Archive of Our Own

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The system of Starlight, a system of transgender women born in the late 90’s on­ Earth. Born and raise in a small town on the West Coast of the United States. The new year has arrived and no one in Starlight expected much from the new year. Perhaps the only thing they expected was for things to get worse, get harder. Ranni Starlight, the oldest member of Starlight, was the most scared of the future. And no matter how much Aria Starlight, the 2nd oldest member of Starlight, tried to comfort her, nothing could shake the looming dread in the air of the next couple months. Social and political environments grew more and more dangerous, especially in the southern states where she now lies. Madeline Starlight, the 3rd member of Starlight, tried her best to make things work. Doing her best to earn any amount of income online, but finding little to no success. Streaming and music were coming up more and more dry, more and more hopeless. Everyone was scared for the future, and even basic maintenance like eating or drinking were becoming harder and harder. Aria tried her best to keep the system healthy, but she grew exhausted maintaining everything constantly. It all felt hopeless. Melancholy gripped all their minds, it felt as if a miracle was needed to save them.It was the 2nd day of the new year, when Aria threw the blankets off of her. Her eyes were still heavy and body still waking up. The morning slowness wasn’t going to stop her from getting ready to prepare Starlight’s medication for the day. Only it wasn’t her bed, nor was this her room, this was much too big compared to the cramped bedroom she was used to. Plants, flowers, pictures of strange human shaped plant people, and furniture much bigger than anything that could be considered reasonable to the average person. Aria surveilled the room, trying to make sense of what could have possibly happened and figure out her surroundings. “Uhhhhhhh…. Huh?” Confusion started slowly giving rise to anxiety. Starlight's eyes darting every direction.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“This is a dream right? We couldn’t have actually woken up to this. This is a dream right Aria?” Madeline commented from their headspace.“I’m not sure, it doesn’t feel like one, how did we get…”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aria tried replying before being interrupted by a voice coming from the ceiling.“Goodness, how did you get in here cutie? Who are you?” The unknown voice questioned. Aria and Madeline trying to see where the voice was coming from. “Can you speak cuties?” The voice asked.Madeline answered. “I uhhh, yeah.” Her voice was shaken, failing to keep her composure in this strange situation. “My name is…” Madeline paused trying to piece together if revealing her real name or the nature of her plurality was a good idea in this situation. “Ranni.” This was far from the first time she pretended to be Ranni for the sake of convenience with someone. “Where are we?” She asked, immediately realizing she said ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. A hit of anxiety hit her in the chest, Aria held her anxiety for her, comforting the troubled emotions.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“You’re doing fine Maddie, it’s okay.” Aria put her hand on Madeline's shoulder. She leads a deep breath by lifting her hands from her stomach to her chest. Madelines breathing followed. “There you go, you’re fine.”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“You are in the hab of a Miss Mabryne Stellata, specifically her bedroom. She is currently out right now running her pet supply shop. I am the AI of this hab unit, although Miss Stellata calls me SeaGlass. You haven’t answered the question on how you got in here cutie.”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“They keep calling us ‘cutie’, should we be concerned?” Madeline inquired of her headmate.“Maybe, although I call you that all the time too. You are adorable you know.” Aria flirted back. Regardless of the situation Aria always found time to compliment her headmates. She gave Madeline a quick pat on the back.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Madeline tried again to look for where exactly the voice was coming from to no avail before speaking, “We uhh… I’m not sure how we got here.” Madeline once again realizing she is terrible at hiding her plurality thinks to herself “fuck.” Before continuing, “W… I just sorta woke up and here I am.” She caught herself that time. “Did you say you were an AI?”“Yes! All habs have an AI in them! Although hab AI’s are not like some other AI’s, hab AI’s are not sophonts most of the time!” SeaGlass responded. “Are you feeling alright?”“I’m… not sure. Is this real?”“Quite real!” SeaGlass was quick to reassure. “You seem confused. I’m going to contact Miss Stellata for you okay? She’ll take care of you.” SeaGlass responded, a bit of excitement in their tone.“Alright…” Starlight got up, looking over the side of the bed. The bed was about as tall as they were. Excessive to be sure but Starlight could not deny that this is the most comfortable bed they’ve ever woken up from. It’s blankets had a blue star and floral patterns designed on them, the frame of the bed has vines growing along them. Starlight began slowly going down the side of the bed.“Careful cutie, wouldn’t want you to fall and hit your cute lil head or something.” SeaGlass called out. It wasn’t that bad getting down. Starlight planted her feet on the floor, it was soft, padded, Madeline was certain even if they hit their head on this floor it wouldn’t do that much damage. SeaGlass was worried about nothing.“Thank you for the concern dear, we’re quite alright.” Aria responded to the AI. Her tone noticeably different from Madeline’s deeper, more carefree voice. Luckily it doesn’t seem like SeaGlass noticed, or they didn’t speak up about it.“You’re welcome cutie!” The AI replied!Starlight looked around the room from the ground, there was giant pet bed located at the foot of the bed, to Starlight this just looked like a very floral themed bedroom just scaled up to ridiculous proportions. She walked over to the door, pushing on it, which did nothing. There was no doorknob that she could see on this door, so it couldn’t be a pull open. She observed the door, trying to figure out the best way to open it.“Would you like me to get that for you cutie? And perhaps would you like it if I guided you to your destination? Where do you want to go?” Again, SeaGlass spoke with excitement in their voice.“It’d be appreciated. I’m afraid we’re a bit lost here.” Aria responded. Without a moments hesitation SeaGlass opened the door, allowing Starlight to view the rest of the house. She was upstairs, a walkway went around a larger central room with stairs down to the bottom floor. To say this was a mansion felt like an understatement, even for a mansion the scaled up size made it unlike anything else. The center of the building had a tree growing towards a glass roof. In the tree was a treehouse, on the tree in the house. A treehouse inside of a house.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“What kind of fairy bullshit have we gotten ourselves into?” Madeline exclaimed, gesturing forwards to everything around them. “What kind of rich asshole keeps a treehouse in their own home?”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Starlight was starting to shake, there was no hiding the fact that she was scared. As much as Aria tried to calm that storm, she was struck with terror. Waking up somewhere so unfamiliar, the only thing in this madhouse to talk to being some AI algorithm that had controlled the doors to the house. Starlight grabbed at the railing at the edge of the balcony, holding back tears. This was terror in their heart, terror made from confusion and uncertainty.Aria took a breath, trying to calm the terror. Control it. Or at the very least push it away until they understood the situation a bit more. Closing her eyes, breathing in, hold, out. Before SeaGlass interrupted. “Are you okay?”Aria fixed her posture. “Just a bit shocked is all. Is there a place to get a drink of water? “Aria rubbed her eyes, despite her best effort there was some tears building around her eyes.“Oh, yeah of course. Just down the stairs, I’ll open the door to the kitchen for you. I’ll have a glass ready for you at the compiler.” SeaGlass said, their tone a bit more worried. Even an AI could see how distressed they were. Aria was almost impressed the AI managed that. Whoever owns this house must of spent a lot of money making such an advanced mass of stolen information. “Miss Stellata will be here in only a few minutes. Try to make yourself at home.”“Make ourselves at home…” Ranni’s voice echoed in Starlights head. The concept of home was lost to Starlight. None of the 3 homes she has known in her life have felt like home. Not the mold infested isolated house in the woods, not the grey house in the small town, and not the apartment in Texas. The most home she’s known was staying locked in her room where the outside world couldn’t hurt her. Now even that was gone. They could do nothing but get that drink of water. Walking across the upper floor of the mezzanine towards the stairs. Holding on to the railings as they go down one step at a time. Quietly they make their way down, looking around for the open door they were told about. To their right, a door that lead into a large dining room was open. She began walking to the door, her footsteps silent, whether due to the flooring or the way Starlight walks from the side of her foot first matters not, her steps were silent.Passing the door into the dining room, a great table was at the center of the room, the counter with the sink and fridge at the other side of the table. A wall mounted device of some unknown purpose to Starlight waited there as well, and inside it was a glass cup filled with water. Quietly walking across the room until she reaches this device. A “compiler” as SeaGlass called it. Starlight reached up the wall to the glass, reaching it with just the tips of her fingers. Securing more of a grip as she pulled it closer. At last it was in her hands. She brings the drink to her lips. Her eyes widening, this was really good water, better than anything she’s gotten from a bottle or a filter. She felt the cool liquid flow down her body, reminding her how dehydrated she really was, bringing the bottom of the glass up and drinking the entire glass in one take. The AI spoke again “if you need more I’d be happy to help. You should drink a bit slower too, you might hurt yourself.”Aria looked up to the ceiling, hoping to see where the speaker in this room was. Alas she found no hint of where the voice was coming from. “Right, thank you SeaGlass. We appreciate it.” Aria looked at the glass, she felt awekward talking to an algorithm. “So, how do we get more?”