Beep beep beep

Aurora Greenbrook woke up with a smile on her face. It had been three months since the Affini had taken over her planet and abolished capitalism, and she could not be happier. No more jobs, no more money, no more need to debase herself for her managers or customers at a shitty service job. She was genuinely happy, happier than she had been since she was a child. Hell, they had miracle medicine; those Class Gs had already turned her into her ideal self, a small curvy brown-haired girl with pale eyes. No more genital dysphoria or healthcare credits or any other nightmares of the sort to worry about.

Sure, the whole floret thing was kind of weird and a bit creepy, but honestly, she wasn’t one to complain much, given how much better things were overall. She was willing to let them have their cute drugged-up pets. It got the rebels off the streets, and she had heard horror stories about them.

She took her meds, the class Gs she loved so much, and a concoction of Class As and Es to suppress her anxiety and keep her focused despite her ADHD. The extreme sensitivity was something she got used to over time, and despite the fact she was sometimes confused for a floret, that was quickly cleared up. It wasn’t like she minded the headpats and being called a good girl by every affini she came across, especially with those class A’s in her system.

Her apartment had this miracle of an atomic compiler in it, so if she was too lazy to run to the well-stocked grocery store which had real food, she could just print something at home ready, made, and hot. Regardless, today she wanted to try and go outside. Despite the heavy rain that was normal for Paradiso, given it was an ocean world dotted with island chains, all it took to deal with that was compiling an umbrella.

She compiled a cute dress for herself to wear along with some nice shoes, both brightly colored and pink, and put on her usual choker. She didn’t really need them to hide her adam’s apple anymore, but she liked wearing them; they made her feel comfortable. It was a soft pink thing that covered her neck nicely. Though she supposed this didn’t help with the common impression of a floret she gave either.

She thought about having breakfast, but honestly, she was in the mood for cake, so a bakery it was. She knew a wonderful one nearby run by a close friend of hers. Well, it used to be run by some disgusting chain thing, but once the affini showed up and took her shitty boss away, she was left to run the place and had taken to turning it into something far more beautiful. Janet was always like that, the hardest worker she knew, at least.

So Aurora opened the door to her hab, went downstairs, and went outside, keeping the umbrella over her head as she walked the two blocks required to get to the store. On the way, she went through the usual routine of Affini petting her and calling her a good girl, followed by an assertion that she wasn’t a floret once she recovered from the mind-numbing pleasure of physical contact. 

This happened three or four times as she walked down the street, and honestly, she never got sick of it. The constant physical affection and being called cute was gender euphoria heaven. She never got this much validation before the Affini came. She didn’t even understand why the rebels were so scared of them, did they not like being praised all the time? Did they genuinely prefer slaving away under capitalism? She just didn’t understand.

Somehow, Aurora couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, but she decided it was probably paranoia, so she let the calming sound of rain shunt it out of her head. Soon she had arrived at the store, Janets Bakery (Janet was never one for naming things). She went inside, and Janet lit up with a smile. 

“Aurora!” Janet said, lighting up. “How are you doing today, dear?”

Aurora smiled back. “I’m doing great! Could I get some of that Smith Island Cake I had last time? That was absolutely delicious.”

“Of course, you better not be having cake for breakfast again~,” Janet said with a mock motherly tone.

Aurora laughed in return. “Nope, not at all,” she lied.

Janet swooped down and cut a rather large slice of the cake, which was some ancient Terran recipe. It was seven layers each of vanilla cake and chocolate frosting, extremely thin, so every bite was like a texture and taste orgasm. Aurora overall had problems with texture, so this cake was like heaven for her.

Once the cake was delivered, Aurora gave her thanks to the baker and then went over to one of the human-sized chairs to sit in. A lot of the furniture was Affini-sized now in order to accommodate the plant Xenos and their florets, but there was still some human-sized furniture for Independent Terrans like herself. The space was naturally lit, with minimal lighting that only kicked on in the evening, or like right now when thick storm clouds blocked out the star.

She was only halfway done when a few haggard-looking men entered the store, looking around until one locked eyes with her, whispering something to his compatriots. She felt something was off with them, they all wore thick trench coats, and something about them made her stomach drop. It only dropped more as they approached her, and she felt an arm yank her up into their grasp, a gun placed to her head.

Aurora’s heart started beating incredibly fast. This couldn’t be happening, the Affini were supposed to have gotten rid of all the guns. How did these three get one? One of them was recording as she was shown off to everyone in the store, only about three people.
“How can you traitors serve one of these mind-controlled florets!” The one holding her hostage said to the group. “I mean, look at her! Her eyes are all glazed out. She is barely here! Not even accompanied by her disgusting weed.”

Aurora gulped. “I-i’m not a floret.”

“Like hell you are! Look at you! You’re wearing those brightly colored outfits. You have a damn collar on; what else could you be?”

“A-an independent Terran?” She meekly replied, glancing at Janet for help.

Janet nodded. “She’s a friend of mine, sir. She is as i-”

“Like hell she is! You are just lying for her! Look at those damn eyes! Do you think this is your friend? It’s just some drugged-out little slave desperate for the touch of some damn weed!

Aurora’s heart started pounding against her chest. There was no talking her way out of this. She had to hope and pray somebody came and helped her, or this could get ugly fast.

* * *

Ennervia Vera, Second Bloom, was tired. She had been essentially ordered by her coworkers at the local Office of Transitional Neoxenoveterinary Archeobureacracy to take a day off ‘for her own good.’ The problem was she didn’t have anything to do. Her life was paperwork. She loved paperwork, she loved digging up all the cute little human documents, learning about their terrible lives, and figuring out how best to help them.

