Hexis Pallis, Five Hundred Sixteenth Floret was an absolute darling. Of course, all of Alcea’s pets were darlings. She was always able to find a deep wellspring of satisfaction with the addition of any floret to her life. Though, it had been a long, long time since her relationship to any floret had been about anything more than simply satisfaction. Hexis, like every pet she’d taken since she couldn’t honestly say anymore, wasn’t the sort of pet one had much of a relationship with. Since even before she had adopted him, Hexis had requested that he spend the rest of his life completely submerged in mindless bliss. Alcea was happy to oblige. She preferred her pets this way, lacking personhood from the word go.

When her pets could hardly gasp out a word between fleeting and scattered scraps of thought completely eviscerated by unparalleled pleasure, it was easier to not grow so attached. Several times before, Alcea had tried to simply live a life without the company of a floret. Eventually, though, the desire to inflict bliss and dominance over some lovely sophont trumped her resolve. Perhaps it was in her nature, maybe affini nature itself to seek out florets despite how things would end. At least this way, when she inevitably had to say goodbye, it didn’t hurt as much as losing the ones she’d poured her heart and soul into. She had fallen too deeply in love too many times, it was easier this way. Still, all things came to an end eventually, and no matter how hard she tried, it always wound up hurting more than Alcea had expected. In the end, she would always be left alone and wandering again, running further out to the fringes away from the pain in her past. She banished the thought, and focused on the comfort she took in holding Hexis close. 

* * *

It was hard to know for certain after so much time, but Alcea Pallis, One Thousand Sixth Bloom was fairly certain she had been to Terra once before, early in her life. Though really, with so many lifetimes behind her, Alcea wasn’t certain she could truly call herself the same person as before. She had often wondered in her long stretches of wandering from world to world, station to station, ship to ship, galaxy to galaxy, whether she was simply running from stagnation. 

Many times over many cultures over many galaxies, Alcea had encountered the concept of ‘the end of history.’ This idea that eventually, a society would reach its peak and there would be no need for further advancement. What more could the affini create, what boundaries were the left to push when things like atomic compilers or continent sized ships existed? No wonder all the average affini had left to do was take a floret and settle down. At the very least interpersonal connection and love had yet to become stale or banal.

That didn’t change the fact that Alcea still couldn’t seem to let herself settle. Stagnation frightened her a little, she had an eternity to be alive and the thought of watching mountains rise and fall while she remained in one place seemed far too existential. It was why Alcea often felt lucky that there would always be work that needed doing at the fringes and frontiers of affini space. But after living like that for what had, at this point, become the better part of the affini’s very existence as a space faring race, Alcea began to wonder whether she’d seen and done all there was for her to see and do. Surely there would always be more, but would it be meaningfully different?

In the wake of such sobering thoughts, nostalgia and sentimentality had tugged at her, and she had booked herself on the next ship back to the Milky Way. Strangely, it felt like a homecoming. 

* * *

Perched under an ornate gazebo atop a grassy hill in the center of a massive metropolitan district, Alcea had to admit for the first time in a long time, she’d been wrong, wrong in a good way, though. 

The entirety of her surroundings were a marvel to behold. modeled into one gigantic and stunningly beautiful public park. From her vantagepoint, she had a clear view of an extravagant garden which artfully arranged all manner of plants in such a way so as to beautifully interweave with sculptures and hab units. At one end of the district, a towering waterfall created a flowing stream which snaked through the whole area, feeding into meticulously arranged artificial gravity wells which sent streams of crystalline water encircled by flowering water lilies weaving through the air in gorgeous patterns. Where the gravity wells stopped, the water would trickle down like rain into more gardens, fountains and ponds all teaming with life.  

Elsewhere, the stream continued to another section of gravity wells, which sent the water hurling upward in an upside-down waterfall to pool in the mirrored pond that clung to the ceiling of the ever-shifting ornately colored stained glass dome encompassing the entire area. Within the crystal clear waters of that mirrored-pond, a myriad of colorful fish swam happily between gorgeous underwater plant-life and among artistically arranged, mineral rich, opalescent stones, all blissfully unaware that they existed in a state which made complete mockery of basic physics. On the opposite end of the dome from the upside-down waterfall, another arrangement of gravity wells fed the pond back into the staggered second level of the district, which was supported by massive sturdy trees. From there, the stream continued to flow, before coming full circle and returning to the first level. In the center of everything was a slowly churning pool covered by a clear-glass walkway. Below the pool, a geothermal plant drawing energy from the planet's core powered the entire district, using the artfully arranged waters which it powered the flow of to self-cool. 

The entire arrangement and flow was ever shifting, constantly finding new patterns, but never interfering with the many pathways or buildings sprinkled throughout. Solar panels and water-wheels which were easy to write off as simply more decoration and gorgeous art pieces covertly provided failsafe power in case the generator ever had problems. And, despite everything, the entire area was incredibly convenient to navigate. 

