This may have been the worst day in Olivia Aldritch’s living memory. After a night of heavy drinking, she had apparently spouted some ‘feralist sentiment’ to some random fucking floret in the street and got herself reported to the damn weeds. Luckily after they fucked with her head to get answers out of her (thanks xenodrugs), it was decided that she would not be domesticated. However refusing to leave it at that, they decided that she was to undergo a series of ‘educational discussions’ with some fucking Affini and her floret. Worst of all, it was her goddamn ex. The one who had gotten drafted, then domesticated by some damn weed.

They must have known, there was no way they didn’t know with just how much information the weeds had on her. She had been receiving weekly handwritten letters for the past 2 and a half years from her ex and her new ‘mistress’ asking if they could come over and talk, and now the conversation was court mandated! Wonderful, exactly what she needed today.

She made her way down to the Affini half of the city, things going from roughly familiar to alien in the blink of an eye. All the normal Terran independents turned into blissed-out florets being doted on by their damn plant ‘owners’. She had no idea how they enjoyed it. They all had glazed-over eyes, and they moaned whenever they were touched by a damn plant, which was very common.

As she made her way to the designated address she was asked if she could be petted no less than 5 times, with at least 3 of those involving her being confused for a floret. She didn’t even look like one! She was wearing sweat clothes! She groaned as she made her way to the door of the hab unit, the house being far bigger than anything she had ever lived in. Here goes nothing.

She knocked on the door, and she heard rustling from behind the door, before a face she never thought she would see again greeted her. Marigold Carter, or she supposed she was now Marigold Viridian, Second Floret. She looked better than she ever did when they knew each other, she had curves in all the right places, her skin was absolutely glowing, and her blonde hair was clean rather than matted. She still wore her glasses though it was obvious they weren’t medicinal anymore, as her dazed, content eyes weren’t magnified like they used to be.

Marigold was also a good 6 inches shorter than she used to be, going from 5’8” to 5’2”. There were also three new additions, two cat ears on top of her head, and a long tail that was wiggling with excitement. Before Olivia could process anything she was tackled into a hug by Marigold, the now much shorter girl nuzzling into her chest letting out a cute whimper.

“LIV! MISSED YOU SO MUCH I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S YOU AAAAAAAA” Marigold shouted before tugging Olivia inside.

Olivia for what it’s worth, pushed her away, her heart beating rapidly from the sudden show of affection. This wasn’t right, Marigold wasn’t hers anymore. She couldn’t give in, let this floret back into her life. It wasn’t even her Marigold anyway, that person was killed by the damn plant who was chuckling from the kitchen.

“M-Marigold, we a-aren’t a thing anymore you really shouldn’t be this excited,” Olivia replied.

Marigold stuck her tongue out like she used to. “Only because you kept ignoring our letters!”

“I don’t want to be a pet damn it!”

“You don’t have to be a pet to be my girlfriend idiot!” Marigold replied.

The plant, Pentaflora Viridian, Third Bloom, chuckled as she returned from the kitchen with two plates of burgers, setting them down at the kitchen table.

“She is right you know Ms. Aldritch.” The plant said in her all too ethereal voice. “Come, sit down, we have much to discuss!”

Olivia sighed taking a seat at one end of the table, while Marigold and Pentaflora took a seat at the other end next to each other. Marigold was almost immediately petted, causing the floret to let out a soft moan and rub into the hand. Olivia found herself blushing as she bit into what might be the best burger she ever had.

“So, Olivia, I read into the report on your little incident and I collated a list of your concerns about domestication, along with the cute things you said while under Class Ds. I’m not going to show it to you until we finish it, and hopefully, by the end we will have eased all of your concerns.” Pentaflora said, smirking.

“R-right.” Olivia said, cringing at the thought that she didn’t remember her little drug trip. She could have said anything.

“Let's try to work on the first two today. Giving up your legal rights, and xenodrugs.” The Affini said.