“Just put it in the compiler again, I’ll get you another one.” SeaGlass said, you could almost hear the smile in their voice. Aria reached up to the compiler, tapping the glass into it again. Before her eyes she sees it disappear and reappear again.“WHAT!?” Madeline exclaimed, catching everyone both in and out of the system off guard. “YOU CAN JUST MAKE WATER?” Just what kind of stuff were the wealthy elite holding in their lives. “Whose house is this?” They pondered.“Yes! And just about anything else too! Did you not know?” SeaGlass inquired.“I… hold on a second.” Madeline walked to the nearest chair she could, dragging it slowly towards the compiler before climbing up the chair to more easily reach into the compiler. Grabbing the glass of water and taking idle sips from it. “So like, you say you can make just about anything?” Madeline asks. Twirling the water in the glass. She didn’t want to engage with the AI, but right now there’s no other person here to explain what the hell all of this was.“Yeah! Well, technically the compiler can, I’m just giving it the command to make the water. I’m sure Miss Stellata could show you how it to use it when she gets here!”“You’ve mentioned this Stellata a few times. Is she like, some rich girl with a thing for big furniture and plants?” Madeline questioned the AI.“Uhhh. I’m not sure I fully understand what you’re asking. This is standard furniture for an affini? I guess for someone as small as yourself they may seem rather large.” SeaGlass started to sound a bit worried by the end there. “You… you do know what the affini are right?”Madeline ponders a moment. “Uhhh, nope. Never heard the term before. Whats an affini?”“Well you see the affini are…” Something interrupted SeaGlass. I could hear a lot more quietly from the open door to the center room. “Welcome home Miss Stellata, our guests are in the kitchen.” Another voice answered them, speaking in a language Starlight didn’t understand. “I’m actually kind of worried about them, they’ve been polite but they seem scared and confused. Right before you came in the deeper voiced one asked what an affini was. I’m starting to think they actually don’t know anything about… well anything!”The other spoke back, this time in a language they did understand. “I see, I’ll take care of this, thank you for watching them while I was gone SeaGlass.” SeaGlass responded with a noise of some kind that Starlight could not identify. “I’ll go see the cuties now.”Starlight kept their eyes at the door, not sure what to expect from this Stellata. What they did see was something none of them expected. Nearly 3 times their size, the giant plant woman made her way through the door. Large wings behind her back with reflective iridescent laces, dark colored leaves, vines, and moss coming from her head with small colorful flowers that made it almost look like the cosmos itself laid above her glowing blue eyes. Vines and leaves twisted to form her limbs and dress for her upper body. Below her waist she had a long thorax akin to a praying mantis with 4 legs holding her up. Like a cosmic fairy gracing the system with a divine presence. She looked at Starlight, her gaze piercing their soul with even the slightest glance. “So you’re the cuties that made their way into my hab, Ranni correct? Or has she switched out?”Madeline was stunned. She looked at the strange monster in front of her. She needed to say something. “Y-you know about plurality?” Madeline spoke, her breaths feeling light as she was still in awe of this flora in front of her.The giant plant woman nodded, “Indeed, I’ve seen many sophonts in my field of work, a few were pluribus like you all.” Stellata pulled up a seat and sat at the table with them. “Although most wild pluribus sophonts aren’t so open about such a thing as you all are. Tell me about yourselves, where are you from?”Madeline felt intimidated by the presence that entered the room with her. The way she spoke, the tone, the feeling in the air itself made her feel weak in comparison. Aria took the front again, doing her best to put a confident mask on in front of the plant woman in front of them. “I’ll try my best to speak as forward as I can. My name is Aria, the other one you and SeaGlass have been talking to has been Madeline. Ranni has not made herself known yet. Madeline sometimes calls all of us by her name in unknown social situations as a safety precaution. It’s a pleasure to meet you Miss Stellata, your AI spoke of you highly.” Aria lent a hand forward in a formal greeting. Stellata offered her hand for the handshake.“The pleasure is mine Aria. I’m Mabryne Stellata, 1st bloom, she/faer pronouns.” Stellata pulled a screen from her body and began typing something on it. Hearing faer introduce herself with pronouns was a huge comfort, she may be a giant plant monster thing, but she seemed to at least understand gender. “Do you have a surname? Pronouns? I’d very much like to be introduced to your whole system if possible.” Mabryne spoke with a gentle professional tone.Aria thought for a moment, “Well, we tend to use our system name of Starlight as a surname. Most of us are she/her, some of us add extra pronouns to that. Like Madeline who uses she/they/fae.” Aria explained to the insect humanoid plant alien. Who typed on her tablet as Aria spoke.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Madeline spoke up inside their headspace, “Are you sure you want to be giving them all this information all at once Aria? We don’t even know who she is!”“If it’s the cost to learning more about whats happening and where we are, than yes I will tell her our names and where we come from. The more we know the better we’re equipped to keep ourselves safe.” She pats her headmates head. “Don’t worry, I got this.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Stellata looked up from her pad. “Interesting, normally a name search finds a profile on someone but for you all it’s giving almost nothing. All the profiles for anyone with your names are coming up with unrelated sophonts. Where are you all from?”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“She was looking us up?” Madeline said in concern. She grabbed Aria’s shoulders and shouted, “Red flags Aria, red flags!”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aria began to speak a bit more cautiously now. “Well, we come from a middle of nowhere town in California.” Aria responded carefully. “Speaking of locations, where are we now?”Mabryne looked up in surprise. “California... that’s a Terran location right? You’re certainly a long ways from Terra little ones.” Fae return to typing something on faer tablet. Her hand growing multiple vines to press on the screen rapidly.Aria felt the weight from that statement. She knows what the plant woman means by Terra. She’s talking about Earth, specifically as a separate location. Which means they aren’t on earth. Aria decided to finish her drink and put the glass inside the compiler. She cleared her throat before speaking again. “How far from… Terra?”“Over a billion kilometers. We’re in the orbit of Saturn, aboard the Affini Space Station Aquifolium, Aria.” The words sank into Arias mind. Comprehending how large a billion kilometers was a difficult task. Even imagining the number alone is difficult.Arias breathing started shaking again. The terror was building up again. “That… that can’t be right!” We were just in Texas, they slept in their bed in their Texas apartment, we were on Earth! “And the year? Is it even 2025?” The reality of their situation was beginning to kick in. They couldn’t know how this happened. But if they are truly so far away from Earth next to what is certainly an alien of some kind, than that can only mean something grabbed them from across time and space to be brought here to this strange alien they sat next to now.“I’m afraid not petal. That was over 500 years ago, 531 to be precise. The current terran year is 2556.” Starlight's panic was returning as more thoughts of the implications of losing the past 500 years. Everyone they knew was gone, gone, gone… “Oh mulch...”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“Our sister is dead.” Madeline's words struck their heart like a serrated blade.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Out of everyone in their lives that has been there for them, it was their sister. The first person who they came out as trans to, the first person who understood their plurality, the only person in their life that provided any amount of comfort from the hell they came from was gone. Not only her, but all of our friends online. Everyone the brought them happiness, everyone who they comforted. Gone. All because for some reason they had to be brought to this world they could not understand. How did they hurt when she disappeared on this damnable January 2nd? This was the breaking point, and Mabryne could see it. Aria could no longer maintain her confident, in control composure. Taking of her headmates of all of her system and burying them into slumber. Making sure no one else in her system had to feel this heartache. Ranni, Madeline, Callie, Princess, and Tempest. All silent, all quiet, all asleep. Beyond that, all she could do was try and cry quieter than she would if she was isolated. Burying her face in her hands as the world around her abstracted into nothing but pain, any words she tried to speak indistinguishable from the sheer sorrow and agony in her heart. For this was Aria’s duty as Starlight's caretaker and overseer. The burden of this anguish was hers to carry. She could not process the quick sharp injector go into her arm, nor could she process that the entire world was fading into the shadows of unconsciousness. She could not hear the words spoken as she fell from consciousness.