Sophy woke up in a typically large, plush Affini bed. She marvelled at the way it entirely engulfed her, made her feel like a slightly large plush in a child’s bed. Why did she smile at that thought?

The memories of her session with Anicia flowed through her mind as a series of disjointed images, feelings, words and phrases, but she knew that her mind had been trifled with in some way. She ran through some mental maths exercises to check her acuity and was surprised to find herself perfectly competent – that wasn’t typical Affini style. But the scruffy, awkward Anicia was hardly a typical Affini, she considered. She might have made a few quiet “mmmm” sounds of pleasure, remembering the firm but gentle grip she had been held in, the smells and sounds of her new owner … wait. Her new warden. Anicia wasn’t to be her owner. That was something Sophy could still accept philosophically, but her gut wrenched in an odd way when she thought of it. It felt almost like when she was guilty about something, which was most of the time, but … 

Oh. Wait.

She couldn’t bring herself to feel guilty. She forced all of her most traumatic memories up to the surface of her mind, fixated on constructing every detail in her mind’s eye, yet still, although she certainly felt a profound sadness, and even some anger, she couldn’t direct any of that at herself. It simply bounced off. “I deserve … happiness …” said her internal monologue, with the compulsive force of an intrusive thought.

She cried herself back to sleep. It was too much dissonance from how her mind was accustomed to operate.

 

***

 

Next time, it was Anicia who woke her, shaking her awake somewhat too violently for comfort. “Sophy, you’ve been asleep for more than 12 hours. I have been told that’s too long for a Terran to go without sustenance, so I have prepared some.” Cooking smells wafted from the open door.

Sophy pawed at the vines tapping her shoulders. “Thanks … Mistress … five more minutes?”

Anicia didn’t answer verbally, instead lifting the girl bodily out of bed, wrapping her in the quilt like she was a burrito, and carrying her into the kitchen. “No more decisions means no pleading, little one. You have some big important final decisions to make today, so I am taking all the agency out of the small things. How’s your guilt?”

Sophy smiled widely, her eyes perhaps a little more dilated than a sober human’s. “It’s … it’s gone, Miss. I … think I deserve … happiness?”

Anicia cuddled her close, the roughness of many of her vines softened by the quilt into a pleasing texture. Sophy couldn’t help but make more hums of pleasure.

“Hold on,” Anicia froze, the rhythms of her vines drawn into an unplanned fermata. “You … you make those noises when you’re happy?”

Sophy avoided her eyes, not out of shame – that had somehow lost its power – but out of coy embarrassment. “I always have done, yes. Kal always liked it, so I stopped restraining myself from doing it. Do you … like it?”

Anicia let out another one of her fluting whoops of joy, and nearly dropped Sophy. “Oh my precious treasure! You have no idea how much it calls to me. It is wonderful and I order you to never stop doing it!”

Sophy giggled a little. Her mental state still wasn’t good, but denied their articulacy, the voices of existential terror and guilt that had ruled her for so long were relegated to a background smear that made her laughs and smiles just a little more restrained than they might be.

Anicia had finally reached the breakfast table, where she sat down – her Sophyrrito enfolded in a bush of vines that could be called ‘her lap’ (although only by a primitive AI that had been trained exclusively on Terran body parts and therefore had no means to comprehend the wild mass of tangled brown and dark green).

She tapped a vine on Sophy’s cheek. Sophy looked at her with a mixture of worry and confusion. “Is there … something wrong?” she asked, anxiety finally securing something to latch onto for a moment.

Anicia decided to dismiss those feelings with a hearty fluting laugh, a piccolo syncopating over the happy quacks of an oboe. “Oh my dear Sophy, it is simply that I forgot you are not gesture trained yet.”

“Gesture trained?”

“That’s right. Affini like to use this gesture –” she tapped on Sophy’s cheek – “to mean ‘open your mouth’. This one –” she tapped on Sophy’s chin – “to mean ‘close your mouth and chew’. This final one –” she tapped her throat – “to mean ‘swallow’. It sounds excessive, but firstly, puppeting your florets is fun.”

“I suppose it would be,” said Sophy, a chill entering her voice.

“Secondly, it helps with bonding, conditioning, and also the speed of eating! Did you know the average Terran, left to their own devices, will eat a whole sandwich in 180 seconds?”

Sophy broke out into a smile. She didn’t think that domestication would involve so many small things. “Really? I mean, I suppose that sounds right. It’s why we were given ten-minute lunch breaks at the factory. Enough time to wolf down a hot synthcube.”

