Chapter 9: Revelations

Waking up in a new bed shouldn't have surprised Juniper. She'd agreed to be moved into Doctor Rimu's hab unit yesterday. There was a subtle change to the bed, the blankets were a little heavier, the pillow a little fluffier. But the glaring difference of the room itself, and how she just woke up in this new room when her last memory was of the hospital room was a little jarring for her. Surely they would have at least told her they were going to move her, even if they were planning to do so when she was asleep. Right?

Pushing behind herself, to get a better view, she saw a small stack of various clothes on the foot of her bed, with one set clearly discarded. All the amenities she could think of for a bedroom. This place was probably the largest bedroom she'd ever woken up in, and yet something itched in her, making her feel like she already knew this was going to be one of if not the smallest rooms in the hab. Odd. Overall there just seemed to be a very, almost imperceivable familiarity with this place, nothing sprang to mind as being the obvious cause, and yet it felt like she knew exactly what the hab looked like. Again, odd.

Flopping back down onto the bed, Juniper realized just how tired she had been while aboard the ship. As far back as she could remember, she was exhausted yet the thing that seemed to suddenly worry her more is that she couldn't really remember much beyond one or two little facts from before she was on that damned tin can. Some part of Juniper knew that stress and trauma can cause memory issues, but surely it wasn't that bad... right?  It's not like she'd developed a dissociative disorder or anything. A brief, alien wave of recognition seemed to approach, bubbling up to the surface of the lake in her mind, but quickly escaped, as if being pulled by something unseen. Stars above she felt tired, and since nobody had bothered to give her a daily itinerary, she guessed that nobody would mind her going back to sleep.

Resting back down into the bed, she reached out for one of the big floral scented plushies, the very smell causing her to relax, were she not already starting to fall back into the warm embrace of sleep, at an alarming rate.

Something pressed on her stomach at some point, leaving a frustratingly comfortable patch of skin on Juniper's belly. Groaning and turning around, she muttered something that could probably be legible as human language, if she hadn't plunged her face into the pillow.  Another poke, this time on her back which shot up her spine, a moan escaping Juniper's obscured lips. A soft laugh came from above her.

"Well well, dear. I see you're still resting yourself." Doctor Rimu cooed with her distinctive voice. "I promise you, you won't have too many troubles to deal with. I've just brought you some breakfast" she continued, the smell of some delicious delicious-Juniper sniffed-pancakes and steak? wafted through the air, igniting a needy rumble in her stomach. "Or of course I could put it back in the kitchen for you to have later~" she giggled, though that little tease seemed to fade in the last few syllables. Juniper didn't care, she was up and staring at... Damn was she just too drugged to notice how beautiful Affini looked before? Her eyes darted from the plate of food in Rimu's hand to Rimu's body back to the plate then returning to the Affini's torso. Rimu just smiled softly.

Now without the intense haze of self-hatred and presumably drugs from the hospital, Juniper was able to take in the creature opposite her. Incredibly tall, bundles of roots and vines approximating dense muscles with soft ferns spilling and beautiful purple flowers sprouting out of any available crevice, the hint of hard wood bones and a face that would scream the uncanny valley if not for those beautiful eyes.

"You seem a little starstruck there dear. Are you okay?" Rimu asked, knocking Juniper out of her reverie and into the increasingly loud protests of her stomach. Finally broken from the very very pretty 13 foot tall plant lady's spell, Juniper reached out a hand towards the plate of food.

"I feel starved" Juniper said, excitedly sitting up and against the headboard as Doctor Rimu lowered the plate and a plastic pair of cutlery towards her. Hey wait, how is she supposed to cut a steak with a plastic knife? "Hey wait, how am I supposed to cut a steak with a plastic knife?" she promptly asked, eliciting another smile from Doctor Rimu.

"Oh don't you worry dear" Rimu started, seemingly catching the start of a shift in her tone before returning to a more affable rather than somewhat condescending tone. "For safety reasons only Affini are trusted with actual knives unless proven otherwise" she said, pulling an impressively sharp example from her mass of vines and seemingly casually cut the tip off one of her vines. Well, Juniper thought, that's both mildly terrifying and condescending. Seeing her ward's suddenly very concerned expression, Rimu laughed. "Oh I do apologise, I still like to engage in a bit of theatre from time to time" she said, leaning closer. "that was just an act of self-pruning there" she continued with a wink and a soft chuckle.

Juniper just stared for a second, shaking her head to get back onto any train of thought. "So you  basically said and did all that as a long winded way of saying... that you'll be cutting my steak for me?" she asked.

