Kira set aside what she called the “beeper 3k,” a device that blinked a cryptographically random pattern based on the pure randomness it compiled from downloading and processing the daily public access dump of the Arboratis’ central Paperwork Office. It definitely hadn’t started as the detonator to a bomb she was trying not to instinctively build. Time to fiddle with some other electronics.

She was fine. 

Venisin was the best plant she could possibly have wished for, and they held her in hand in exactly the way her deep rooted submissive instincts required. She was safe and her basic needs were being met.

She was fine.

The Affini were incredibly nice, she’d never have to sleep on a spaceship bunk again, she’d never have to interact with the rebellion again, no one would ever give her trouble for being trans again. She’d never have to pay for medical care again, or see all of her friends on the ship that had been her home for almost a decade, or need to kill or be part of a small community trying to make a huge difference or possibly see her Owner again and

She was ~~fiNe_~~

She smashed her hand on the table, shattering the halfway finished detonator. She’d promised Venisin.

She’d just–  not think too hard about certain things. 

Tonight she’d ask Venisin to put her through something intense to take her mind off of it. This was just a hard phase, she’d definitely come to terms with what was happening and how things were, and the subtle pulsing pain and the dark clawing fear would both leave her mind.

She decided to go for a walk to ease her mind. It was getting close to a Rinan holiday that loosely translated to a kind of spring festival. Apparently on Affini ships some human traditions were mixed in and it was all combined into one big pot, to celebrate unity and the joining of cultures. The hab units were all decorated extra brightly. Flowers on one, a lightshow on another. Something labeled a “horse farm” that was actually a collection of robotic ducks.

It was absolutely beautiful.

And Kira wanted to explode.

Venisin sat in the corner booth of Kira’s cafe. She idly sipped at the cubed synth meat Kira had given her two hours ago. Her tablet sat, ignored, on the other end of the table.

This problem was becoming frustrating.

She grabbed the tablet again and reviewed the facts one more time. The officer on the ship was clearly Kira’s former mistress, one Zanya Marigold, first floret. Her owner, Lilia Marigold, was about as Affini as Affini came. Kira, meanwhile, was clearly suffering from some human form of attachment.

But that attachment was for Zanya Anderson, who effectively did not exist anymore.

It wasn’t that she was opposed to hurting Kira–in fact she quite enjoyed that. But would meeting the new Zanya improve her overall wellbeing? She hadn’t spent this long agonizing over a decision since her very first reblooming.

She was distracted from her thoughts by another group walking into the restaurant. An Affini and her two florets, clearly pinnates, one of them holding the leash of the other.

The leash wasn’t an uncommon sight, but the floret holding it was. They radiated a dominance that most florets had stamped out of them, whether by plant or by drug or by existence in a society that made them a pet.

It harkened back to the kink practices in the Terran Accord that Venisin had read about for Kir–

Oh no.

Just as Venisin connected the dots she watched Kira walk out of the kitchen with an order. Her floret was too skilled to actually drop a plate, but the uncharacteristic fumble of a teapot made it clear that Kira had connected the dots too.

It was too late–at this point interfering would make it worse.

Venisin sat frozen, half in anticipation, half in horror, as she watched what she instinctively knew would be a breaking point. She felt as a distant scientist, an expert in a planet named Kira, watching a rogue moon make the terminal approach before impact. This, here, also occurred in slow motion, over the course of minutes, with each seismic wave and disastrous consequence apparent in excruciating detail, as Venisin watched all of Kira’s carefully maintained mental barriers collapse.

There was the moment of impact as Kira saw the leash, when she almost dropped the teapot in shock. The way her eyes widened, just the briefest twitch in her jaws, a tension in her shoulders.

Kira made it all the way to the table the teapot was originally meant for before the initial shocks hit her. The floret looked at its pinnate with the exact expression that Kira used for Venisin–that so many florets used for their owner–and that Venisin was now sure had once been dedicated to Zanya.

The slightest crack in the tectonic plates of Kira’s composure–just the slightest frown, a quiver in her brow–as something deep within her started to bleed. At any other moment the carnivorous plant might have found it beautiful.