Anicia shuddered, and puffed out air that smelled of damp moss and nettles. “I hope the antisocial little cuties responsible for that were domesticated with extreme affection.”

Sophy’s smile became a loud, fulsome laugh, the first she had uttered in some time. “I suppose your non-judgemental society does make it rather difficult to curse someone. Although perhaps I’m underestimating the formidable power of Affini affection.”

Anicia extended her neck out and round so she could look Sophy in the eye, defying any vestige of human appearance beyond having a face, which currently looked mischievous. “Well indeed, sweetie. Our affection has conquered more sophonts than your species has ever conceived of a number for. And look at yourself. I think I solved a lifetime’s guilt more or less overnight, didn’t I?”

Sophy looked away. “I still feel some vague sense of badness. I imagine that will take quite a while to fade. But for some reason, whenever I try to formulate reasons I might be bad or deserve punishment, I … I can’t.”

Anicia kissed her forehead, her inhuman lips tickly against Sophy’s skin. “I know, poppet, and I will shred through all of the things that dull your marvellous shine, in time. For now, breakfast. Follow my gestures.”

Sophy had never had any trouble with obedience. It tended to go hand-in-hand with … well … soul-shattering terror of upsetting authority figures. “Yes Miss!” she yipped.

So it was that Anicia positively glowed, feeding her Sophyrrito a breakfast burrito piece by piece, letting her savour the flavour and forcing her to chew slowly, as if Sophy was a trained floret already. Volunteers were a different kind of adorable to those who had to be forcibly domesticated. Then came bathtime, when Sophy let her use some Class-A shampoo to adorable effect. Then came cuddles on the sofa while the Class-A dissipated.

 

***

 

“Okay, shall we get on?” Anicia asked, addressing a puddle of Sophy. 

 

Sophy had cuddled before, plenty of times! But there was always a part of her mind held in reserve, concerned primarily for the other person’s pleasure more than her own, and she usually let her cuddle partners – even the most submissive and indecisive ones – guide her cuddles. Here, however, every tiny twitch and fraction of a gesture led to Anicia finding exactly the right spots that Sophy wanted pressure, or light stroking, or freedom. It was a magical dance, finding every desire anticipated and met before Sophy even knew it was there. It worried Sophy now it was over.

“Miss … I hope that was as much fun for you as it was for me …”

Anicia looked a little baffled, and then understanding rippled through her branches. “Oh! I see. You worried that my attentiveness to you was diluting my pleasure in any way. You forget, little Terran, I am not human.” She booped Sophy’s nose. “For my species, this kind of caretaking is the best pleasure imaginable.”

She guided Sophy up into a seated, attentive position with firm, controlling vines that still made the Terran girl moan with pleasure. “You know how sex has been an incredibly strong human motivation throughout history. Paris and the Trojan Wars. The Second American Civil War. The Terran Accord’s advertising matrix. That kind of thing.”

Sophy nodded.

“Imagine the strength of the caretaking drive that has literally guided the entirety of Affini civilisation since we first left our planet’s cradle. Our pure, visceral delight in feeling your happy squirms and knowing your needs are met is the most intense pleasure any Affini could possibly experience. More so in fact than a Terran could know. I would say that I get more pleasure from playing with a floret than a Terran on Class-Os feels.”

Oh. Sophy felt a bit silly. “So … I don’t need to worry about how you feel in a cuddle session?”

“No. And you can, and should trust me to tell you about any problems anyway.”

Sophy reached up to stroke Anicia’s face. “Thank you.”

Anicia growled a deep, happy rumble, a contrabassoon sustaining a pedal note in an empty concert hall.

“You got me distracted with your adorable questions, little Sophy. I was filling out the pre-domestication paperwork for you, as well as the wardship paperwork, and the paperwork for the transfer of your belongings, such as they are, and a thousand other little things your pretty little head need not consider.”

“Mmmmm?” Sophy asked.

“Well, there’s an uncommon, but fairly standard optional stipulation I’d like to add to your pre-domestication paperwork, if that’s okay. It’s called a ‘do not engage executive function’ clause.”

Sophy kneaded a vine in her hands for comfort. “What … what would that mean?”

“It would mean, little one, you would have absolutely no agency or chance to make a choice. Do you know Snuggly, the overnet celebrity?”

“… Yes.” Snuggly was one of the more embarrassing florets popular on FloreTube, the video site where Affini posted videos of their florets doing cute things like falling over, cuddling beeple, eating cake with gusto, and so on. Snuggly took things to a whole new level with her slow brain and fast mischief.