“It’s okay, I have you now.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Come now little ones, up up.” Spoke the unknown voice, Starlight did not know this voice, but more importantly she did not desire to wake up. She simply grumbled and tried to turn away from the voice. “Now now, none of that. Come on lets get those eyes open at least. You can go back to sleep when we’re done okay?”Starlight groaned opened her eyes slowly, the light of the room was not too offensive to her freshly awoken eyes at least. She looked over towards the direction of the voice, seeing that plant woman again filled her with a bit of dread, she was still not back. She sighed, “Of course…”. There was another affini now too. Although this one was far less humanoid compared to Stellata. They appeared to be some kind of multi eyed dinosaur with 4 arms. One of their set of arms with bright petals that looked almost like wings. Starlight stared at the strange alien before her. Was this even an affini or something else entirely she wondered. It was certainly another plant creature of some kind but they looked so different from Stellata. Starlight tried sitting up but to no avail, her body simply was not listening to her beyond a simple movement of her head to look at the strange aliens. She did not speak, feeling her glare would have to be good enough for them.“Hello sleepyhead, your name is Starlight correct?” The strange dinosaur plant creature spoke. Starlight didn’t feel like responding with her voice, she simply nodded. “Could you tell me who’s fronting please?”Starlight tried to answer with a shrug, but her body refused to move. She groaned slightly, trying to build up the energy to say anything. Who even was fronting they wondered. Normally the clearest sign was when they spoke, they all had very identifiable tones and speaking patterns. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Only a raspy breath. She tried again, no words. It was than that it clicked. It knew who was fronting now. Putting all of its effort out it answered.“Tempest.” It spoke slowly, its words spoken in long breaths out.The dinosaur typed on its tablet when it answered. “I don’t believe we’ve heard of you Tempest. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Do you have difficulty speaking cutie?”That word. That nickname the affini spoke. That infantilizing tone and language brought rage into its mind. The affini was right however, it did have difficulty speaking at most times. But this indignity it was given did not deserve an answer. Instead it snarled at the insult it had suffered, its glare turned to one of fury. This act took both the dinosaur and Stellata by surprise. “That is ummm… Very well. I understand you’re going through a lot right now. In full honesty I struggle to believe the story fully myself. But if I got it down right, you say you are from the terran year 2025. And one of you, Aria, began having a severe emotional response to this information. In which Mabryne here gave you a dose of class-Z’s and brought you to this vet here.” The plant creature explained. The word ‘vet’ repeated in its head. It was being treated like an animal, a lost wounded pathetic thing. Insult after insult from these condescending aliens. “Oh dear where are my manners, my name is Dr. Tshnerak Apican, Ninth Bloom, any pronouns. What are your pronouns Tempest? I can also give you something that may make it easier to speak if you want.”“No.” It answered in response in its usual dragged out raspy breath voice. It did not want to speak to this doctor. It did not want to exist in this moment. It did not even want to exist at all. The only thing keeping it from fading away into nothingness in the mind was its overseer, Aria. The fact it was the one that awoken to have this conversation out of anyone in its system felt like the cruelest joke the gods could craft.“No pronouns or no to the xenodrugs?” Another question from the doctor. Tempest grew more frustrated with every second with these affini.“It. Does. Not. Care. What. You. Call. It.” This was the most it could speak. It was underestimating how exhausted it was. It could barely keep its eyes open, it couldn’t move, a thought repeated in its head. “Weak, pathetic body. Move.” It commanded, yet the body did not listen. The most it could accomplish was a twitch of its finger.Dr. Apican typed more on his tablet. “I see, so I could mark your pronouns as cute/cutie and you wouldn’t mind than?” They teased. They insulted. Insolent flora!“Don’t. You. Dare.” It’s tone was filled in venomous hatred. Although it could not move, it would not stand idle as this plant belittled it so. “It.”The doctor laughed at it with a short chuckle. “Got it, it/its. Thank you for your cooperation Tempest.” Tshnerak finished writing down whatever it was writing on its tablet before turning to Stellata. “Well, it certainly is interesting. No serious health conditions, in fact there was significantly less pollution in its body than any wild terrans I’ve treated so far. Although there’s some very different behaviors from what I was expected from how you described them Mabyrne.” They spoke in a strange alien tongue. Their words almost sounded like singing. It was able to pick up when it spoke Stellata’s first name however. “I would recommend getting some class-J’s for our pouty cutie here. Also some feminizing class-G’s for their system. They have very clear signs of hormone replacement in their body, I’m sure they’d all love it. And I know you already have class-A’s, E’s, and Z’s on you. I think some class-C’s would be very useful for training Tempest and any other cuties having a hard time listening to your advice. Finally I always recommend class-D’s for new cuties like them, don’t want the little thing lying to you I imagine. Anything else I leave up to you Mabryne.”It heard its name, they were talking about it. Speaking behind its back. It clenched its fist on the bed it found itself on. Holding it as tight as it can, which wasn’t much. It opened its mouth to speak before it was interrupted by Stellata. “W-wait me? I can’t take in a ward, let alone… everbloom I don’t even know how many are there in Starlight. I’ve only ever looked after other peoples florets, I’ve never trained my own! I don’t know think I’m the best choice for training such a special case like theirs.”They were talking about all of them now. What are they plotting? It had no way of knowing. This only infuriated it more. “Stellata, darling, you’re going to do just fine, the cuties are even starting to breath in tune to your biorhythm just from sleeping in your vines on the trip over here. No sophont has ever been unhappy under affini care. If by some strange twist of fate this cutie was unhappy by the end of this month, it’d be the first time. You got this okay? If you’re struggling I’m sure Grandeur would be more than happy to help.” The dino doctor put its claws on Stellatas shoulder. “You and I both know terrans make for adorable pets, I believe in you.”The 2 affini return their attention back to Tempest. “I think this wraps up your visit Tempest. Miss Stellata here will be taking you back to her hab and you’ll be beginning your wardship little ones.” They spoke in english again.Tempest did its best to push past the infantilizing nickname. However something they said caught its attention. “Wardship?” It did not know what this meant in this context. However it certainly meant trouble.Stellata approached it, leaning down to meet it at eye level. “It means I’m going to be watching over you for a while. You don’t know this world you found yourself in, none of you do. Expecting you to just adjust to the Affini Compact on your own would not be fair to you. You’re going to be staying at my hab until we all figure out what you need to live your best life. Is that acceptable for you Tempest?” Stellata spoke calmly, gently, and clearly. She did not want it to get more upset.Tempest’s grasp loosened, it did not speak however. It simply nodded in agreement. Stellata reached under Starlights body and began lifting them up until Tempest snapped. “STOP!” Stellata halted her motions immediately.“What’s wrong Tempest? Are you alright?”“What. Are. You. Doing?” Tempest asked, upset that Stellata tried grabbing it.“Petal, I need to carry you back to my hab. The medical examination you had has left you unable to move. You had some damage in your body that was causing you chronic pain that Dr. Apican fixed for you. As well as poor dental hygiene that needed to be taken care of. You’re going to struggle moving on your own until the medicine starts wearing off tomorrow. I’m sorry, but there’s no other choice here. Now lets get going.” She lifted Starlight up, cradled in her vines. They were soft like a most comfortable mattress. “Thank you again for looking at them in such a short notice.”The doctor wave its claws as we make our way to the exit. “It was no trouble at all Mabryne. Please bring them back for a checkup in the future, I can’t wait to see them again!” They clack their wooden claws together. Tempest closed its eyes, trying to calm down from this situation it found itself in. Like the rest of Starlight it had no way of understanding why this had all happened. However the lack of aches and pains was a pleasant relief at the very least. It felt nice. They were outdoors now, it could see the sky. It could hear others go by them, yet at this moment it tried not to care. It did not want to see the faces of those who would witness it in such a weak state. It could hear more of that song-like language now and then. From strangers, most likely other affini come to mock its weakness.“Aww, who’s the sleeping cutie? Can I pet them? Where’s their collar? What’s their name?”It could not understand them, the conversations with Stellata and these strangers were brief at the very least. They tended to end shortly after her response to whatever it was they were saying. It tried not to think about what they could be saying. It could not do much, it just had to hope they’d get home safely. Putting all their hope in this alien. “Pathetic…” It whispered under its breath. It felt weak, useless, pathetic. That it could not even walk, that it could only lie in this plants arms, it felt the disgusting bile of weakness rot in its gut. As much as it tried not to think of its position it was unavoidable. It was helpless, weak, worthless. Self-deprecating thoughts growing louder in its head. This is all it was good for. The shadow of Starlight. Existing to point out the flaws and weakness in all of them, self-hating and hating all selves. “Stupid worthless thing.” It thought to itself. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“That’s enough Tempest.” Aria’s voice pierced through the fog of misery, clearing the skies in the Starlight Forest. The very same that they grew up in back when they lived in California, remade in their inner wonderland. An open glade surrounded by trees with a gentle stream of water flowing on a small gravel beach. Although their eyes were closed they could see a forest “You are not worthless.”“There you are Overseer. What kept you? Decided your role as the systems caretaker was too demanding and left to have it suffer the indignity of the affini’s medical practices?” It lashed out.“Oh hush, it was not that bad.”“It was an invasive surgery! We did not consent to having our flesh and bone altered!” Tempest shouted at Aria in their headspace. Tempest spoke from the shadows of tree cover while Aria sat on the gravel. “Surely you do not approve this? Even now we lie weakened, helpless in this aliens arms.”Aria dipped her mechanical foot into the flowing water of this wonderland. “While I do agree that I wish we were asked beforehand if we desired such a surgery. What’s done is done and for all we can tell all she did was take this pain away from us all. Isn’t it nice just to lay back without our body aching?” She gestured towards Tempest. It’s burning eyes among the shadows cast by treetops staring down at the mechanical girl playing in the creek flow.“You are dangerously forgiving Overseer. The affini is plotting something against us. It knows this. It heard them speak in a strange language about us!”“You don’t know what they said my dear. How about we just ask Stellata what they were talking about in the hospital and clear it up like reasonable adults instead of letting that paranoia of yours grow uncontrollable hmm?” Aria laid back, staring into the mental sky above the open glade. “Why not come join me in the sun for a bit Tempest?”“It will not. If you believe in this path we are forced to walk than it has little space to fight against you Overseer. The front is yours. It desires to go dormant.” The burning eyes disappear into the thicket of these old woods. Leaving Aria alone to control the body.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aria opened the body’s eyes. She looked up and saw Mabryne, who was still holding them. “Hello again Miss Stellata,” Aria said and was immediately hit by the weight of her body. There was no moving. Aria had expected this, still she tried to at least have a conversation with this plant woman she had to share a home with now to pass the time.“Oh, Is that you Aria? How are you feeling? Are you alright?” Stellata stopped to check on them. Aria had forgotten the last time she had spoken with Stellata she had been in hysteria over the travel through time and space. She tried not thinking about it, not right now. There would be time to process all of that later.“I feel… surprisingly okay all things considered. Wish I could say the same about Tempest. I’m sorry about how it acted. It tends to lash out when it’s scared.” Aria explained.Stellata brought a vine to the top of Starlight’s head and gently pet her. “Petal you don’t need to apologize for your headmates behavior, you aren’t responsible for how Tempest acted at the vet.” Stellata’s voice was soothing and comforting, even if Aria knew they were wrong. Tempest’s behavior was in fact part of her responsibility. She is the overseer of Starlight. She had the power to pull Tempest out of the front at any moment. She just didn’t, for reasons she’s not even sure of. “I see you share memories with your headmates, that’s good to know.” Stellata continued walking forward forward.Aria was not sure where they were, she turned her head to look around her. There were a lot of buildings with their own ecosystems growing on them. Full gardens on every building they walked by. Restaurants, grocery stores, hobby shops, a… domestication center? She didn’t quite understand what that was. Not only that, as she looked around she saw other affini, other affini with humans with them. Humans wearing collars and leashes. Sometimes only wearing the collars and nothing else. Aria was piecing everything together. She tried not to question the nicknames too much, and she felt a bit stupid not realizing it sooner when they called the hospital a “vet”. She stared out into the populous of the Aquilfolim, her eyes expressing the shock of realization of the logical conclusion about this society she’s in. “Hey, miss Stellata can I ask you something?”“Anything petal, what’s on your mind?” Stellata’s tone was as cheery as always. Although the cheeriness now felt a dark implication behind it.“Sorry if this sounds strange but... do you turn humans into… pets?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Mabryne Stellata, First Bloom, gently lowered her vines to lay her ward onto the couch in the living room, laying her head on a fluffy pillow. She kicked herself for not saying anything about Affini culture sooner. Of course Starlight didn’t know about domestication, how could she? She said she was from a time before even the Terran Accord. Even if Mabryne didn’t fully believe it she believed it was real enough for Starlight which was all that mattered to her. This is what she meant when she told Apican she wasn’t ready to take care of such a unique case with sophontslike her. The most she can do now is try and make her comfortable. And by the everbloom she would do at least that. She fluffed up the pillow behind helpless girls head, “Are you comfortable Aria?” You haven’t had anything to eat yet have you little one? Anything in particular you want? Any comfort foods? I can give you something to help with the anxiety if you want.” Mabryne spoke fast, very clearly concerned about how her new ward was feeling.Aria turned her head to her head to the affini and takes a quick breath. “I… okay lets take that one question at a time. Yes, we’re comfortable. You’re large furniture is quite nice Mabryne, thank you. No, we have not eaten. Didn’t get a chance this morning and I don’t imagine I can get my system their dinner in our current state. As for comfort food… I don’t know, nor do I know what you even have. Or what food even exists 500 years in the future in an alien civilization. And please dear, I can handle this anxiety. It’s just a lot to learn all at once. Between this morning and the walk back home, it’s been a LOT. But it’s nothing I can’t handle, my systems wellbeing is my responsibility, not yours.”Stellata was taken aback, the leaves on her body stood up in shock. That final statement Aria said caught the affini off guard. “Petal I… You’re my ward now, all of your wellbeings are my responsibility until we find whats best for you all to live your happiest and best lives.” Mabryne explained matter of factly. “Furthermore, you can ask for literally any meal you want… well probably nothing too sugary… well actually if you want something sweet I won’t say no, you’ve been through a lot today. Regardless we have a compiler, I can get you anything. I’ll get some proper groceries to cook homemade meals for you all tomorrow but for now the compiler will more more than adequate. What kind of meals did you like in the 21st century?” Stellata was nervous, she desperately didn’t want to disappoint Starlight. Or even worse, make her more upset than she already was.Aria stopped to think for a moment. She had not really accepted the answer that her systems wellbeing was now someone elses responsibility, but that can wait. She needed to get her system food right now and the affini was the best possibility for that at this moment. “Hmm, I guess a chicken sandwich?… wait no, do you know what a dragon roll is?” Aria asked the self proclaimed caretaker..Mabryne pulled up her pad, looking up a dragon roll for she did not in fact know what this dish was. A terran sushi dish made with tempura shrimp, avocado, cucumber, eel… She looked at the ingredients and noted the shrimp. She didn’t think Aria would ask for anything dangerous to Starlight, but she had to ask anyways, “Any allergies I should be worried about with this petal?” Stellata asked, looking up from her pad.Aria shook her head, “Nope. At least none that we’ve ever encountered in our lifetime.” Aria answered. “Thank you for asking.” Aria’s politeness was adorable at least, Stellata couldn’t help but smile.“You’re very welcome dear, I’ll go compile your meal for you.” Stellata started walking away before she realized something. “SeaGlass, could you find something to turn on for Starlight? She deserves some entertainment while immobile wouldn’t you agree?”“Yes Miss Stellata!” The cheery AI answered. A TV screen across the way of the couch came out of the wall and turned itself on. “Any recommendations from the pretty ladies?” SeaGlass flirted at the motionless girls on the couch.Aria chuckled in response to the kind words of the hab AI. “Well aren’t you a charmer. Give me a moment to ask my system.”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aria peered into the forest, stepping out of the water on to the gravel beach around the creekflow, “Alright, Ranni and Maddie. What do you want to watch?” The three thoughtforms sat by the gentle water flow. The imaginary stream flowing into the unknown woods beyond.Madeline was the first to speak up with an unhelpful answer, “I have no fucking idea.” Aria rolled her eyes at the imps comment.Ranni did have a suggestion, “Normally we just watched livestreams or vods, is it possible to just watch some of those?” She asks. Madeline turned to the angel as if she said something ridiculous.