Then there was the whiplash effect on the other side of the planet, as Kira greeted the new Affini and it so obviously raved to Kira about how happy her florets were, and the inner pain slowly bubbled past the planet’s crust onto Kira’s face.

Venisin watched as Kira's left hand began to twitch. The planet ever so slowly tearing itself apart as the imparted energies just became too much for gravity to hold against.

Venisin couldn’t look away.

But she did spare enough vines to contact Quercus and have them bring Anna, because someone would need to run the restaurant while Kira had her breakdown.

Luckily Quercus was just walking Anna in a nearby park, so they were there a few minutes later. Kira, meanwhile, was so disheveled that she didn’t realize Venisin had made the call, and instead nearly fell on Anna and Quercus in gratitude at the ‘fortunate coincidence,’ before rushing out of the restaurant.

Venisin waited a moment, then followed. Her floret deserved a moment of privacy, but any more would be too much. At least fate had answered the Zanya question for her–her pet needed closure about this.

Venisin found her charge sitting atop the roof of the restaurant, amidst the greenery and vines that covered everything near the Center Park. Her floret stared out across the park, off into the distance of the bubble’s far wall, a far off look in her eyes.

Venisin sat down next to Kira and placed a single gentle vine around her pet’s tensed shoulders. Comfort, without force. The littlest things she could do to show she wanted to meet Kira where she was at.

“I think it’s time, little leaf,” Venisin spoke softly.

Kira glanced at her. 

“You already know.” It wasn’t a question.

Venisin kept her vine soft and let it wrap down Kira’s outer arm.

“Would you expect anything less?” Venisin asked gently.

Kira looked down, kicked a pebble beneath their perch, then took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Howlongago?” Kira rushed out the question.

“8 months before we captured you,” Venisin spoke.

Kira curled in on herself like she’d been stabbed. Her eyes closed for a moment, gathering strength for the next question.

“Did you Class O her?” she asked weakly.

“It wasn’t necessary,” Venisin replied.

Kira sat there, and Venisin watched as the many layered implications of that statement sank in.

The floret’s next words were in fluent Affini. “I’d like to be alone right now (contradiction, request-for-comfort)”

Venisin pulled her floret in, deep into her vines, and gave her what she needed but couldn’t ask for.

—-

The shuttle felt small after weeks spent on an Affini compact ship. Kira felt like she was in a coffin, or maybe a cage van taking her to her own execution. 

The dread of what she knew she might find fought with her inner submissive, unable to focus on anything besides the possibility of seeing the one who held her soul at least one more time. And that hold made it almost impossible to imagine seeing anything else but her Owner, awake, alive, active, burning in all of her indomitable glory. The logic of what the Affini did, and how good they were at it, fought with years of instinct, conditioning, and the submissive truth of her spirit. Her Mistress, a blazing fire, an immovable object, against the unstoppable force of the Compact, seeking to turn her into something she could never be.

The hope mixed with the fear mixed with the anger at everything that had been done to them mixed with gratitude for Venisin for just being there mixed with a dozen other things she didn’t have the ability to name.

She couldn’t help but desperately to grasp onto the hope. “They’d try to keep as much of her as they could, right?”

Venisin made a wiggling motion with a vine. “It depends a little on the Affini. We make sure they are safe, towards themselves and towards others, and that they are happy. Her owner was rather terse in the paperwork, so that’s all I know as well.”

Venisin gave her a hard look, and Kira could almost feel her Master thinking, considering.

“I know we talked about this, little leaf, but are you still sure you don’t want me to reach out and ask for details?” Venisin gently asked.

“NO,” Kira almost shouted, ”sorry Master. No. I– I need to see for myself. It wouldn’t feel right.”

Venisin gently brushed her left arm. Yelling at her Master was something Kira would normally expect to be punished for, but today she appreciated the grace. She knew she wasn’t being the best submissive today, but–

The certainty that she didn’t want to find out ahead of time only briefly calmed Kira’s thoughts. She couldn’t help herself, she kept dwelling.