“Snuggly had said ‘do whatever you want with me’, or something to that effect, early on in the domestication process, and as a result, things were just done to her, no need to ask her about them or tell her about them.”

“That … sounds awful … poor Snuggly …” Sophy said. The contents of her panties didn’t agree, however. It sounded extremely hot and also somehow comforting. “It sounds extremely hot and also somehow comforting,” she said out loud, before covering her mouth with a little “eep!”.

Anicia let out her fluting laugh once again, a contrabassoon and oboe playing staccato runs in counterpoint. “I don’t think that Class-D ever fully left your system. You must be very, very sensitive to it. Now as the Affini in charge of your paperwork, and given what you said in the domestication office, I have every right to put down ‘do not engage executive function’. I told you before you would never be responsible for anything again, and that includes your own wellbeing. Do you have any serious objections, besides it just being a bit scary because you have to trust the big plant people even more than you already do?”

Sophy thought for a moment and then shook her head. “You’ve already shown that you understand me far too well for me to doubt you can handle my wellbeing much better than I could. And … I deserve rest, healing and happiness, right?” 

The appeal in her eyes was met by strong affirmation from Anicia’s. “You certainly do, sweetness. I will make this decision for you, like all the other decisions in your future.”

 

Sophy felt the sting of a needle in the back of her neck, and she passed out.

 

***

 

She woke in the bed again, this time with a large fox plushie next to her, which she welcomed, hugging it and enjoying its fluffy texture and soft squeezability. She nuzzled her cheek against it, unaware that Anicia was furiously taking picture after picture with the hab’s AI to memorialise this incredible cuteness.

 

Sophy realised, as the memories wafted back to her as a series of feelings and vague images, that her head had been messed with again, and that was okay, and she had agreed to it, because she liked it, and she didn’t need another reason. She tried doing some mental maths and … oh … that wasn’t happening. The numbers kind of swirled around in her head. She tried remembering some of what she’d learned in her schooling, and again concepts and ideas and long words all floated about just out of her reach, just some vague cluster of ‘clever stuff’ that could never be instantiated. She giggled. It was kind of fun to drift along trying and failing to be clever.

 

When Anicia entered, deciding it was finally time to break herself away from the absolutely necessary chore of cataloguing this transcendent adorableness, Sophy jumped out of the covers and kneeled on the bed.

“Hey Miss, ask me like a maths question!” she barked.

Anicia smiled. “Well isn’t someone eager to be a little clever clogs. Four times four?”

“Ummmm … no?” Sophy grinned. “Maybe like fourteen or something.” She got a sudden burst of euphoria and fell over, giggling. “Oh my stars you’ve made me like dumb or something!”

Anicia gathered her up and cuddled her against her warm, beating core. “Nothing of the sort, dearie, now take that word out of your vocabulary.”

“Which one, like d… dump … oh stars … hehe …” Sophy giggled. “You’re really good at like, brain control.”

“That’s right,” Anicia sang, spacing out the words and ideas to help them go in better. “I’ve just made introspection and memory recall more difficult for you, to cure your nasty habit of rumination. As a fun side effect, I've locked away all of the things your culture valued as ‘intelligence’, which you clung onto for your self-esteem. I hope you’ll come to see, as I do, there are much more important things to value and cherish in every Terran, especially a little cutie like you. I'll give you your smarts back when I feel you would benefit from them again.”

Sophy understood the important bits of that, namely that she was very cute and also that her smarts were somewhere else so she could learn who she was without them. That made sense. Anicia was very clever. “Miss is so very clever,” she burbled.

 

“How about we get you dressed, have some breakfast, and then go to the park to meet some new friends?”

Sophy rolled this around the viscous treacle that was her mind. “There’s some reason I’m supposed to feel bad about new friends,” she said, her brow furrowing, “but I can’t remember what that is. Are they nice?”

“The nicest.”

“Then yes, let’s go!” Sophy leapt into her warden’s vines, and Anicia had another hour of unmitigated bliss, picking out a pretty dress for the trans woman – “dress go spinny!” she had yelled, twirling for her mistress – and feeding her pancakes. The gesture training was going a little more slowly now, since Sophy kept forgetting what the gestures meant, but soon they’d be automatic. Anicia glowed with the ferocity of a thousand suns.