“Hell no! We ain’t watching vods in this plants house! She’s going to think we’re a bunch of losers or something.” Madeline lifted a single clawed finger up, “Besides, all the people we used to watch are dead and might not even have their stuff up anymore. You know, 500 years later.” She lifted a second clawed finger up, counting her points. Madeline had a point, they had no idea what media looked like nowadays. Especially in this alien culture.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Stellata sets a plate down on the coffee table, the gentle tap of the plate snapping Starlight out of her wonderland. “Normally we’d be eating at the dining table, but you’re all looking so comfy on the couch I’m going to be feeding you all here.” She adjusted Starlight’s position to bring them sitting up. “There you go, by the way if you want I can choose what to turn on for you if you’re struggling to think of anything.”Madeline jumped to the front at what she just heard. She looked up towards at the affini with shock it their eyes. “I’m sorry, you’re going to fucking what?” Madeline surely heard wrong, it almost sounded like she said she was going to be...“Feeding you petal, is there a problem with that?” She leads a vine down to Starlight’s wrist, lifting the weightless limb up and gently dropping it. “You aren’t exactly in a position to feed yourselves now are you?”Madelines face turns red at the idea. Her, being fed. HER of all people. The ever defiant Madeline, the manifestation of rebellion against the cruel authorities over Starlight being fed like a helpless animal was not acceptable! “Aight, I’m switching out for this shit. Peace.”Ranni blinked and was put in the front, a mild pressure in her head and a daze hung over her from the sudden switch. “Wuh?”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ranni shouted into the trees, “Maddie what the hell!” The shifting sounds of rustling leaves played in their mind as the fae imp ran into the forest to escape the embarrassment of needing to be fed by a giant plant woman. Ranni couldn’t really do much to bring her back to the front. She sighed and accepted that it was going to be her that was getting hand fed delicious sushi. If she really wanted she could just have Aria bring her back to the front but on the other hand, sushi is good whether you feed it to yourself or not. Ranni decided that perhaps it would be fine as this one time thing.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The affini held the plate in faer vines, chopsticks in the her hand picking a piece of sushi from the plate. “I know this probably isn’t how you’d prefer to eat, but its just until you can move on your own again okay petal?” She brought the sushi to her wards mouth. “Say ahhh”.Ranni opened her mouth. Rewarded instantly by a mouthwatering piece of sushi. She closed her mouth and started chewing on the roll. A satisfying crunch of the tampura release a perfect concoction of flavors into her mouth. She let out an audible, “Mmmmmm…” chewing on it. It was hard to imagine this was something made in a moment by some strange appliance. This tastes like the handmade sushi from the local sushi restaurant a short drive away from her old apartment. The apartment she’ll never see again…“Good girls. Sounds like you liked it!” Stellata voice brimmed with joy and pride. “By the way you never did answer my question.”Ranni tried to remember what Stellata was talking about. She did not recall what Stellata had asked her or Aria or Madeline. She wasn’t even sure who was fronting at that moment anymore. All of them could have been there for all she could tell. “I’m sorry, what question?” Ranni asked in her high voice.“If you wanted me to pick something for you to watch petal.” An extra vine pet Ranni’s head, causing her to recoil slightly at the unexpected stimuli. “Dirt, sorry I didn’t mean to surprise you.” Stellata hadn’t realized she had reached down to pet her, to the affini it was something she didn’t even think about. “I also don’t believe I’ve heard this pitch from any of your voices before. Who do I have the honor of feeding today's dinner to?”“Oh!” Ranni realized she’s never personally introduced herself to the strange floral alien. “I’m Ranni. I uhhhh, huh... Normally I don’t need to introduce myself after someone meeting my headmates. I’m normally the one who’s already known when people meet our system.” She looks around, nervous that maybe she said something that didn’t need to be said. “O-oh and uhh, yeah you can pick out what to watch. I wouldn’t really know what’s available.”The affini picked up another piece of sushi from the plate with a giggle. “Petal, everything is available. From Terran media, Affini media, and countless other xenophont media. Archived and preserved original cuts, alternate versions of old media made to be more relevant to the current times, floret cuts to remove potentially triggering subjects, and just about anything else you can think of. If you’re not sure I can always turn on a movie one of the florets I pet sit likes. In fact, SeaGlass could you put on that movie we watched last week for that meet up?” Stellata requested.Seaglass chirped up, “Right away Miss Stellata! A little late for a Christmas movie though, don’t you think?”I don’t think there’s such thing as too late for a holiday movie. Besides we’re only two months away from another.” She explained. “It’s a cute piece of old Terran media and a greedy old man learning to be charitable.” Ranni recognized that plot, could they really be talking about Christmas Carol? “By the way, do you have any triggers I should be aware of little ones?”Ranni had just watched a version of The Christmas Carol during Christmas back in Texas with her sister and roommate last week… 531 years ago. “Uhh, so long as there’s no swarms of bugs I think we’ll be fine.” Ranni told the AI and affini. She didn’t know if it was some new version of the movie she didn’t know about. For all she knew they could have added bugs in it over the past 500 years of retellings and cultural changes.“Thank you for telling me petal, time for your reward! Say ahh.” Stellata brought another roll to Ranni’s mouth. Ranni ate the roll without a fight. Crunching and chewing on the delicious sushi, again letting a quiet moan leave her lips. Stellata’s core was positively shining at the display. “Adorable!” The affini cooed in faer native tongue. “ The movie turned on. Opening with a splash screen with text that provide context of the era the movie takes place in. As well as a content warning for “depictions of capitalism and a capitalist society” before opening credits began. This was interesting to see. Did this mean that capitalism fell at some point in the 500 years that have passed? It wasn’t that far fetched of a concept considering where things were going in 2025. “Hey, Mabyrne?”Ranni said, trying to get the affini’s attention.“Yes Ranni?” Mabryne responded. She prepared another roll from the sushi plate.“The content warnings in the beginning of the movie, does that mea…” Ranni couldn’t finish her sentence before Stellata suddenly interrupted.“Oh dirt, are you sensitive to themes of capitalism? We can watch a different movie if it’d help.” Stellata worried and assumed. Her vines tensed and was ready to stop the movie in a moments notice.Ranni shook her head, “No no, not that. I just wanted to ask if capitalism is still around.”Stellata gave a curious look down at her ward. “Is capitalism… goodness no! The Affini Compact won’t allow such a cruel system to exist! Value based on material or artificial wealth is not allowed at all in the Compact. This is a post-scarcity society.” Stellata explained to her ward.A post-scarcity society? An honest to gods want for nothing space fairing civilization? “Holy shit…” Ranni said under her breath. Capitalism is dead, her value isn’t based on how much money she brings to rent anymore. It felt unbelievable, she didn’t have to be a burden to everyone around her anymore. She didn’t need to be a burden… didn’t need to be a burden! She couldn’t control her reaction, “LET’S FUCKING GO!” She exclaimed from the couch. “Gods, you have no idea how ecstatic we are that that shit economic system is gone!” A sigh of relief leaves the wards lips.“I’m very glad to hear how happy you are about our society.” She brought the sushi to Ranni’s mouth, a treat Ranni wasted no time putting in her mouth. Mabryne enjoyed seeing the cutie so happy, especially as she ate. It was pure bliss to an affini. Even if the swearing both Ranni and Madeline have been saying have been less than ideal. She knew some affini that let their florets swear, but she always found the cutest florets minded their language. Even this cutie on her couch would need some training it seemed. At least now she has some idea of how to approach the training, Starlight seems very receptive to treats at the very least. A common trait of many Terrans. The cuties just love their little treats! Stellata was starting to build some confidence in training Starlight into being a good floret. Stellata shook her head. No, fae couldn’t be so predetermined that Starlight would become her floret. She still didn’t know how well they’d all adjust to the Affini Compact. She’s under wardship, she’s not domesticated, she’s not a floret... Yet... If Mabryne is lucky. She snapped herself out of it, she can’t be focused on such things, Starlight’s happiness is what’s important. And if that happiness is best found in her arms than that would be that. Definitely not going to form a bias on their future being a precious floret for herself.The movie continued on, this animated Christmas Carol movie from an era that Starlight was familiar with. It was nice to see something familiar after an entire day of feeling like a stranger in a strange world. Even if it was missing the people she usually watched the movie with. A thought that soured much of the positive feelings when watching the movie. The food made a good distraction from that pain at least. Dulling it to a distant sorrow for this moment. Eventually however, the dragon rolls did run out, and there was still plenty of movie left. They had only made it to the part where the candle ghost takes the old man back to the past. Something Starlight knew she won’t have the fortune to experience for herself. She tried her best not to think about it, but Stellata could see this was troubling her.  