While the Terran was asking Rimu about the efficiency of her little knife demonstration, Rimu was continually trying to find a way to talk to the little one without it turning into that very special adoring condescension that was just so natural for the Affini to slip into. This sophont isn't a floret, Rimu she mentally scolded herself, but it's just so easy to try flustering her.

It was a good thing, Rimu supposed, that she had this particular sophont of the group sharing that tiny Terran noggin. At this point it was easy enough to distinguish June, Jewel, and Juniper by voices, let alone their obvious dispositions towards the Affini. Given the Terran before her hadn't either screamed bloody murder while trying to escape or melted immediately into Rimu's voice, process of elimination meant that this was Juniper, the defector of the bunch, and probably the best to take in the idea that they may not be a single mental entity. Dirt that's going to be a difficult one.

Still, for the moment, she could focus on the lovely sophont practically inhaling the pancakes and steak that she'd prepared for her, resting adorably between brief periods of wakefulness that generally leads to some trauma being triggered must cause quite the appetite. A less compassionate species version of herself may decide to not even try, but by dirt and frost she was an Affini and a professional. It's the plight of these sophonts that the Affini Compact performs its duties, and she wasn't going to let the necessary caution or her totally not floret-seeking feelings get in the way!

Still, it was incredibly adorable to see the Terran scoff down the food, no care in the world in that moment, and even if this little one didn't want to become a heart-meltingly adorable floret, there were plenty of ways to ensure she'll never have to suffer a care again for the rest of her life. no Rimu. She's not a floret... she chided herself again, just barely missing the subsequent yet.

Roots and blight and dirt and clod, that Terran was just so adorably... adorable! It was unfair that the three of them had ended up practically in her lap undomesticated and yet so unfathomably lucky that they were even here at all. Imagine the horrible fate if they had stayed on that pile of scrap unworthy of being called a ship! Rimu felt a tug on her arm, drawing her attention back down to Juniper. Oh...

As she was so caught up in her thoughts, Rimu hadn't quite realized that she'd stopped feeding the Terran and had instead been pressing down on her tongue with the fork, the little one entirely flushed from head to toe, oh my. Rimu blinked a couple times before releasing the fork from Juniper's tongue, their eyes locked in mutual confusion and something else entirely for a moment before they both looked away. An embarrassed warmth spread through the Affini's core.

A few minutes lingered awkwardly before Rimu dared look back at Juniper, attempting an awkward chuckle to segue into LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE.

"So... um" Juniper started, Rimu immediately turning to focus on the little Terran. "Can I have some clothes or are you just going to keep me in here- naked." another embarrassed flare of warmth spread through Rimu's body, she stumbled over her words, several vines going off into different directions with no rhyme or reason to try find where she put those, why did clothes have to emBARRASS HER LIKE THIS BY RUNNING AWAY? She tried to smile broadly to fake confidence in something she clearly didn't have anything close to confidence with, drawing a confused furl of eyebrows from Juniper.

Eventually, the universe had decided to bestow mercy on Rimu as she was able to find and grab the pile of Terran size and style clothing that she'd placed on the foot of the bed, having folded everything when the cute little thing fell asleep. Finally armed with something, Rimu was able to return to an actually confident demeanor as she placed them all down within Juniper's reach. "Here you go dear" she was able to say confidently enough.

Juniper took the fabrics of each piece of clothing in hand, feeling them and thoughtfully before unfolding them and looking at them with a cursory glance, putting most aside until she had reached a black 'skater' dress. Feeling it for a moment she smiled as she placed it on her lap, grabbing a pair of purple leggings and an appropriate enough sized bra. Rimu just watched, not eeeentierly sure what to do.

Naturally her first instinct was to extend out her vines to grab Juniper and put the clothes on for her, Rimu could see it now even, Rimu could feel it. It'd just be so easy and adorable and. RIMU she snapped to herself this isn't the time to play dress up with the sophont. That can come later... dirt. She really just couldn't stop seeing a floret in the little thing before her, could she? The sound of a pencil running across paper in a deceptive pair of flicks seemed to echo in her mind. Dirt.

"Um..." Juniper started, catching the very inattentive Affini's attention again. "So are you going to give me some privacy here? Or are the Affini going to insist on dress inspections too?" blight. Rimu shook her head, trying to stumble out at least three different sentences that all ran into each other head first like... um...  uh... the-rebels-ramming-their-heads-against-the-Affini-armada. Yeah that's a metaphor that works. Clod she was an Affini stars damnit! She shouldn't be flushed over by an adorable little sophont like this.

