafy hand came to rest gingerly on Irene’s shoulder, causing her to jump and drop a box of cracker’s she’d forgotten she was holding. Irene whirled around and stared up into Curbita’s apologetic face.

“Oh, Irene! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. You just seemed very distracted, and you were gripping that box so tightly you’d started to bend the cardboard.” With a single smooth motion, Curbita scooped up the box and examined it a little, then smiled to herself and dumped it in the cart. “Was something wrong, dear?”

Shit, she’d caught on. “Well, no, nothing’s wrong. I just was watching that affini and pet pair over there and was… thinking,” Irene explained. 

“What were you thinking about?” Surprisingly, Curbita’s tone was absent of it’s usually flirty, suggestive tone. Her voice was serious, though not grim, simply patient and curious, perhaps even a little hopeful. 

Shrugging, Irene hummed for a moment, trying to actually get to the core of what had captivated her so. “I guess it’s just, the whole interaction was this intimate microcosm of everything I’ve seen so far. I mean, look at this place.” Irene swept her hand around the grocery in a wide, open handed gesture. “Your kind did all this and so much more just for us. We went to war with you, our soldiers try to kill you and in return you build us luxury homes and free grocers. You dedicate years of your lives to taking care of us just for fun, I don’t get it.”

Curbita gave a thoughtful little smile, and extended a vine to squeeze Irene’s hand gently. “We get a lot out of it, little Irene. It’s easy to focus on your kind at its worst when you live in the midst of that; the Affini Compact believes in bringing out the best in everyone, though. The best humanity has to offer us is worth the effort. And yes, it is a lot of effort at times, taking a pet can be especially involved, but all the more rewarding for it. That is, however, why most affini I’ve met, at least, keep only one pet, and it’s uncommon—though hardly unheard of—to see someone with more than two.” 

Suddenly Irene felt a bit of tightness in her core, as a question she couldn’t keep herself from asking boiled up from her gut. “And you, do you have a pet right now?” 

With a little giggle, Curbita wriggled her vines, dismissing the notion. “Not currently, no. Actually we’ve generally made it a policy to only station affini without pets near the city border. Both because it can be an involved job with long hours—which would cause a great deal of separation anxiety in hypothetical poor cuties left at home missing their owners—and because this way if anyone winds up defecting there are affini able to dedicate a lot of their time to helping them adjust. As an added bonus, if the defector and their new friend grow especially close, it’s that much easier to just take them as a pet.” The suggestiveness was back in Curbita’s voice, not that Irene needed it to notice the implications. If Curbita expected a verbal response from Irene she wasn’t getting it any time soon. Luckily the deep blush across her face told the affini all she needed to know.

Mercifully, Curbita decided to move on, taking a moment to look over the cart's interior, before breathing a satisfied hum. “Well then, darling, while we could probably keep filling up to the point where our cart is quite literally overflowing, I think I’ll give you a bit of leniency; is there anything else you can think of which you might want?”  

Choice paralysis was certainly the sort of thing Irene could understand a person experiencing when faced with all this, but for whatever reason she just didn’t seem to care. Part of her was just growing increasingly hungry and eager to get home and gorge herself. But also, at the end of the day, she could come back whenever she wanted, couldn’t she? In a month or so the affini would probably have integrated her part of the city into the Compact, and she’d be able to make grocery trips like this one whenever she wanted, or just run out to grab whatever snacks she was craving. Maybe Curbita would even come along with her for old times sake. Satisfied, she looked up at Curbita and gave an affirmative nod. 

“Wonderful!” Curbita cheered. “In that case, why don’t we get these all bagged up for you so we can take them home.” Again, Curbita took charge, leading the way confidently as Irene hurried behind her. In place of a checkout the grocery just had a dedicated area for people to bag their goods, with a few affini lingering around eager to help anyone who needed it. Irene tried to insist she was perfectly capable of bagging her own groceries, Curbita went ahead and did all the work anyway. Admittedly she did it much faster and more space efficient than Irene would have regardless. Was there really anything these plants couldn’t just completely outclass humans at with casual ease? 

Before she knew it, Curbita was gesturing for Irene to follow her back out, and Irene found herself outside in the warm early afternoon air once more. As she slid alongside Curbita and looked up to her, the affini gave her a wide smile, eliciting a feeling which Irene was growing all too familiar with. She took a moment to calm her breathing, heart hammering in her chest, then looked about. Fortunately, despite how much her once familiar surroundings had been transformed, Irene was still able to orient herself and determine the way home. She took a single step forward, then realized something which, in hindsight, should have been incredibly obvious. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw Curbita, easily carrying nearly a dozen bags with her myriad of vines. There was no fucking way Irene would be able to carry all that back to her apartment.