The large mantis woman moved to the side of the couch and sat her ward upright against the armrest, spreading her hair out lengthwise over the couches arm.. Ranni gave her an inquisitorial look, “Umm, what are you doing?”Stellata pulled a brush from the mass of vines that formed her body, “I’m going to take care of your hair dear. It’s woefully under-groomed and your ends are horribly split. Don’t worry it won’t take too long.” After her brief explanation she immediately went to work. Her vines spread out over her head, working to untangle any knots in her long wavy curly hair. Brushing and untangling with a simple move of the arm stroking a brush through hair. The sensation of which she knew was very pleasant to terrans, and she could see Starlight swimming in the delight of it. Multiple vines ending with sharp razor like thorns cutting off the split ends at the end of the brushing and untangling. She did not work as fast as she was capable of, nor did she try to drag it out for a long amount of time. She was purposely pacing herself to let her grooming last as long as the time traveling candle spirits visions in the movie. A perfect distraction from the thoughts troubling her ward. She could easily just fill her with class-E’s, but she wanted Starlight to trust her and she wanted to know a bit more about them. She was already upset about the vet visit, the last thing she needed was to get drugged against her will again. No matter how much her injectors itched to fill her with all the bliss an affini could grant to a sophont. Seeing this cutie so helpless under her excited her to no end. But she didn’t want to accidentally hurt them more than they already were by breaking what little trust they felt for her. It was approaching the end of this chapter of the movie, and as planned Stellata was just about done with her grooming. The greedy man snuffed out the candle spirits light and Stellata cut the last of Starlights split ends. She stood up from her crouched position over her head. “All done! You’re hair should grow much healthier now!” Stellata proclaimed, putting away all of her hair care supplies and grafts.“Thank you Stellata, we appreciate it.” Ranni spoke, looking up at her again. “Oh, and thank you for the meal as well, it was really good.” Ranni worried about not sounding genuine in her thanks, but her worries were not warranted with the affini. Stellata’s core light up at her thanks. Stars, Ranni was such a polite little cutie! “You are so very welcome petal. And it looks like I finished just in time, the Christmas man and his flying house is my favorite part!” Stellata sat down next to her ward and watched the television. Time goes by without much more needs for distractions. She was worried the themes of death in the later parts of the movie would potentially upset Starlight, but she didn’t seem perturbed by it. A relief to the worried affini. The movie went on, the old man learned to be charitable and gave his money to those in need and singles his carols that he once scorned. The formerly underpaid employee sends the audience off and rolls to credits. Starlight managed not to succumb to the painful emotions her memories gave her. At the start of the credits, Stellata got up from her couch and picked up the now empty plate from the coffee table. “How’d you enjoy the film little ones?” Stellata inquired.Ranni looked up to the affini, her body is beginning to feel a bit less heavy now. Not enough to walk on her own, but she can change her posture on her own now. “It’s good! We actually watched this movie last week for Christmas, so it was relatively fresh in our memory. But thank you nonetheless, it was nice having something familiar after this entire day.” Ranni scratched and rubbed her face, settling herself after focusing on the movie for so long. She was starting to feel small hairs growing on her face. It wasn’t bad now, but by tomorrow it was definitely going to be noticable. “Sooo… now what?”“Now my ward, I will be decompiling this plate, giving you a bath, and getting you ready for bed. It is late you know.” She explained to her ward.Ranni eyes widened, “Give me a bath? Wouldn’t it be better if we just did that for ourselves in the morning?” She was not excited about the idea of this woman she just met giving her a bath. It was one thing being fed by Stellata, but being bathed by faer? Scrubbing her naked body? That was too much. She only met the woman earlier today she can’t be seen naked by her!“Absolutely not, I will not neglect your hygiene over something as simple as your inability to stand up. I will keep you balanced, I will be washing you, I will be drying you, and I will be dressing you. You already look like you’ve missed some cleaning days as is. When was the last time you bathed?” Stellata retorted, putting her hand shaped vines on her hip.The affini was right, Starlight hasn’t been able to bath lately due to… well she couldn’t exactly think of a good excuse for why. But it was only two days, she was going to do it today, probably, maybe. “But we…”“No buts, you need all of your needs taken care of. As I stated I will not neglect your hygiene.” She repeated. Her tone was still gentle yet it held a certain weight to it. A weight of power and authority that left Starlight speechless. “Now you lay there and I’ll be right back to get you cuties all cleaned.” Stellata left to the kitchen to decompile the dishes.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“Is she for real? Bathing us? Fucking A she’s already trying to turn us into a pet like the rest of humanity. She’s feeding us, deciding what we watch, and petting us! Now she wants to dress us and clean us! We’re more than capable of cleaning ourself” Madeline shouted from the edge of the thicket, powerful winds blowing behind her rustling the leaves. “We are no lapdog for some space plant!”Ranni sat in the grass twiddling her thumbs, “I don’t know, she seems nice? And she’s only doing this because we can’t stand up. She’s been checking on our comforts constantly, maybe it’s going to be alri…” Ranni tried defending the actions of her new plant friend before getting interrupted by the voice behind 2 burning eyes in the deeper shadow of the woods.“She sedated us and forced us to undergo serious medical procedures against our will. She does not really care for our comforts. This entire kindness of hers is an act to get us to trust her. She has been weakening us, trying to turn us into a pet like those other humans.” Tempest barked its opinions at the angel. “We will be made to crawl on the streets under her rule. It will not suffer the indignity of this floras chains!”Ranni fidgets her fingers together, nervously hiding her wings behind her. She felt small compared to her louder, more cynical headmates. She could also understand what they were scared of. There’s a lot to be scared of with the Affini. As of right now, she seemed only kind, if not also a bit intrusive. Maybe they were right, maybe…---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stellata steps into the room, reaching her vines under Starlight. “Up we go petals, lets get you all cleaned up.” Fae lifted her up in her vines and carrying her off to meet her fate in the soaps and waters of bathtime. They passed through the doors out of the living room. The central tree and reaching up towards the artificial sky of the Affini space station. The sky was dark this time. They knew they were asleep most of the day, but to see the sky dark when they’ve only been awake for a few hours after their morning episode was still a bit jarring. Waking up in an unfamiliar environment and learning everyone they knew were long dead has never properly left their mind. They’ve been trying not to think about it. At least not in front of Stellata again. They felt they needed to suck it up, they’ll have time to cry when they’re alone.Doors opened, leading to a hallway, a liminal space that leads to 3 doors, one with a transparent door that visibly shows a garden on the other side while the others lacked the windows to peak through. She walked through one of the doors away from the garden door, leading to a large bathroom. There was a tub tub large enough to fit a dozen humans easily, already filled with warm water by the looks of it. A tall mirror stood next to the sink and another compiler. Surprisingly there was stairs leading to the sink. Starlight wondered why steps like that didn’t exist for any other furniture in the house. The kitchen counter, the chairs, the dining table, nothing. Only the sink. They wondered why. Why not all the furniture? At first they believed because the affini just didn’t have humans over often if at all, but now they see the size accommodation for 1 thing in the house and all ask the obvious question. Why not everything else?Stellata placed her ward down in front of the mirror, carefully holding her up so she wouldn’t fall under her own weight. “I’m going to have to undress you now okay?” She spoke softly, gently, like trying to soothe a scared cat.Ranni’s couldn’t prevent her cheeks from blushing at the notion. Getting undressed by a giant cosmic fairy plant woman was something nothing in her life ever could have prepared her for. “O-okay… just get it over with.” Ranni whimpered.“I’m going to start with your shirt, than your sweatpants, and than your underwear. This isn’t anything weird or anything to be worried about. It’s just a bath, just try to relax.” Stellata’s soft melodic tone was soothing to the anxiety ridden girl. She nodded in response. Closing her eyes as if not to look at the shame that has befallen her. Her shirt was pulled up, her arms lifted up to slide it off with ease. That wasn’t that bad, she hasn’t been transitioning so long where she’s developed much of a chest, so she didn’t have to get embarrassed about her tits being out that much. She was more self conscious about her body hair than her breasts. She was regretting not shaving her stomach, arms, legs, or anything except her face for the past month or two plus 531 years. Overall, shirt removal was not that bad. The moment she felt vines grip her pants however, she felt her entire body tense up, holding her breath. Something that wasn’t unnoticed by the affini undressing her. “It’s okay, just breath petal.” She soothed. Ranni took a long breath in, and released. And again, another long breath in and a long breath out. “Good girls, you’re doing great.” Her soft voice sang as she removed her sweatpants.