"I-i-i yes" she was finally able to say as she forced herself into focus, taking back her slightly more forced smile again. "I mean no, no inspections I promise. I mean yes privacy, no inspections..." she grinned again desperately.

Juniper seemed to chuckle at the Affini's trouble and shook her head. "If all Affini are as bad at this as you are right now we never would have lost the war" she chuckled, only a tad seriously.

"I'll have you know miss" Rimu started, feeling a different kind of flushed, passion entering her voice at the challenge, "we Affini are more than capable of pacifying and domesticating your species with all our vines tied behind our back an..." the sudden rant died in her throat as she really realized just how much of a dirt-eating grin was covering Juniper's face. All the energy suddenly having nowhere to go, Rimu found herself laughing as all that emotional energy was dissipated at the sheer ridiculousness of her own proclamations.

"You must have won from all the hyper advanced tech" Juniper said with a cocky smile "because even I'm running circles around you!" she said a bit more confidently, the dirt-eating grin getting even more dirty. Rimu sighed in defeat.

"This is one of my first interactions with an undomesticated Terran in a... closer to domestic setting" Rimu admitted. "Trying to separate out my more... instinctive thoughts is harder when I can't say I'm in a strict medical setting." she admitted.

"Sooooo..." Juniper replied "You're saying that you haven't had enough chances to flirt with Terrans? And just talking to me is enough to make you more flushed than... I don't know a reactor at 105% power?" she asked, this time her tone taking a walk down the awkward highway. Rimu smirked as she seized the opportunity.

"You may have bested me for the moment, sophont, but I promise I won't be that open again to those jousts" she said, actually confidently this time, feeling a rush as she let slip some of that adoring condescension. Heck yeah, Rimu's back in the driver's seat she thought, a dirt-eating grin of her own spreading across her face. Everbloom sweet everbloom this felt good.

"Fine, fine" Juniper replied, rolling her eyes. "Now are you going to give me some privacy or what?" she asked, straightening up.

Rimu shook her head, conceding with a little touch of theatre. "Fine. But don't come calling to me if you get tangled up in your dress there, little Terran" she warned playfully.  Another roll of Juniper's eyes, cute. Rimu made her way out of the room, smiling a lot more genuinely than when she had come in. If Juniper was going to be fencing her like this, it would be very fun indeed!

With the very flirty Affini gone, Juniper gave a little sigh, shaking her head as she processed the last couple minutes. "If this is the worst Affini have to offer a former rebel..." her train of thought trailed off as the lake in her mind roiled with bubbles just below the surface again, a hazy feeling of blind, furious anger and disgust that felt alien to her yet distantly familiar.

Rimu, having thoroughly embarrassed herself, before her earnest but not totally successful attempts to recover, took the rational decision to flop into a giant tangle of vines and ferns on the couch in the living space, a vine racing to the fridge to grab some soothing nutrient filled water for her slightly twitchy mood. Oh clod if this Terran was going to be the easy one to deal with, then she was screwed when dealing with June and Jewel.

Still as she, again with a level of theatre, plonked a vine or three into the nutrient infused water, she found herself able to focus more on what she was going to need to talk about with Juniper. Surely nobody would have a kink for going over paperwork and old records from the archives... right?

Bah, paperwork and having to prepare the Terran for a potentially explosive revelation, isn't that just a lovely? Still it's the ethical thing to do, and given how bad the other two reacted to either their mere presence in Affini space, or anything that'd be close to broaching the topic of the various memory shenanigans, Juniper was probably the right person to talk to about it first.

Dirt... Rimu was longing to be back in the embarrassment of the fork incident and all that spawned from that now. Why oh why did she choose the one who'd come out to be three difficult ones?

Because you're a Doctor, an Affini, and a compassionate being that would never see another suffer unduly she replied to herself, allowing her to grin as she regained some righteous vigour. This was her job, this was her purpose in life, to help those sophonts who are struggling to survive and be their best selves. Blight and dirt those three sophont pluribus needed help and she'd wade through lava to see them given justice and a life worth living... and they're just so adorably cute too.

The jug of nutrient water slurped up, she sprung into action, opening a case of files filled with everything the archive department overseeing the former Terran Accord could gather up on short notice. Thank the everbloom the Terran's military was caring enough to keep records at a rough league of fetishism the Affini had, though clearly less efficient by light millennia and uncountably more times cruel in it's form.

In the box lay dozens of variously beaten up files and printouts from servers, from pre-academy ID to various behaviour and grade reports when training for the navy; medical documents from a dozen different ships, several dozen minor reprimand notices and a single commendation, six rejected promotion reviews and various log excerpts of the Terran's various misadventures and stints in various brigs, finally a report recommending the accord navy boot them without ceremony when the Planar Abyssal was next due for repairs and overhauls.... scheduled for just days after first official contact.