 

***

 

The park was busy, full of Affini playing with their florets, and the occasional group of independent sophonts too. One independent Terran even had another on a leash, which confused Anicia for a moment until she recalled the massive volume on Terran sexual behaviours which was compulsory reading for every Affini coming to this region of space. “Ah yes,” she thought to herself, “petplay kink. They really did need us, didn’t they …”

 

Sophy was on a vine-leash attached to her temporary collar of wardship. She trotted along quite happily with open-mouthed glee, perhaps wondering at the impressive Affini physical and social engineering, or perhaps just enjoying the feeling of grass under her feet and (artificial) sun in the sky. A light breeze rustled through, something the beautification committee had decided should change direction randomly each day. Sophy looked down, seeing how Zephyr’s gift rustled her skirt, and made several “mmmm” noises of pleasure and relaxation.

 

Anicia took her over to a group of mostly florets with one independent, select sophonts she had vetted beforehand using the mighty power of the Affini surveillance state (well, she had asked for volunteers in the ship chat, anyway). She rehearsed what she had learned from the 'Terran Body Language and Gestures' handbook to try to gauge something about each of the little group she had gathered.

 

Daisy (it/its, floret) seemed dazed, its pupils dilated and tracking stimuli slowly. It drooped on a bench, clinging onto a beeple plushie for support, wearing a plain shift dress, and with a plain black bob cut that made it look like a kokeshi doll.

Rose (she/her, floret) seemed sharp under her pretty, soft exterior. Vixen cunning flashed through her eyes as she curtsied for an Affini paying her a compliment, white stockings showing under her pink tea dress. Her long white hair danced in the breeze as she held a pink unicorn plushie like a designer handbag.

Nish (they/them, independent) had eyes darting backwards and forwards excitedly, an elevated heart rate, and a twitching smile, but kept their body language languid and contained. They must enjoy playing it cool, Anicia reflected.

Derek (he/him, floret) snuggled in his owner's vines, a mop of unruly purple hair and a striped tank top visible from within the loose web he nestled in.

 

They were all perfect, Anicia felt, a full range of Terrans in the Affini Compact. Lots of opportunities for the reborn Sophy to develop the kinds of relationship she wanted, freed from the shackles of obligation.

Speaking of which, Sophy was already trotting over.

"Hi!" she shouted, waving broadly at the four sophonts. Nish seemed curious, Derek shy. Rose waved broadly back, running up to Sophy and hugging her.

"Hi, I'm Rose," said the pink girl in a pink voice. "What's your name, cutie?"

"I'm Sophy!" she replied eagerly, "I love your dress and tights, Rose!" She flapped with her hands a little to stim the happy energy out. 

 

Anicia decided the girl needed a canine tail as a matter of medical necessity, and noted this down.

 

Rose gave Sophy a wink. "I'll give you my tailor's contact if you want! You'd be sooo cute dressed up just like me!" She brought up a picture of her datapad. Lots of Terran women dressed identically in shades of pink and white were in cute identical poses, Rose at their head. "These are my Rosebuds, and you're welcome to join if you like!"

 

Anicia puffed out some chilling mint. Sophy was already being socially pressured into some kind of obligation! She knew Rose would be something of a challenge by her reputation, but this situation was more than she had anticipated. Sophy would have to bear the guilt of saying no to the cute girl who has just hugged her, or make herself miserable doing something she didn't want to do.

 

Sophy appeared perfectly calm, her brow furrowed in contemplation of the picture. "You all look adorable," she said slowly, "but that doesn't look like a thing I would like. Please can I have that contact anyway? I love those tights and they seem special somehow!"

Rose nodded slightly, a little less exuberant but hardly thrown off her stride. "Of course! And I would love to have you on side if you change your mind, darling. I love these stockings too, they're handmade!" She gave a haughty laugh and guided Sophy's hand to feel her stockinged thigh. The new girl's eyes went wide with surprise at just how delectably soft the fabric was.

 

Anicia breathed a sigh of relief, a faint smell of rhubarb. It seemed her reprogramming of the floret-to-be had successfully removed the excessive fear of rejection that had made Sophy such a pushover in the past.

 

Nish beckoned Sophy over from where they were stood next to Daisy's bench. "Rose sounds like she's starting a cult, doesn't she?" they snickered.

 

Anicia's tension returned, wrapping her loose vines around her core a little more tightly. Now Sophy would have to pick sides! This would again risk hypothetical rejection from either Nish or Rose.

 

Here, Sophy's vacuity helped. "Cult?" she asked innocently. "Seems like a dance club or something?"