Buildings had a natural flow to them which did nothing to disrupt the living art piece that was the entire self-sustaining ecosystem. If a structure weren’t in use, such as a restaurant closed up for the day or a gazebo with no passers-by to lounge in, it would quite literally disassemble into thousands of little fragments of stone or smooth glass to make room for something new. The disassembled pieces would then sail off through the air to the next locale where the materials would then be reassembled to fill their next purpose. Other buildings, formed from woven vines or intertwining trees, would twist away to form new unique gardens when not in use. In fact, each and every garden had a purpose: a building, or a statue, or a recreation area. Each of them could spring to life and take the shape of something new at a moment’s notice should the need arrive. 

But no matter how extravagant or complex the arrangement of gardens, buildings, sculptures and waterworks became, the entire district was accessible to a fault. Along with the built-in walkways and carved stairs, new paths would form at the feet of any pedestrian who sought to make their own way, even going so far as to form stairs underfoot should they become necessary. The doors to each building were formed from millions of shards of opaque glass or polished stone such as obsidian. Any approaching pedestrian—assuming they had permission to enter the space—would need only draw close enough to a door for each of its individual pieces to drift apart and form entrancing fractal patterns in the air, before reassembling once they had entered. 

Without a doubt, any affini artist, engineer, aestheticist, biologist, or physicist would be floored by the level of detail, beauty and technological application on display. And every aspect of the district, from its inception, to its planning, to its construction, to its cultivation and decoration, had been done by humans. Of course, affini had been involved with providing things like raw materials, and an oversight group had ensured everything was being done safely. But the color shifting glass, the thermal plant, the gravity wells, the city planning and architecture, all of it was designed, engineered and constructed by human hands. At first, Alcea had been surprised. Then she remembered that humanity had first developed thousands of years after the affini had, and, given time to catch up, it only made sense their technology would advance. 

Most importantly though, sitting in that district, looking out at all that beauty, Alcea realized she couldn’t remember any other time in her life when the works of a non-affini species had left her completely awestruck. And, in the wake of that realization, she realized just how unbelievably presumptuous and egotistical that sounded. She had spent entire blooms lamenting stagnation, the slow death of affini progress, all while throughout the universe there were must have been millions of different protectorate species all exercising creativity and passion in awe-inspiring ways fully unique to their own experiences and cultures. She had just never bothered to look. Alcea stood.

* * *

Hydrangea Rebus, Thirty-Third bloom had immediately given the impression of someone who appreciated the histories and cultures of floret species in ways Alcea had never even thought to before returning to Terra. Their entire hab unit was lined with tightly packed bookshelves, each of their many tablets were loaded completely with a wellspring of information that couldn’t be held within a billion pages. 

Standing amidst it all, surrounded on all sides by whatever she could possibly ever hope to know, Alcea realized she had no idea where to start. She tentatively extended a vine to snatch a book from the shelf, then turned it over in her hands contemplatively. Seeming to sense their guest’s confusion, Hydrangea chuckled softly. “I’m not sure that’s where you want to begin,” Hydrangea commented. “That’s a book on the history of Terran ovens, and other twenty-sixth century improvised explosive devices.” Baffled, Alcea shelved the book and turned to her host. Smiling, they gestured to a large recliner across from them. “You said it has been quite some time since you were last in the area and wanted to catch up with all you missed. How long has it been? Couple thousand years?” They asked as Alcea sat.

“A bloom is about three hundred Terran years, right? In that case, oh I don’t know, I can’t recall what bloom I was on when I last visited Terra. I left the Milky Way somewhere around my mid fifties? So maybe two-hundred eighty-eight thousand years ago?” She paused for a moment to take in the look of shock on Hydrangea’s face. “I think I may have missed a few things, think you can help me catch up?” 

Once Hydrangea was finally able to pick their jaw back up off the floor—literally, they had detached their jaw and allowed it to clatter to the floor in what must have been some human joke—they gave what at least seemed like an earnest effort to think up an answer before completely derailing. “Roots below and stars above, you must have been around when humans were first domesticated. The war of pacification? The rebellion? All that?” Alcea nodded. “I have so very many questions, but they can wait, assuming you even remember that far back.” 

“Bits and pieces, it’s been a long life, there’s only so much space up here,” Aclea gave a dry chuckle. 

“Right, well, at this point… you have to understand that humanity first evolved, we think, around five to six hundred thousand years ago. But really, their civilization didn’t begin to take off until only about six to eight thousand years before the Compact arrived. And now the humans have been part of the Affini Compact for a little over three hundred thousand years. The overwhelming majority of human history has taken place under our care. Your average human can’t really even conceive of what life was like before the compact. Countless generations have lived in post scarcity, dedicating their lifetimes to passion projects in art, invention, philosophy. Humans have genuinely come so far since when you were last here, I honestly don’t even know where to begin.” There was a sort of pride in the way Hydrangea spoke about humanity’s progress. Though it seemed less condescending, far more humble and impressed than what she was used to from affini out on the fringes who saw non-affini sophonts as misguided and in need of a firm, but gentle guiding hand. 