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“Gods do not say that while you’re pulling down our pants for fucks sake.” Madeline exclaimed from the woods. Seems she couldn’t properly leave after all. She was still in the co-consciousness.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight lifted her legs one foot at a time as the legs of her pants were taken off. Her underwear was all that laid between her and utter nudity now. She was least glad her transition made it difficult for her to get an erection, she was fairly certain she’d die on the spot of Mabryne saw her get hard over getting undressed for a bath. Stellata grabs her underwear and pulled them down. Starlight kept breathing, her eyes closed trying to pretend that this entire situation wasn’t happening. Time travel? Giant plant people turning humans into pets? Getting undressed and bathed by said giant plant people? Yeah that’s easy enough to imagine away she thought. None of this felt possible anyways. Just breath and make it all go away… Starlight froze up again the moment she felt a stringy wet liquid pull from her underwear as it was pulled down. She has been leaking precum and didn’t even realize it.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sky over the treeline was on fire. Ashes falling from the sky. Madeline put her hand on Aria’s robotic shoulder, “Hey Aria if you’ve ever considered changing your stance against letting any of us egocide now would be the time cause FUUUUUUUUUUCK!” Madeline screamed. Ranni was speechless at the situation. Her face was red even in their headspace. Her six wings splayed out, completely motionless.“Everyone please calm down. Maddie you know I don’t like those kind of jokes so knock that off. It’s fine, this kind of thing happens. The body will do what the body will do. So just breath.” Aria spoke, the fire in the sky calm to reveal the night sky. “This is just a bath, please just calm down.”---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “I-I’m sorry…” Ranni whimpered. Feeling self conscious and guilty that Stellata had to see her precum soaked underwear.Stellata put a vine on Ranni’s shoulder, “It’s okay petal, you have nothing to be sorry about. Now lets get you cleaned up okay?” Stellata spoke softly. Her gentle tone never wavered, her calm confidence was helping Starlight relax rather effectively. She reached under her wards arms and lifted her up and placed her into the bathtub. Keeping her upright as she grabbed a small bucket to scoop up the water in. “I’m about to pour water on you okay, hold your breath and close your eyes when I say and breath again when its done pouring okay?” She carefully explained to her ward.“Okay. I’m ready.” Ranni said weakly in response.Stellata lifted the bucket above Ranni’s head and commanded, “Hold.” Ranni listened to the command and held her breath. The initial soak washed across her, Ranni resumed her breathing the moment she realized the water stopped pouring. “Very good little one. You’re doing great.” Her comforting words steadied Ranni’s breaths. Vines splashing more water and spreading the soak across her body. She scoops up another bucket. “Hold.” Another bucket full of water poured on Starlight’s body. “Good girls.” The affini cooed.Another bucket full of water. Scoop.“Hold.”Pour.“Good Girls.”Scoop“Hold.”Pour.“Good girls.”Stellata reached to the edge of the tub and grabbed the shampoo, lifting the bottle of over Ranni’s head. Pouring it down onto her scalp. Her vines rubbing it in, cleaning her obedient wards hair in a great bubbly coat. Vines scratching her head scrubbing the shampoo into her hair. When she felt it was nice and soaked she scooped up another bucket of water. “Hold.” She commanded again, Starlight obeyed without a word. Closing her eyes and holding her breath as the water flowed on her head. Soapy water washing off of her head putting suds over the warm bathwater below. “You’re doing great petal, good girls.” Stellata praised again.Starlight grumbled. “Do you need to say that every time?” Her voice was deeper again, it was Madeline.She filled the bucket with water again, “Do what petal?” She inquired. “Hold” She ordered immediately after asking. Starlight breathed in and held her breath. The water rinses more of the shampoo off her head as it flowed into the pool below her. “Good girls.”“That! The teasing! It’s weird! Knock it off!” She exclaimed! Madeline clearly did not handle embarrassment well. To Stellata this was just adorable!“Teasing? What teasing? I’m just praising my ward for doing such a good job in her time of difficulty.” Mabryne playfully teased scooping up another bucket of water.“You know exactly what you’re do…”“Hold.”Pour.“Good girls.”---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “I’m having a fucking conniption.” The imp complained to her alters.Ranni raised her eyebrow at her disapproving headmate. “Than why did you front? I had it handled. Hell I was maybe starting to enjoy it a bit.” She felt a bit embarrassed admitting that, even to those who exist with her mind.Madeline scoff ed at Ranni’s remark , “That’s because you’re just a slut who will fall for anyone who’s even a little nice to you. You’re getting distracted from the big picture here.” She grabs her angelic headmates broken halo and drags her to get in her face . “She’s going to enslave us if we’re not careful and you’re losing a battle against bathtime! Get your head in the game Ranni before you damn us all! I will front because I’m the only one who seems to be able to say no to this woman got it?”“I… okay… if you think its best Maddie…” Ranni resigned, Mad eline ’s reasoning w as sound. They were at risk of becoming a pet, perhaps letting herself enjoy being washed by the one who want s her in a collar isn’t the best play.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The affini had finished rinsing off the shampoo from her wards hair. She grabbed another bottle from the end of the tub, conditioner. Madeline moved her hand up as fast as she could, although given the drugs in her system wasn’t very quick at all, to grab the bottle from the affini. She may not be able to stand very well, but she could move her arms. Stellata moved the bottle out of her wards reach. “We can wash ourselves you know? Just keep us upright and we can take care of ourselves.” Madeline tried to explain to the woman looming over faer.Stellata looked down at the rebellious sophont. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea Madeline. Yes you can move your arms but you’re going to strain yourself trying to scrub it in, not to mention leaning down to wash your body. It is better for me to do it for you. I’ve already told you all it’s only this one time okay? Please just relax for me petal.” Stellata’s words pierced through Madeline’s mind, releasing what tension she had built in her body. She looked down in defeat. Maybe it was better just to let her get it over with. Besides every time she speaks up she’s just slowing her down and making this whole ordeal take longer.Madeline did not say anything, she simply stood there in the water. Letting the mantis woman continue her work. Lathering Starlight’s hair in her conditioners, her vines working to soak every strand of hair in this softening soap. From roots to tips she put the utmost care into this canvas she has found herself with. She left the conditioner to sit as she prepared a loofah with body wash. She started with Starlight’ face. Something she once again seemed to have issue with. “What are you doing?”Madeline’s question did not stop her, she simply decide to explain as she worked. “I’m cleaning your face, silly girl. You want clean soft skin don’t you?” She scrubbed her cheeks, her forehead, her neck, and behind her ears. A smile on her face and a hum in the air as she worked.“I mean, yeah I guess but…”“I thought I told you no buts already Starlight.” She said with a smile. She rinsed the soap off of Starlight’s face. “There you go, no more soap on your face. So you were saying cutie?”Madeline pouted and sighed. “Nothing... Continue.” They knew she was enjoying this more than she should. This was a bath, why did she look so pleased with herself?“Good girl, it’s only going to be a little while longer.” She worked her way down her body. Her shoulders, her chest, her arms, her stomach, and her legs. Lifting them out of the water to clean them thoroughly. Noting the twitching response her body had when washing her inner thighs. Next she lifted her arms and washed her armpits, at this point Madeline was just trying to disassociate this whole experience. She accepted she couldn’t do anything, but refused to let herself experience it to its fullest. Nothing was really pulling her out of the fog she has put herself in. At least not until her vines went lower, the loofah touching her junk. This snapped her out of it instantly.“HEY!” She exclaimed the moment loofah touched her.“Hmm? Oh right, you terrans get so self conscious when it comes to your genitalia. It’s just a part of your body dear, it needs to get cleaned like the rest.” She reassured the embarrassed girl. This was when Madeline got the most tense, where she most regretting her decision to front. Her plan to take control of the situation didn’t exactly pan out. For the life of her she could not comprehend why she didn’t just switch out again. At this point she was already feeling a bit of a headache from the sheer amount of back and forth they’ve all been doing. Despite the 4+ years of experience with their plurality, they were not immune to the strain switching had on their brain. At least for the embarrassed girl, thinking about her plurality was at least a good distraction from the plant woman scrubbing her taint.Stellata moved the loofah off of Madeline’s body, “There, all done! That wasn’t so bad now was it?” She said with her usual cheery tone. Madeline however just grunted in response. “Now all we have to do is rinse! Are you ready my grouchy girl?” She kept that smile on her face. there was no doubt about it, she was enjoying this.