Nish grinned. "It's a bit more than that when you get super involved!" She stage whispered to Daisy. "Tell Sophy about the orgies."

Daisy looked up at Sophy and Rose with glassy eyes. "Oh yeah, like, Miss Rose here hosts big sex parties where all the rosebuds are synced up or something, some Affini shit. Annoys the fuck out of me because they always ask my Master to help, so I get an evening with no Master snuggles." It yawned and turned its attention back to its plushie. "Speaking of which, Sophy, I demand you cuddle the everloving fuck out of me this instant, it's been like over a minute."

Sophy smiled sweetly and sat down next to Daisy, giving the doll a headpat which caused it to moan and flutter its large eyes. "Sounds like someone gets lonely easily?"

 

Anicia had gained confidence in her ward's newfound social confidence. She wasn't desperately scrambling to meet Daisy's command, nor her apparent need, but she was still the same adorable kind sophont as before.

 

Nish sat down on the other side of Daisy, and held the floret's hand. "Daisy is a member of a pluribus, and its headmates prefer the digital realm. So it needs all the physical attention it can get while it's fronting!"

"Oh! Plur … I see! Ummm …" Sophy gave Daisy a huge hug. "Thank your headmates for giving us this time together, please!"

Daisy blushed red and moaned a little. "It's not because I like you …" it protested weakly.

Nish spoke over the little doll to Sophy. "I'm Nish by the way, they/them. I'm the token independent round here." They rolled their eyes.

Sophy simply looked confused and made a questioning noise.

"Oh!" Nish exclaimed. "I mean, there aren't many humans on board who aren't florets. Funny story, that. Do you want to hear it?"

Sophy nodded. Anicia watched her ward's little foot bouncing with curiosity, and marked the tail implantation surgery as 'urgent' on her tablet.

Nish blinked and looked into the middle distance, dissociating themselves from what they were about to say. "I was locked up in a psych ward for most of my adult life. The drugs they kept me on made me sleepy, but didn't do much else. They kept us in tiny rooms, didn't let us have contact with the outside, made fun of us. Their therapists kept gaslighting me, either about the conditions, or about my gender, or whatever they felt like that day; they called me 'delusional' and 'paranoid'."

 

How would Sophy cope with an emotional kick in the gut like that? wondered Anicia. Would it resuscitate those anxieties and guilt over another person's sadness? 

 

Sophy, still hugging Daisy tight, gave Nish a reassuring touch to the shoulder. "Things are better now, right?" she asked. Her eyes were wet with the start of tears - nothing would ever stop her from empathy, although she was surprised to find this sympathetic pain lacked the stab of stress to the gut she usually encountered. She wasn't feeling like Nish's emotions were an emergency she had to solve.

Nish nodded. "When the Affini came they forcibly domesticated most of the staff. It was almost funny, how cathartic it was to see their pride broken so easily. As for me, they gave me a wardship and some better medication, and after the three weeks of the wardship they let me be independent. I know that's rare, but they were all really careful with hypnosis and drugs given my trauma."

Sophy looked thoughtful. "So like … you didn't bond with an Affini?"

Nish ruffled her hair and smiled at her. "That's right. I have nothing against domestication but it's nice to enjoy the outside world again with no restriction. If the right Affini comes along I wouldn't say no, though!" They snicker and show Sophy a few photos of things they've got up to - visiting famous places, playing drums in a mixed band of Affini, Terrans and Rinans, building a vintage motorbike and driving it around the highways of Mars. "It's nice to be a wanderer and to be bursting with energy." They reddened a little with pure happiness.

 

Rose had been talking to Derek's owner, and had finally got the shy boy to leave his owner's vines, holding Rose's hand tightly. Soft skirt flapping in the breeze, he trotted after his hand, pulled along by Rose's force majeure. 

"Here's little Derek," Rose said, wrapping around the boy's tense shoulders. "He doesn't talk, but he wants you to know he's a good boy, he's very cute, and he loves cuddles, plushies and first-person shooters." She whispered to Derek. "o sina kama tawa jan Sophy. jan Sophy ni li jan pona sin. o ijo lili mije suwi." 

Derek nodded and pottered up to Sophy with arms outstretched. Sophy met his invitation, and stood up from the bench, hugging Derek close. Daisy, now released from her grasp, cuddled against Nish instead.

Sophy made little hums of pleasure. "This little one is so cute! Um, was that, like Spanish or something?"

Rose giggled, pushing Nish and Daisy along and sitting next to Nish, tousling their hair and showering them with little kisses. They didn't react that much but they did relax into the touch.