“Okay, they’d make sure she couldn’t fight the Compact,” she tried, “but you could do that by like… Keeping an eye on her behavior right? Just using drugs to pacify her if she tried to fight? You wouldn’t need to do all this pet stuff?”

Venisin made an expression that could be best described as a grimace. “It is extremely unlikely that they have been treated the way I have treated you. Not least because it seems it was precisely her negotiation before her ship’s surrender that brought me to you.”

Kira wrung her hands.

“I suspect,” Venisin continued, “that the challenge is going to be rather simple. We do not tolerate unhappy pets. It would be a dereliction of duty. And so then the question becomes what it would take to make your mistress happy, and what can be done about that.”

Kira shuddered. “But then maybe some bonding drugs? Just something to make her like the Affini who is guarding her? How likely is that versus…” she ran out of words as her entire body tensed up.

But Venisin seemed to know what she meant.

“There is… some spectrum. But it is incredibly hard to say. The somewhat tougher Affini frequently take the difficult cases. The ones who… enjoy… the breaking.”

Kira pulled herself together a little, nodded her head a few times, tried to ride the wave of emotional instability and fear and hope and find a place she could stand amidst the storm.

“Okay. Okay? We’ll have to see. Okay.”

Venisin felt her charge spiral out of control just as much as she saw it. Her vines twitched with each of Kira’s nervous stims, the faint smell of stress was in the air, and Kira’s biorhythms, usually so in tune with Venisin’s, were all over the place.

It was almost strange. Kira was often morose, at other times disconnected or blue or anxious, but this was the first time Venisin could think of that she was this out of control.

After Kira’s 74th time pacing the length of the shuttle, Venisin stopped her with a vine.

“Kira.” She tapped the wall. Tapped her pet. The training took over, and her floret sank to her knees. 

“Yes Master?” Kira whispered.

Even in that perfect obedience, the kneeling body shuddered with just the tiniest quakes.

Venisin ran a vine down each of her pet’s limbs. “I’m going to help you settle down.”

“Yes Master,” Kira said, “thank you Master.”

She moved her vines suddenly, using the strategic placement to shorten the time between motion and helplessness to the blink of an eye. She pulled Kira up into the air, got her spread eagle, then whipped off her pet’s floret dress. A vine near her core tapped her tablet and raised the shuttle’s temperature. Too much heat and her pet might grow nauseous, but soon her body would struggle to keep itself warm.

This was meant for comfort, so she’d strike at her pet’s back and avoid the psychological vulnerability of Kira’s stomach and chest.

Stinger vines, yes, but physical impact too–the bruises would be grounding later.

She snapped the first vine out and cut straight across Kira’s back. Kira screamed.

Venisin waited for her subject to stop pulling, to stop fighting.

She shot another lash out, slightly lower, the same direction. It wasn’t quite time to be crossing her own welts yet.

Kira screamed again, pulled for a just slightly shorter time this time.

It always took her pet a moment to find surrender. That was the beauty in it, watching the process. She expected today it would take longer.

The next lashes were in quick succession, one, two, three, Kira’s cries growing higher each time. There was still tension. She still hadn’t surrendered.

Venisin wouldn’t accept it.

She went crosswise this time, laying her vine across the welts that already ran from Kira’s right shoulder to her left hip.

Kira’s back was starting to glisten from the sheen of the sweat, her muscles straining, over and over again, trying to handle the onslaught.

Two crosswise hits in and it still wasn’t enough. Kira’s muscles still flexed, her body still pushed the pain away, her protective shell was still up. And she couldn’t hit harder–her floret needed to be fit tomorrow, she couldn’t afford a recovery day if she was going to face down her past. 

Venisin added some electricity, to make the hits more painful without actually causing additional damage.

That did the trick. Gradually the jerks weakened, the resistance faded. Venisin kept up her rhythm and even sped up a little, but Kira just whimpered.

She paused for a moment, let Kira catch her breath.

“Thankyou,” the pet whispered, “thankyoumaster.”