The Affini stopped petting Marigold, who responded with a needy whimper but quickly collected herself. Olivia blushed slightly at the sight, that angry possessive part of herself screaming that it was supposed to be herself who made Marigold feel like that, but she quickly shoved it down. This wasn’t Marigold anymore, just some weeds drugged-up pet.

Olivia cleared her throat. “I feel as if giving up your legal rights to your owner is a system that is very easily abused to exploit and hurt the floret. Especially in the case where it is done unwillingly, it feels a bit too much like slavery.”

Pentaflora nodded, leaning forward on the table. “Yes, I definitely can see why you would feel that, humanity has a long history of slavery and exploitation does it not?”

“Yes miss!” Marigold said. “Though honestly, working under capitalism wasn’t much better than slavery in the first place. Sure you had a choice of where to work, at least ideally, but that one choice you had was often taken from you by contract or indentured servitude. I would know! I was a debt slave! I couldn’t leave this planet even if I wanted to.”

Olivia felt a dagger push into her heart. She knew Marigold had it bad, they had spent many long nights drunk figuring out how they could do it better. She wouldn’t pretend that the Accord was better than what the Affini brought but she failed to see how this was any better.

“How is giving up your rights to an Affini any better?” Olivia retorted.

“Well petal, you see, Affini are not human. If we were talking about humans, I would agree that giving up your legal rights to another would always lead to exploitation. Affini psychology is very different.” The plant said, sending a vine out into the back room and pulling out a plushy, which looked like a very large bee with iridescent eyes.

“Story time! This, petal, is a beeple. Beeple evolved on the same world as us Affini, and they were in essence our very first florets. We evolved the first xenodrugs to help draw in and take care of the beeple, which we used for pollinating. We kept them as pets, cared for them, and loved them, and in exchange they allowed us to reproduce. Affini psychology has from the start been one built around love and caring for others.” The beeple plush was handed to Marigold, who squeezed it tight with a squeal of delight.

“We are not a species who has it in us to exploit others, especially when they place their trust in us.It is simply unthinkable for an Affini to hurt their floret, we care about our florets more than we care about ourselves at times.”

Olivia looked at the delighted Marigold with a wistful gaze. Her former lover was staring up at the Affini with nothing short of adoration. Now that she was seeing them interact, it was obvious that Pentaflora had done nothing but love Marigold. Olivia felt her heart twist, she suddenly felt inadequate, like she didn’t deserve Marigold at all. The only problem was that it’s entirely possible that Marigold was being forced to love her Affini. It didn’t make any sense that it didn’t.

“But you can just force her to be happy with Xenodrugs. How do we know that the love is genuine? That any florets love is genuine!” Olivia asked, trying to find a hole in their reasoning.

“But like, xenodruggies are awesome!” Marigold said. “I haven’t had a panic attack in years, I’m no longer terrified of physical contact, and I can trust people again. It’s amazing ‘Liv! She even took away all the memories that hurt so much.”

Olivia stared at her former lover in shock and mild disgust. They just took away all of her bad memories? Like it was nothing? She now knew more of Marigold's past than she did. Was that not terrifying to them? That they could just take all the pain and agony that made somebody who they were?

“That’s absolutely fucking terrifying and I don’t understand how you both don’t see that. The pain and struggle are what made us who we are Marigold! And you had her just take that away? Is that not fucking terrifying to you? I know for a fact that would terrify you when I knew you!”

“‘Liv, that was because our entire lives were defined by pain. The only way we had to relate to the world was by how much it hurt us. We don’t need to be like that anymore. This is a happy peaceful universe now!”

Olivia began crying. “So then what was the point then? Why did we even fucking try to fight it if we are just gonna let them wipe all that pain away?”

Marigold looked at her, shame finally crossing that vacant expression. “Liv, it doesn’t have to be like that anymore.”

Pentaflora sighed. “I think it’s best if we end this session here, we wouldn’t want to drag this on when Olivia is clearly hurting. Let's reconvene this time next week, give Olivia some time to think about what was said here.”

Olivia stood up and left without another word. She didn’t even say goodbye.