Rimu tensed at that. She knew Juniper was no fan of the rebels or likely the accord, but she didn't know if she herself  was aware of how close she would have come to a life where she didn't need to endure all that suffering aboard the rogue ship.

One thing however did give Rimu cause for concern. At some point the names on the files started to diverge, notes about a few fights and other complaints where the names Juniper and Jewel emerge, before that everything was for Juliet, but there was nothing for Juliet more than six months before she joined up at the naval academy. For all the advances in the science, art, and barely disguised pornographic kink the Affini had for their paperwork recovery and archiving, the trail just stopped abruptly with no rhyme or reason, just a sticky note saying 'Nothing of any form any further back.'

Blight that was definitely going to complicate everything. Still, this was what they had and the Band-Aid needed to be ripped off at some point sooner rather than later. Sorting all the files into reverse chronological order, Rimu placed them all back into the box, but kept it open for easy access. The wall was in Juniper's corpse? court?... whatever it was and meant. That meant all Rimu could do was sit back and wait.  Thankfully Kauri was off doing something, as painful as it was for xem to be out with other people, better xe was out doing stuff then having to deal with a potentially breaking down Terran again.

A few minutes passed and the door to the Terran's room opened.

—

Emerging from the little bedroom, Juniper found herself shockingly struck by some bizarre sense of familiarity with the room that immediately confused and very faintly worried her. She didn't remember ever seeing this room before, and yet laid out before her were furniture, a coffee table, a little work bench with piles of electronics that were being used to make... a radio? How the fuck did Juniper even know they were for a radio?

Her head seemed to spin as some deep recess of her mind seemed to be pushing bubbles down from the surface of the lake. How in the ever living hell does she know all this? Blinking rapidly, Juniper's legs started to give way as the rush in her head overwhelmed her senses as her senses were spun around like so much water down a drain.

A bundle of soft, firm, and reassuringly grounding vines wrapped loosely around Juniper, steadying her and allowing her mind to break out of the maelstrom of confused dizziness. By the time her vision had focused, she found herself face to face with the... beautiful Affini doctor Rimu. Completely unsure of what had just careened through her mind, Juniper instead chose to relax, allowing doctor Rimu to take up more of her weight.

"Now dear, I need you to breathe with me, okay?" she heard doctor Rimu ask.

I'll try breathing, that's a good trick; Juniper took a deep breath in as she felt one coming from doctor Rimu, the air subtly vibrating with the sound of air rushing across some diaphragm or another hidden inside the Affini's body. And out with the pretty Affini. And in. Pause. And out.

Another couple cycles and Juniper's mind slowly reformed into focus, leaving her utterly unsure of what she had just experienced, doctor Rimu seemed to just look down at her with a sympathetic smile.

"I'm sorry I touched you without permission, dear. You looked like you were about to fall over." the Affini said, catching the last of Juniper's scattered attention as she slowly let go of her.

"I think I was" Juniper mumbled in reply, shaking her head. "It's just the craziest thing came over me... like I had been here before, and everything was where it should be... but I don't remember ever seeing this room at all!" she exclaimed, shaking her head. "I know that'd be silly to believe but you know... it's like the worst deja vu ever." Rimu's smile turned more sympathetic.

"That's something I wanted to talk to you about, dear. If that'd be ok." she asked softly. Juniper raised a slightly confused eyebrow.

"O...kay." she cautiously replied, her posture moving just a little more defensive.

"This is purely out of medical concern dear. It's not a trap or anything. I just want to understand a few things. Are you comfortable with that?" Rimu asked, extending a vine out to pet the box. "We've got all your files here and I just want to see if I can get some more insight into them." Juniper relaxed a little at it, nodded. "Thank you dear. I promise it's just going to be mostly questions you're not in trouble, okay?"

"Okay. Can we sit on the couch or something?" Juniper asked. Rimu simply nodded and slid her way onto the couch that was just short enough for Juniper to clamber onto.  Stars, even the feel of the couch was oddly familiar, though admittedly beautifully soft. The question started to form again in Juniper's mind before she shook her head, focusing on what she was guessing doctor Rimu was going to ask.

Seeing the little sophont getting comfortable, Rimu pulled out the first file, opening it and pulling some of the papers out. "The first of these are the most recent ones we were able to compile from the planar abyssal after the surrender." She started, handing the folder to Juniper, it was not as thick as she thought it'd be, though by the time of the surrender paperwork was more and more of a suggestion then an actual meaningful practice aboard.