Venisin wound things down from there, gradually softening her strikes until she pulled the quivering mass of stressed out human into her vines. Sure enough her pet was shivering a little, so she wove a blanket out of some of the stinger vines and heated them just a little. She didn’t actually activate the shocks–that would be the wrong kind of heat–but just let the energy flow back and forth to make them comfortably warm.

The feeling of her pet squirming deeper into her body confirmed she’d done well.

It wasn’t going to last though. Kira’s mind had too many things pulling at it for the haze of submission to cover the anxiety for long. 

She tapped the wall. “Little thorn, would sober you be particularly upset if I used some hypnosis to keep you here.”

The head under the blanket just barely peeked up. “’s okay. I trust you.” 

It was the sweetest thing Venisin had ever heard.

There was a moment of silence as her pet tried to find words. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

Nevermind, that was the sweetest thing Venisin had ever heard.

Venisin pulled Kira up beneath the Vine blanket, centered her floret in her front for better access.

She let vines drift over Kira’s shoulders, slide down Kira’s front until she was giving Kira a loose hug, left shoulder to right waist, right shoulder to left waist. Another vine ran across her chest and her shoulders, then a few more over the legs. Gentle pressure, firm and steady.

Venisin put her head just over Kira’s shoulder, and let her voice project into her ear in a gentle whisper.

Honestly being hypnotized when you were already in subspace was cheating. But she was confident enough that she meant it, confident enough that she would be fine with this, confident enough in the way Venisin handled her, that it was something she could give.

It would feel so so good to be in trance for someone again.

Venisin spoke, and Kira let the words wash over her.

“I want you to listen to my voice. Listen to the gentle rhythm of my speech, the warm relaxing tones I’m giving you. Ignore the sounds of the outside world, the noise around you, whether it’s the engines, the whirr of the fans, all the sounds of the universe going by or something else entirely. Let yourself be drawn inwards, down, deep into yourself, guided by my voice.”

Vines ran down her arms. She let herself feel the gentle downward pressure. Calming, grounding.

“Listen to my voice, and let it draw you down, down, deep within yourself, to that place of quiet relaxation. Guided down, deep down, by just my voice. Grounding you, holding you, giving you space to relax and sink”

Vines tightening on skin. The safety of a hug. Sinking down more.

“The gentle pressure on your legs, across your chest, the feeling of the floor on your feet. The sound of my voice in your ear, the gentle texture of your clothes held firm against you. All pushing you deeper, helping you relax, deeper and deeper, into that place inside yourself where my voice guides you.”

More downward pressure, more sinking, more calm relaxation, the outside world falling further and further away.

“You might notice a desire to move, something to adjust, that’s fine, just adjust yourself as you keep listening to the deep, warm sounds of my voice. Your eyelids might be growing heavy, you might feel a desire to blink. Let yourself, every blink pushing you further down. You can sink with your eyes open or closed, each blink pushing you deeper down.”

The eyelids were starting to feel heavy. Still able to stay open, but pushing steadily towards trance all the same. Sinking. Sinking.

“Each moment brings you closer to trance, to that steady state of calm openness. To that peace found in just absorbing, in that blank bliss of submissive openness. Being carried along, down down.”

“It’s so easy…” A tap on the forehead. “…you're already hypnotized”

“So listen to my voice, as we sink in this place of relaxation. I’m going to count down, and for each step you’ll go a little bit deeper, deeper into that place of relaxation I’m guiding you in.”

“5, sinking down for me.

Thought’s slowing…

“4, feeling yourself go deeper

Opening…

“3, further down, down, down

Drifting downnnnn…

“2, sinking some more

More…

“1, reaching a place of depth”

Slow…

“0, deep with me”

Blank–

“Now let's sit here a bit, in this place of relaxation, as you let the stresses of the day flow away from you. We can pick those up later. Just sit here, with me, deep in trance and let your stresses flow away.

“When you’re ready to keep going, I’ll count up and bring you back.

“Ready? We can wait a moment.

“All right, I saw that subtle nod, let's start going up.

“1, starting to come up.