"So," Rose said, "it's actually a language that Derek's owner learned, an old Terran language called toki pona invented by a lady called Sonja Lang. It's the only language Derek really understands well."

Sophy spaced out for a moment. “O… Oh, so it’s like, a different language …”

Derek nuzzled into Sophy’s shoulder. He didn’t speak and didn’t show any interest in doing so, kneading with his little fingers to enjoy the texture of Sophy’s jumper.

“lawa sina li toki e ni: o ijo mije mi, kute ala e toki ante, anu seme?” Rose asked, and Derek nodded. “He was forbidden from understanding other languages. The poor lad probably had terrible social anxiety before, since he prefers to communicate in cuddles and simple language …”

Sophy wrapped her arms tighter around Derek and kissed his forehead lightly. “Now cuddles I can understand, and anksy … anzi … um, worries. Sorry, I’m not very clever!” She giggled lightly, the straightforward happiness on her face making Anicia’s core dance excitedly. Simplifying Sophy down was clearly the correct move, able to express what she wanted without artifice or trying to impress.

Nish raised an eyebrow. “I think there’s been an Affini rootling about inside that pretty little head of yours …” they teased. “I just hope you’re this cute and cuddly when you’re sober.”

Sophy’s smile faded. “I … don’t want to be how I was before …”

Nish put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. Your Affini won’t let you go back to whatever bad state you were in before. But I doubt you’ll be left such an airhead forever. I read some of your poetry before the fall of the Accord, and it was wonderful. It would be a shame to let that talent go to waste.”

Sophy’s eyes watered, and Derek felt her starting to shudder and shake. “I’m … I’m wasting talent? I’m … I’m sorry …”

Derek cuddled her close and kissed her cheek, and Nish tousled her hair, trying to calm the girl down as tears fell down her cheeks and all emotion faded from her face.

“I … I should be better …” she croaked out, entire body tensing up.

Nish got down off the bench and kneeled to look directly at Sophy. “No. You are better. Cuddling Derek today was just as important as writing that poetry three years ago. You are going to be your best self once your Affini is finished with you, and you have no responsibility to do anything except what she tells you, okay?”

Sophy nodded, some of the tension draining from her body. “I’m a good girl?”

Nish pressed their forehead against Sophy’s, a gesture that made her feel instantly safe and comforted. “You’re a good girl, Sophy, and you don’t need to worry about anything ever again.”

 

Anicia had heard enough - she couldn’t let Sophy suffer like this, even though what she had seen was extremely promising. She scooped up all of the other florets and ladled them carefully back to their owners, who had been hovering nearby (Rose’s owner pretending to be a small tree, and enjoying the sight of the sleepy Rinan throuple picnicking happily in xir shade). She sedated Sophy with a quick shot of Class Z and bundled her up in her vines.

Nish stood up and cleared her throat. “Ummmm, Miss? Sophy seems to be getting better, from what I’ve heard from her old friends. But you’ll have to do something about that rejection sensitivity, and that compulsive shame. Is she on Class Fs?”

Anicia shook her head, leaves rustling impatiently. “No … I’ve been working with hypnosis to deal with the root of some of these intrusive thoughts, not just treating the symptoms. I’m sorry you had to see this little one in such distress.”

Nish nodded, but looked a little worried nonetheless. “I respect that. But you’re only her warden, right? I wonder if that’s something that should be left to her Affini, once you’ve got her stable and receptive.”

Anicia exhaled a sharp citrus burst of surprise. “You seem to have quite a good understanding of Affini society, little one, especially for an independent!” She instinctively reached out to pet Nish, which they gratefully accepted.

“Yeah,” they admitted, using their shoe to play with the grass under their feet, “I have a few good Affini friends who treat me with a lot of respect and understanding. When … I mean … if I get domesticated, I want to go in properly consenting and informed. I have had quite enough dubious ‘consent’ from healthcare professionals in the past.” They sighed and turned to face the horizon. “Right, time for you to get your adorable floret … I mean,” they looked at Anicia pointedly, “your ward … back home.” They waved goodbye and walked towards the tram stop.

Anicia waved weakly back. Was she going beyond what was appropriate in a temporary wardship? The more she thought about it, she realised, the less she cared. It was what the girl needed, to be torn down and reconstructed, not drugged up on class Js and having all the bad feelings come back up once the cuddles ended. She respected Sophy too much for that. Her future owner, whoever she would be, would just have to be content with the work Anicia had already done.

 

***