Berries of Hope
I Lost My Glasses During The Apocalypse
by suzynya
Tags:
#cw:noncon
#D/s
#dom:internalized_imperialism
#Human_Domestication_Guide
#microfiction
#scifi
#systemic_D/s
#sub:the_horror_of_existence_in_a_caring_universe
Pure fluff. Enjoy!
An excerpt from 'It Happened to Me: Stories of Accidental Domestication and the Compact's Many Other Errors', published on Mars 2578 by New Feralist Press (We're Polite and Harmless!)
***
Like many Terrans of my generation, I rely on my glasses to see. I'm no ancient heroic figure like Elon Musk or Kirsten Sinema; I know I am a bit of a troglodyte, a screen goblin, rarely venturing into the outside world, and my lifestyle has had a most regrettable impact on my vision. Nor am I like those giants of old when it comes to my financial situation. I could not afford laser eye surgery, and my job barely paid for my comfortable little nest of electronics and food wrappers.
I had watched the Affini invasion with a deep terror in the pit of my stomach. Nobody trusted their alleged benevolence, and even benevolent disruption would mean the end of my comfortable solitude. Perhaps they'd take me to a work camp. Perhaps they'd make me go to a communal kitchen for my meals or make me do jumping jacks outside every morning for my health. Any conceivable agenda the plants might have with me filled me with horror and anxiety.
And so it was that on the night their enormous craft touched down on the surface of Mars, my homeworld, I carelessly put my glasses under my pillow, and accidentally broke them, lenses chipped and hanging useless from the shattered remains of their frames. They were completely unusable.
I checked my datapad, bringing it within two inches of my nose so I could actually see it. I could order new glasses online, but they'd take five days to manufacture and ship, during which time I would probably expire from not being able to feed myself. I would have to venture out to an optometrist.
There was only one remotely accessible on foot, around two hours away. It would be a perilous journey without being able to see, but it was my only option. The route would take me down a ratty little pavement by the side of a neoclassical grand boulevard that now bore eight lanes of motor traffic with a predictable lack of grace. I merely hoped that drivers would respect the vestigial pedestrian crossings and their painfully slow signals. I also hoped it was a low smog day for the sake of my lungs, although it would equalise the difference between my current vision and that of unimpaired pedestrians if the thick clouds of fumes settled around the street.
However, when I left my little home and used my muscle memory to get up to the side street I lived on, I was surprised to find not only the air clean but filled with a strange, electric stillness that positively buzzed in my ear. The dull roar of the urban expressways had fallen silent. The cars and vans that usually trundled down this side street were absent, replaced with the still-parked cars of locals.
I needed my glasses no matter what, so I walked along to the junction I needed to turn left at, where the side street met the faded concrete grandeur of Edison Boulevard. When that, too, proved to be empty of anything besides plastic bags and bottles discarded by yesterday's drivers, I began to panic. I looked up the phone number of the optometrist on my datapad, and rehearsed a little script to myself while their phone connected. "Hi, I just wanted to check you were open as normal today?" I thought that sounded like something a reasonable person would say.
However, the phone just kept on ringing and ringing. No answerphone, just a telegraphed signal of urgency repeating ad infinitum, and eventually ad nauseam. I rang off with trembling fingers, sat down on the filthy pavement, and began to sob noisily. I couldn't take it any more. How could I survive without my glasses? Why was everything strange and unexpected?
A moving blur caught my eye, coming up the pavement towards me with remarkable speed. The figure was humanoid, although appeared to be wearing a colourful outfit of purple and green. A strange day for cosplay, but I usually held off processing the blurs until I could see things properly, since even normal things become horrifyingly distorted through my uncorrected eyes.
"What's wrong, little one?" asked the blur, in a kind voice with an accent I couldn't place.
I was suddenly embarrassed at my public show of distress. People didn't break down and cry in the street, it wasn't appropriate. "I ... I know it sounds really silly, but ..."
The blur waited patiently for me to finish.
"... I broke my glasses, I can't see anything, and I think the optometrist is closed or something, I can't get through. I don't know what's going on and to be honest," my mouth continued, running ahead of my brain, "I need help."
The blur came closer to me and patted my head, a gesture which didn't seem especially out of place since I was sat on the floor. "It can't be very comfortable to sit there, can it?"
Reaching behind me, she opened a door I hadn't seen to a little chain café, its halfhearted attempt at hospitality like manna in the desert on this miserable boulevard. I scrambled up off the indignity of the floor and cautiously wandered inside.
"Come on and sit in here like a good pet, okay?" the blur said, guiding me through gesture to a booth seat. "I'll go and get you a new pair of glasses at your current prescription. May I have your name so we can find your record, sweetie?"
This person was being so kind. "I-I'm Hubertina [Redacted], date of birth [Redacted], living at ..."
The blur patted me on the head once more. It was so relaxing and soothing. "That'll be enough, don't worry. I'll be about half an hour."
Although the café appeared to be closed, dark and silent, she liberated a muffin from its plexiglass prison and took a bottle of CleverWater (TM) from the fridge. I looked askance at her theft, but I was too embarrassed to say anything either.
"I expect you to drink all of this water by the time I get back!" she chided gently. "Crying means water out, so you need to put extra water in!"
"O-okay," I stammered, cowed and broken. [Editor's note: Here you can see the truly diabolical nature of the Affini, already compelling a broken woman to obey instructions!]
The blur left my sight, and I drank the water, and ate the dry, oily muffin, killing time on my datapad by rewatching one of my comfort videos, a documentary about how frozen pizzas are made, with a calm bucolic tone and an orderly progression of steps that soothed my soul.
The 47-minute video was just about to enter its thrilling third act, the packaging and shipping of the pizzas, when the blur came back. She put a pair of glasses just like my old ones in front of me on the table. My heart sang with joy at the familiarity.
"Here we go!" she crowed sunnily. "Apologies for the wait. I couldn't believe how fragmentary and decentralised your medical records were! Why on earth is 'optometry' done in a completely different place from 'ophthalmology'? With entirely different systems of administration and patient record? Well, at least the clerks will have fun untangling all this mess ..."
I put the glasses on and looked up at my saviour.
It was an Affini.
Long vines covered in dense purple clusters of flowers made up her hair and framed her light green face, her toothless mouth merely an unmoving line while all the expression came from her voice and eyes.
Oh, those eyes.
Purple amythests with an indefinable shape, they fascinated me in a way no gemstone ever had. There was a sense that I could finally comprehend them if I just looked at them this way, or that, or just stared a few seconds longer. And all the while, I was filled with emotions I am not sure I had ever before felt. Joy, affection, adoration, and more than anything else, a sense of coming home.
"Who ... who are you?" I stammered, gaping.
"I'm Veronica Eudicoa, Third Bloom. I get the sense ..." Her eyes flashed with humour. "... that you might need some more help?"
I nodded mutely, and some part of me knew I would never be without her again.
[Editor: Another great Terran mind lost to the Affini's bioengineered hypnotics. How can any definition of consent apply when they have such tremendous ability to overwhelm our feeble wills?
{Editor's mistress: come on now, little one, it's time for your bath. Most Terrans don't get entranced by our presence, you know. I think you're just bitter because you didn't want to admit what an adorably petbrained little sub you are. And yes every word I'm saying now has to be in the final edition. No ifs or buts.} Editor: the home is the final frontier for the rebellion. Today I managed to make Mistress get me a new suit by spilling beans all down my dress. It may be only a gesture but it proves the spirit of Terra will never be beaten!]