“2, slowly rising up.”

Kira felt the vine, stroking up her arm, pulling her upwards.

“3, starting to hear the noises of the world again.”

Shuttle sounds, soft, comforting, but definitely there.

“4, coming back to the present

“5, back with me, feeling relaxed and calm.

Kira opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She felt awake, but a lingering sense of peace.

“Thank you, Master,” she whispered. Then the exhaustion caught up with her and she took a nap, nestled in the safety of her Master’s vines.

Venisin let Kira drift in her Master’s vines as long as possible. The anxiety was still there–Venisin could feel it, could even smell it–but for now it was held back. The comfort, the hypnosis, the rightness of being beneath someone who understood her so well. Venisin understood Kira, so she understood how to make her feel safe. But gradually her little thorn started to stir. Just when she was about to get up, Venisin finally broke the silence with a question:

“One thing I’d still like to understand,” she began, “why Feralism?” 

“It’s not for me.” Kira relaxed back into the vines, even as Venisin gave her a confused look.

“Then why participate at all?” Her master asked her.

“I thrive under the control of another,” Kira explained, ”But I chose that years ago. Others should be able to choose as well.” 

Some life came into Kira’s voice. It still carried the slow drawl of submissive trance, but with just a hint of force behind it. “It’d be shallow to dream of a world perfect only for people like myself, just because that oppression is cozy to me.”

Venisin nodded to herself. “So you opposed the Compact, because it did not stop to get permission from the Accord before saving its citizens?” Venisin kept her voice soft, and she hoped Kira felt curiosity instead of chastisement.

“I mean, no– no, the Accord wasn’t exactly the best. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? What does it mean to help someone?” Kira asked. “So no, for us it actually all started with the Accord.”

Kira tilted her head back into the vines and let herself get lost in the memory. “We were still in the academy, back then. Late nights, tests of trust and loyalty, a 15 year plan. Some of the sharpest people I’ve ever met. A careful balance of idealism and practicality.” Kira gripped Venisin’s vines tighter, but continued. “Zanya–she had this superpower–of knowing what you thought or felt before you did, and had the grace and heart to make the vulnerability of that feel okay. And she had that inner fire, that iron faith that the world could be different and that she would change it. She started gathering people.”

Venisin felt her floret go tense, a grip that would have been painful if she wasn’t an indestructible bioengineered plant. Kira looked down at the blanket of vines. “I was the first, you know? I hadn’t even transitioned yet. She saw me before anyone else did.”

Venisin tried to think of something appropriate to say. “What did you do for her?”

“Everything….” the former rebel replied, “I was her right hand person. Particularly clandestine stuff–I disappeared from the paperwork at some point in my transition, so I could go where most couldn’t.”

Venisin felt the fragility of the moment, and kept her silence, silently prompting her floret to continue. 

“You know, we sat down at one point,” she whispered, “Well, she and the other senior officers sat, I knelt at her side. And we talked about it–we all would have followed her anywhere but she didn’t want us to risk everything in a new fight without all of our consent. What if all the promises were true? Post scarcity. Free Healthcare.”

Kira pulled a hand out from under the blanket and idly looked at it as she continued.

“Why the control then?” Kira’s voice picked up some steam. “Why not uplift humanity, see what we would do if we weren’t a bunch of crabs trying to crawl out of a bucket? If the next person who wanted to build a spaceship factory didn’t need to oppress an entire colony of Rinans to do it?”

Venisin took a moment to consider, ran gentle circles down her florets back, relaxed her again.

“Why uplift humanity if we can maximize happiness and minimize suffering by involving ourselves?” she asked back.

Kira let out a laugh that just barely skirted the edge of bitterness. “White man’s burden then?”

“I’m not sure what race or gender would have to do with it?” Venisin asked.

Kira sighed, the snark seemingly forgotten. “It’s an old Terran term, back when men and white humans controlled things even more than today–they believed they were superior, so they needed to take over the rest of the planet to uplift the ‘savages.’ Like so many human ideas it was at best a racist mix of ignorant hubris and horrifying self-interest.”