“They’re still florets though, right?” Alcea asked.

“Of course! Some of them, anyway. If that’s what they want. Others remain independent. It’s entirely their choice. There hasn’t been an instance of forced domestication on Terra in maybe ten thousand years.” They paused for a moment, seeming to draw figures in the air and silently mouth whatever internal calculations they were making, before nodding. “Yeah, ten thousand sounds about right.”

Alcea had to take a moment to truly process everything she’d just heard. “Ten thousand years? In all that time no violent criminals, no mental health crises gone wrong, no anti-xeno terrorism?” 

Hydrangea shrugged. “Why would there be? Humans live long, happy lives, far longer than ever before, to the point where they may as well be immortal. They lead these lives with all their needs provided for, there’s nothing to fight over. Our healthcare is more effective than ever at treating whatever mental health needs a human might have. And as far as anti-xeno sentiments go, I’m not sure the average human even knows rinnans aren’t native to Terra.” A look of sudden shock crossed their face as they hurriedly waved their arms in dismissal of their own words. “Not that I’m calling humans stupid or naive or anything just, Terra has at this point been home to interstellar civilization for hundreds of thousands of years longer than it was ever home to human-only civilization. The average citizen doesn’t really question the existence of non-humans and, well, humans have a bit of a fraught relationship when it comes to learning their own history.”

“Oh?” Alcea asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, yes, after a thousand years or so within the Compact, your average  human had long since lost basically any conception of or ties to the lifestyle and ideals of the old world. Learning about things like capitalism and war became an honestly upsetting and stressful thing. And well, it is upsetting. It’s honestly still quite upsetting for me to think about the way things used to be here. But regardless, over time humans teaching one another about what life was like before the compact just slowly kind of stopped happening with any sort of regularity. Nowadays, only a select few thousand human historians whose passion outweighed their horror upon learning the truth of the past have even heard of ‘currency.’ Honestly most humans with an interest in ancient history ask to have their memories erased after learning about what their precursors did to one another. It’s not at all uncommon for a human to live for decades, even centuries without even hearing words like ‘war.’ It’s just… a different world out there. A different humanity. And look around you, you can see the impact it's had. There’s talk in the human scientific community of building a dyson sphere around the Sun. They’re putting in the finishing touches on humanity’s first ever inter-solar system rail transit line as we speak. And it’s not us. Of course we’re overseeing, ensuring things are done safely, but from a distance. The successes are their own, we’re not helping them beyond supplying the raw materials...” 

Hydrangea seemed to catch themself rambling, trailing off and blushing a little. “Sorry, I got a little carried away there.”

Alcea gently waved one of her vines, sweeping away any wrongdoing with it. “It’s alright, really. I did ask you to give me a rundown, didn’t I?” 

They nodded, though still seemed a tad uncertain. “You did, but I’m honestly having a bit of a hard time actually answering. Obviously the task of finding ways to concisely summarize thousands of years of history is kind of what a historian is for, but, well, when we look at the ways cultures all across the universe summarize their history and then look at the history of Terra or really any post-domestication species, it can be quite difficult to do justice. There’s not really a concise story to build. There are no great individuals pushing boundaries, no major events that shape and change the course of history to come. Things have always continued to change here, people's lives are a little better every year due to some incremental improvement of technology or cultural work. People come and go, humans, affini, other sophont-species create and innovate and build communities together. But none of that really alters the course of human history.

“It’s been quite steady on the same course for hundreds of thousand of years by now. Events like war or famine or turmoil, or even leaps and bounds in technology don’t really change the life of your average citizen anymore. I mean, look around you, how do you drastically improve or change a society that already has everything it needs? Nowadays Terra’s history is the story of individuals, no more important or valuable than anyone else—which is to say, they are all important and valuable. Building a rail system running from Terra to the next system over  and hitting every important stop along the way won’t really improve anyone’s life significantly, they can get to those places easily. Same with the Dyson Sphere. I hear Terrans are even looking into ways they can generate a power source from their own ambient body heat. It’s interesting and important, but only because the people doing those things are. And, if you ask me, that’s what Terran history is now. It’s the way every individual leaves their own little mark on the universe in ways only they can, simply because they want to, and it makes them happy…” They trailed off, growing thoughtful for a moment, before seeming to find the words to get at the heart of their point. “I honestly think if you want to appreciate how far humanity has come. You should go out and see it for yourself. But, my books will always be here, if you’re interested. And I do expect you to meet me for lunch sometime so I can pry at those memories of yours.”