The contents of the file were neatly organized by date, often coated in little comments and sticky notes that contained great scrawls of, Juniper assumed, Affini script, pointing to different words and phrases with no obvious connection between them.

"These are the most recent" Rimu started, poking to a report on 'the engineer's persistent mood problems', she remembered it. People had started calling her Jewel for a few months, combine that with panic and exhaustion from working constantly and she had had enough, decking the poor bastard who said it one last time. "They show a pattern that's somewhat concerning." Rimu continued, Juniper gritted her teeth from the remembered frustration. It wasn't too long afterwards she tried to let the whole name thing go, clearly she didn't bury those feelings under enough concrete.

"What? That I snapped when someone pushed the wrong button? I'm sorry if it's unpalatable for you but it had been mounting for ages." she replied, keeping herself from snapping at doctor Rimu. "Is this just going to be a session of rubbing in whenever I've hit someone?" she caught herself, taking a deep breath out and resetting her posture.

"No, not at all dear. We don't condone it but that's not the issue at heart." Rimu replied, a few small vines pulling the top sheet of paper from Juniper's grasp, revealing a very similar paper. "It's this one".

Juniper read the report, only a week or two before what she'd just read. Only this time she'd apparently fought someone when they'd called her Juniper, insisting to be called Jewel. But... But... "This. This has to be a trick right? Made up bullshit to get me off the ship?" she asked, an odd sense creeping up on her. "Surely this is just some clerical error."

"That's what you'd think. But this isn't the only occurrence dear." Rimu replied, moving her vines a little closer to Juniper, others pulling more examples out where the names would switch, constantly. Some of the papers were about things she remembered, but the vast majority weren't. "This goes back a decent way into your records." Rimu continued, picking her next words carefully. "Juniper, now I do ask you this genuinely... What's the oldest memory you have?" she asked, tensing up a pseudo-muscle.

Juniper looked confused for a moment at the Affini, as if trying to detect a ploy. Bubbles of memory, disjointed and often episodic started bubbling to the top of her mind, growing fewer and fewer in the academy. They stopped in the academy. The cuffs and collar on her started beeping and blinking a rapid yellow that caught her attention for a moment. Why did she feel so sweaty all of a sudden?

"I don't understand?" she asked, her mind twisting strangely as it tried to dig up more memories that seemed to just refuse existence. Her gut felt less like it was sinking and more like it had been punted further down into her body, her whole sense of being shrinking inside her body as the deafening lack of memory shuddered through her.

A vine grabbed Juniper's hand, giving her mind an out of the event horizon of a mental loop that she was staring down the barrel of. Stealing her attention with the presence of the Affini's beautiful eyes, she felt her mind relax a little, muscles loosen but not completely abandon the tension, the spinning in her head fading but not quite vanishing. The smile the Affini had was beautiful and delightfully disarming. Realizing that she had been asked something, she struggled to say anything for a second.

"N... naval academy. One of the classes in the naval academy. I think" she finally said. Rimu nodded. "But I should know more, right?" she asked. Rimu nodded as she reached for an older folder, pulling it out.

"Dear. The oldest files we have for you come from just before the naval academy. They don't have your name as Jewel or Juniper... But Juliet." she pursed her lips. The tricky part, she steeled herself. "Dear. We have a term for beings who experience their lives being multiple persons in a single body" she started. "Our term for such sophonts is Pluribus. In your crude medical terms, it's something called dissociative identity disorder or multiple identity disorder, again in crude terms that do not recognize the fullness of those sophonts who experience it."

A part of Juniper, deep down, seemed to recognize what Rimu was saying, even if she consciously didn't, another rebelled in protective panic slowly. "Wait... are you saying that?" she asked, emotions starting to swell up, she started to shake as everything grew, her heart rate accelerating. Recognition bloomed over her mind followed by a chaser of terror. 

"I just want you to consider the possibility that you may be one of those sophonts" Rimu continued "You don't need to answer me now. You can take all the time you need." she said. The words didn't quite consciously register with Juniper at this point, but managed to worm their way into the maelstrom of emotion that she was falling into. As she felt her mind spiral and withdraw deeper into the comforting darkness of the lake in self-defense, confused fear and comprehension crossed her face for a moment. She felt herself, even as she was being dragged down, call out to Rimu in fear and fragile bewilderment, begging her to hold her to be there when she woke up. 

The last thing she remembered before being consumed was a distant confusion that she had to readily beg the Affini to hold her, and a desire for the Affini to never let her go.