“I would like to say our track record is considerably better,” Venisin hummed in amusement.

Kira tensed again, frustration showing. “Sure, but you work with so much more than we ever did–humans have had less than 500 years in the stars, did your first domestications go perfectly?”

Venisin petted her hair, but she didn’t settle. Venisin decided to go on anyway, for now. “I’m not versed in the details, but I think so. We had a natural advantage as plants–collaboration is more in our nature. You were tribal–conquest is in yours.”

Kira laughed a bitter laugh. “We’re inherently evil then? I’m not sure if I should call you speciesist or give you props on your very human ideas of Calvinism.”

This was the moment to stop then, or at least pause. Venisin tightened vines, used one to gently cup Kira’s face, to show that she wasn’t angry or upset, then ran a pair razor sharp thorns slowly vertically down Kira’s back, starting just between the neck and the shoulder, going all the way to the curve of Kira’s butt.

Each time the thorn crossed a welt Kira let out a small high pitched mewl. By the time she was halfway down the back the physical tension was gone at least.

When she reached the bottom Kira pushed her head into the nearest vine. A request for comfort, a gesture of appeasement.

Venisin spent a moment just cuddling her pet. But she understood her pets' other needs as well, so she addressed what Kira had been unable to properly ask.

“I do believe the idea is to help you grow past your nature,” the plant said, “the same way we have so many others.”

Kira waited until she was relaxed again to answer.

“Is it growth though?” Kira asked. “To end our path? To subsume us into one universal song and force us into a supporting role? A footnote?”

Her floret reached a hand out, asking for the support to keep herself from sliding into frustration again.

Venisin wrapped a vine around it, then into it, as she spoke. “Mmmmm, there’s nothing wrong with being in a supporting role, that’s just the difference in our nature. Or maybe in history–maybe with five hundred thousand years you would have grown past yourselves, via augmentation, or selection, or luck. But why allow suffering in the meantime? Why when we can do it better?”

“That’s not– hmm.” Kira paused for a moment, a little bit frustrated anyway. “I think we just disagree on what makes a good life, or maybe the goal of a species? You can already plug yourself into a holosim until your body rots away–and the ideas behind xenodrugs aren’t exactly new. There’s a colony on Snowshard VI that’s run by a small upper-class of capital holders and AIs, while the rest of the population is drugged and passive, spending most of their days in an endless holosim. How is that different from spending your days drugged, entertained by floret cuts, headpats, and a ridiculously wasteful matter compiler?”

“Little thorn,” Venisin spoke, ”I’m sure you know that the same setup on Snowshard V and VII resulted in the upper-class deciding they didn’t ‘need the meat anymore’ and poisoning the entire population with thorium in one case and with a whole cocktail of heavy metals in another.” Venisin booped Kira on the nose because she deserved it.

“Fair,” Kira admitted, “God humans are a frustrating species to try and defend–I’m not trying to defend the Accord’s abhorrent upper class.”

She spent a moment searching for words, her hands opening and closing as if trying to grasp the right thing to say. Venisin decided to grant Kira the time. She gave her a gentle shoulder massage as she wrangled her thoughts in order.

“I guess… I guess I’m asking–is the lack of suffering really all that counts? Doesn’t diversity have some kind of value? What if you minimized the suffering humans inflicted while letting them grow?”

Venisin had had a similar conversation with Sarah. “That’s still more suffering than necessary. You can maybe choose diversity at the cost of suffering in yourself, but you cannot force your choice in that on another. And with humans–with all species really–it’s almost never the deciders that do the suffering…”

Kira opened her mouth but then closed it again, giving Venisin time to finish. Venisin rewarded her with another comforting caress.

“…and I would also argue we don’t take the heaviest possible touch,” Venisin said, “We encourage domestication, but only demand it where you Terrans would do things much worse.”

Kira looked up and gave Venisin a wry smile. “I’m pretty sure using mind control drugs on prisoners of war is against the 4th Geneva Convention, actually.”