The problem is she had no hobbies, no floret to take care of. She was alone, and all she had was her work… Perhaps her coworkers were trying to fix that, but she couldn’t help but resent them for it. Why did they have to be so nice? She just wanted to get lost in her paperwork and not think about how lonely she was

The thought of taking a floret fluttered into her mind, her base Affini instinct to care for a sophont eating at her for just a moment. She didn’t know if she was good enough, though. She would probably neglect them or treat them terribly or work too long and make them scared. She wasn’t worthy of a floret. She knew that deep inside her heart.

However, as she passed by a small bakery on the street, she heard a commotion. She almost paid it no mind, but when she turned her head, she saw something. Some cute Terran girl (Maybe a floret?) was being held at gunpoint. If she had a stomach, it would have dropped. She thought about whether she should call security, but slowly something else brewed inside her, something she had never truly felt before anger.

How could these damn feralists hurt such a poor sweet girl? Tears flowed down the poor thing's eyes as she tried to bargain with them. She couldn’t hear them from outside, but the man was getting angry and frustrated about something. She should call security, they couldn’t be too far away… but what if the girl got hurt? What if she died? What if one of them did something stupid? Then this girl would be dead, and it would be all her fault for just ignoring it and walking away…

Ennervia couldn’t let these feralists hurt this poor girl, she couldn’t let them get away with this. She had to do something…

* * *

The bell jingled, and the door opened, and Aurora’s eyes shot to it, ensuring not to move anything else  It was an Affini. She was green with a wooden mask upon her face, flat yet wide vines with teeth on each side, and red eyes narrowed in hatred at the man holding her. She also had flat antennae on top of her head that looked like the leaves of an Aloe Vera plant. She was indescribably beautiful.

The vines shot out in the blink of an eye, grabbing the gun out of the man’s hand and shoving him to the floor, leaving Aurora dumbfounded and stunned at the sudden change in her fortunes. A flower injected the man with something as he groaned, and his eyes fluttered shut. 

“Fuck! It’s a damn weed!” One of the others shouted.

The other two terrorists drew guns before they, too, had their guns grabbed. One of them struggled with it as the barrel flew in Aurora’s direction, only for a loud bang to go off. Aurora felt the impact ripple through her body, her skin punctured as something embedded itself deep inside her gut.

Just as quickly, the other two men were disabled in the same way as the first, as Janet shrieked and ran around to her side. “Oh my god! Aurora, are you ok?”

Aurora looked down to see blood pouring out of her side as she groaned and fell onto her hands and knees. She began to cry. She didn’t want to die; her life was finally going well, she was happy, and she didn’t want to go. This distress shot straight through the xenodrugs she was on and cloaked her mind in horror. Every thought was overwhelmed by the abject terror at her own demise.

Aurora began to sob as she looked up at the Affini. “H-help m-me please…”

Soon, she felt vines gently wrap around her and pick her up. The Affini lifted her face up so that their eyes met. “I-it’s alright, petal, we’re going to get to a hospital, I promise”

If Aurora weren’t in the middle of a panic attack, she would have noticed the hesitancy in the Affini’s voice, but right now, she didn’t care, the vines holding her tightly, the soothing melodic voice and the gentle slithering all calmed her down despite the pain that was now bleeding into her.

She was pulled outside into the rain as the Affini immediately began taking her somewhere, probably to the hospital. The movement was extremely gentle for the speed they were moving at. The blood mixed with the heavy rain before the Affini used vines to cover her up.

“Would you like to be put to sleep, petal? I promise everything will be better when you wake up.” The voice said, and she nodded.

Soon a mask was placed against her face. “D-deep breaths, petal; it will all be better soon, I promise.

For some reason, she believed the Affini and took deep breaths. Soon her mind slipped off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

Ennervia was pacing around the hospital room where the Terran was being kept in a nervous fugue, self-deprecating thoughts flooding through her head.

You should have called somebody else, and you messed it up. She was hurt; she could have died. It’s all your fault, you stupid, idiotic plant. You should have stuck to your paperwork.

She should have called security, the vet was a liar when he said she saved the girl's life and did nothing wrong. She did everything wrong. She let the poor sophont get hurt.

Her thoughts were disrupted by the human waking up, their heart rate on the monitor immediately spiking as her eyes shot around before falling on the Affini. The Terran’s heart rate dropped immediately upon seeing her.

The girl was apparently Aurora Greenbrook, and she used to work as a clerk for some major corporation; she was happy and doing wonderfully under Affini's rule until Ennervia came and messed everyth-

Ennervia’s thoughts were stopped when the half-lucid human croaked something out; looking at the Affini as tears fell down her eyes.

“M-miss… please hold me… I-i’m scared.” The injured Terran girl said.

Somewhere deep inside Ennervia, instincts took over, something ingrained in every Affini from the day they first bloom. She slithered over and wrapped the girl up in vines, ensuring not to catch on her IV.

“It’s alright, petal, go back to sleep. I have you.” Ennervia said, stroking the girl's hair.

Before she knew it, the girl was falling back asleep, holding onto her vines tightly, nuzzling against them.

She remained like this for a few moments before the heart monitor slowed, and Aurora was fast asleep, refusing to let the vines of the Affini go, even in her slumber.

Wait, was this human pack bonding to her?

Dirt.