“Mmmm, shame when it makes you all so cute.” Venisin, not usually one to emote, returned the grin. It was very deliberately the same predatory smile she sometimes projected while hurting Kira. She loved the way her floret’s heartbeat sped up, the way her breathing got a little faster every time she saw it.

Kira tore her eyes away, took a deep breath, and refocused. “It just feels lazy. You build Dyson spheres for fun, but your idea of societal improvement is free housing, healthcare, and drugs.”

“I think that’s one of the gifts of perspective, little one.” Venisin wrapped a vine around Kira’s other hand, moved it around a little. “At the end of the day nothing matters. The universe is infinite, eventually it will end. In between that is just pleasure and suffering, and our ability to help create the former and end the latter. We’ve simply chosen the path of efficiency.”

“Then why not just Class O everyone?”

She’d discussed this with Sarah too. “Because it isn’t necessary. Hobbies, passions, science, progress, these things are all great. The same way megaprojects are great as long as a society keeps everybody fed. Happiness and ending suffering is the baseline, and for some that just requires free healthcare, for some that requires a full xenodrug regime–and for some that requires Class O’s. But that’s the baseline, everything else is built on top of that.”

Kira stared at the wall for a moment, then nodded. “That perspective makes sense, for what it's worth.”

She tried turning to her side in the vines, and Venisin let her. It was clearly a defensive gesture, and the owner suspected they were getting to the place they would reach the inevitable impasse.

“It's not like either of those have any less inherent meaning,” Kira continued, “Our desire for freedom, separated from the more violent sorts of oppression, is just as much cultural. If your drugs can remove that? Sure even if some people want to keep it, and you need to remove it from them by force.” She removed her hands from the vines. Venisin let her go. 

“It seems so universal and so basic,” she whispered, almost to herself, “a simple difference in values, resolvable only by conquest.”

Kira curled up some more and grew somber. “We decided we were one of the peoples who believed in freedom, who believed in a better future for humanity. When we had that conversation, when we decided whether to embark on this path, we asked ourselves what we wanted our legacy to be, what chapter in the story of humanity we wanted to write. In your terms, what part in the universal song we wanted to be. And it wasn't to fade away, into the very sort of class-tiered oppression we were trying to overcome–even if the post-scarcity and the healthcare and the social services are all incredible, even if this time the overlords would keep the thorium away.”

Kira let the helpless horror, the inevitability of everything, the simple, painful determination show on her face.

“Even knowing the likely cost–we were fighting non consensual power structures. What would we have been if we could be so cheaply bought?”

They sat in silence for a while after that, a little ball of human curled up in an overpowering ball of plant, quietly weeping in grief.

Kira had regained some optimism by the time they approached the Mycellin.

“I believe in her, I have to,” she said to no one, but particularly to Venisin.

A vine curling a bit tighter on her leg told her Venisin was listening.

She squeezed it but couldn’t stop talking. “I watched her refuse an order–a test of loyalty, to use our rail cannon on a striking lunar colony–and then convince the inquisition panel it was the admirable who had betrayed the Accord by questioning her in the first place.”

Venisin had been so good to her–had understood how she worked, had understood her needs, had persisted through considerable resistance and difficult and respected her and her consent and wow Venisin was actually so lovely–so maybe her Mistress had ended up with someone similar?

It would have to look very different, of course, very unlike what she thought of as a ‘traditional’ Affini-Floret relationship.

“She once made an entire OCNI station disappear because they tried to make us overthrow a progressive governor. We spent the next year with total operational freedom while senior command tried get us under a different branch. I had to stop two assassination attempts in the next that time but–I can’t even say it made me love her more, since I already would have followed her to the end of the universe.

It just required the Affini to understand what a dominant human looked like, and how one needed to be treated. To look past interspecies expectations.

And Venisin had said it herself, the Affini wanted to make everyone happy. Her Owner, someone who had spent a lifetime dealing with the challenges of being a queer woman in the Terran military, someone who fundamentally needed control–an Affini would figure that out, right?

“I’ve just never met anyone else like her.”

Things might be okay. She had to hope things would be okay.

Right?