“I am not your grou…”“Hold.”Pour“Good Girls.”Madeline gritted their teeth. “As I was saying… I’m not your grouchy girl. I’m not yours, and I’m not grouchy!” Madeline proclaimed, irritated and grouchy.Mabryne giggled at the grumpy girl in her bathtub. “True enough, you are just my ward, not my floret. You are however very grouchy. Hold”Pour“Good girls.”Madeline pouted, at least Stellata admitted that they weren’t her pet. Or at least that they aren’t hers. Thinking of the possible implication that shes setting them up to be someone elses pet felt even worse. As much as they hated to admit it she’s the only person they even kind of know in this era. Being with her at least was probably better than being alone. As of right now she’s the closest thing they had to a friend if the definition of friend here was being stretched a bit. It’s only been one day, and they’ve been asleep for most of it. Any time they spent awake was either in total fear or completely incapable of moving.Scoop “Hold.”Pour.“Good girls.”---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Madeline counted her blessings. At least despite everything Princess hasn’t tried fronting. Keeping her out of control of their body was basically priority one from this point on. She’s a sweet girl, but if anyone were to be excited about a collar around her neck, it would be the dog girl in these woods. The last thing she needs is for one girls lack of foresight to ruin their chances at possibly not being a pet to these affini. Luckily Aria hasn’t introduced the whole system yet, even though she offered to back in the morning. Probably even telling her there’s someone in here named “Princess” would be dangerous.Ranni looked over to her headmate, “What if we don’t get a choice? Like, what if the entire human species is just pets now? None of the people we saw in public looked very… not petlike.” Her words carried a terrifying weight to them. One that lit the sky with lightning and a thunderous boom.“Oh fuck…”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Scoop“Hold.”Pour“Good girls.”Madeline wasn’t sure if it was only water washing over her with the sweat rolling down her brow. She needed to know for sure, did they even have a chance at being free? She looked up into the bright blue eyes of the affini as she worked to get another bucket of water from the tub. “H-hey Mabryne?” Madeline couldn’t hide the shakiness of faer voice.Stellata looked at her ward. “Yes petal? What’s the matter, are you alright?” She had noticed Madeline’s fear. She was observant, which didn’t make Starlight feel any safer from her.“Did the Affini en… er turn every human into pets? Are we doomed to be nothing more than a pet?” The words leaving her lips made her feel worse, her heart beating out of their chest.“Oh dirt I never mentioned independents to you? No, not every xenosophont in the Affini Compact become florets. Many sophonts are more than capable of taking care of their own happiness and wellbeing and do not need owners to take care of them.” She scoops the water in the bucket. “Hold.” Madeline held her breath once more, allowing Stellata to pour her in one more rinsing cycle. This time when she breathed out she felt much of the worry she was feeling leave her. She had hope, hope that she may get out of this uncollared, the free spirit she was always meant to be. And in a post scarcity society too! She could do anything, she’s no longer limited to such things as resources or wealth. “Good girls. I think that about does it for the rinsing, lets get you dry and into some fresh new clothes. Does a night gown work for you Maddie? You can pick the color and pattern if you want.” Her offer felt a lot more appealing now, knowing that they aren’t going to be forced into being a pet.Stellata lifted her ward up and padded them down with a towel. Absolutely the softest towel Starlight has ever felt in her life. “Uhhh, we’ve always been a fan of like, wine red or burgundy or whatever that shade is called. I’m also a fan of a shade of green that is also starting to approach the blues but not too much whatever that color is called.”“Like a sea green?” Stellata responded, finishing up wiping down Starlight’s body.Madeline thought for a quick second before nodding, “Yeah that’s probably it, many of us in here have our own preferences of color but wine red tends to be one we all enjoy. As well as magenta and many colors of reds and purples.” Madeline openly explained. She was beginning to think she might have been over explaining their favorite color nuances. Stellata thought it was adorable how much the sophonts were getting excited about colors. For her, she was glad the cuties weren’t as scared as before. She wraps the towel around their body, something that made Madelines nervousness about her nudity go away almost entirely. Stellata gently sat Starlight on the floor before standing tall and typed on her pad, searching for a night gown for her ward that matched their color preferences. She decided on one with a floral pattern with a huge focus on red hues and shades across it. It was perfect for the cuties. “I’m going to grab your clothes from the compiler. While I’m there do you want me to decompile your old outfit?”Madeline almost immediately agreed before thinking about it for a second. Those clothes are probably the only thing from 2025 she took with her. “No, I think I’d like to keep those. For sentimental value.” She honestly didn’t think much of the outfit she traveled here in until now. To her it was just another outfit without much meaning to it. Just plane white sweatpants and a shirt covered in coffee mugs she slept in. As well as whatever underwear she had on that night, she didn’t even remember which pair she was wearing. They weren’t exactly her favorite, especially considering the small hole in the sweatpants, but they were all she had left of the time she came from now.Stellata nodded her hand, “I completely understand, I’ll at least clean them for you than.” She puts the clothes in her body, between the vines that formed her body. She walked over to the compiler on the wall and with a push of a button a fresh pair of underwear and a beautiful red flower pattern nightgown were made in an instant. She picked up the clothes and delivered it to the cuties on the floor. Lifting her up and unwrapping the towel around her body so she can start dressing her. She slid her new underwear up her legs, much like every other fabric from the affini these were the most comfortable panties she’s ever worn. She was starting to realize that when it comes to just manifesting matter and the lack of capitalism they really were just free to make anything the highest quality they could make. The gown was just as wonderful, made from a soft material that made her freshly washed skin almost sing in delight. Madeline couldn’t help herself from grabbing at it and rubbing it in faer hands. Stellata took great pride in seeing her little grouchy ward so happy in her new outfit. She sneaked in a picture on her pad of this precious moment. She had to show this to Paradise, they were going to love it! This was far from the first picture she’s taken of Starlight this day, and the cameras in the hab recorded nearly everything. But seeing Madeline rub her hands on her first new outfit was just extra precious! She was feeling excited and confident! Right before she remembered something important, the monitor collar. She could give them a cuff instead and avoid the worry a collar could give her, but Paradise had always suggested against the cuffs unless absolutely necessary. She’s been holding off on putting it on her after Aria’s anxiety upon discovering florets. They seem a lot more comfortable now knowing about that the Affini didn’t turn everyone into their pets. But she had to do it, all wards need a monitor. “By the way Starlight, I have one more thing for you.”Madeline lifted her head up away from her cool new gown to the giant woman, “Yeah?”Stellata pulled a collar out of her body. Madeline froze upon seeing it, “W-wait I don’t understand. I thought we weren’t your pet?” Stellata knew she would assume this meant her florethood.“No no you’re not a pet petal. This is a collar for wards. It’s made to monitor your wellbeing. Blood pressure, heart rate, injuries, and any other immediate threat to your wellbeing. This isn’t a sign of ownership, I promise you. No other sophont will assume you’re my floret while wearing this.” She tried comforting her ward. “All wards need to wear these. You’ll take it off when your wardship ends I promise.”To Madeline, this sounded fake, dubious as best. But perhaps the cultural meaning of collars is different here. It didn’t have a name tag or anything on it. But still, it was a monitoring device she wore around her neck. That didn’t make her feel very secure. “I guess… We don’t get a choice do we?”“I’m afraid not petal. Now please lift your head for me.” Madeline sighed, there wasn’t much she could do on the floor. She couldn’t try running away when her legs didn’t work. There was nothing she could do but lift her head, exposing her neck to the alien.
CLICK
 It was on, Madeline knew it was on, but she didn’t really feel it. She tugged on it, it was firm yet flexible and all without sacrificing comfort. She rolled her neck around to test it, it never restricted her movement. Comfortable and flexible, Madeline was impressed. She didn’t feel great about the monitoring but at least it wasn’t cumbersome. “So, how does it feel. Any discomforts?” Stellata asked her freshly collared ward. “Besides the monitoring aspect of this it, no. It’s actually a lot more comfortable than we thought it was going to be.” Madeline admitted to Stellata. Stellata’s wings flap rapidly in excitement, “I’m glad it’s comfortable, the last thing I want is for my beautiful ward to be uncomfortable.” She lifted Madeline from the ground and carried her up to the sink, “Now, time get your teeth brushed.” She stroked her wards long hair, the water weighed it down making its usual dark brown color look more like a black. Madeline had forgotten about her teeth, which was a common occurrence for her system. She remembered Tempest getting told that their dental health was taken care of at the doctors, so she assumed the affini also knew they had poor dental habits. She didn’t remember the last time she had even been to a dentist. No dental insurance and healthcare prices made it impossible for this neet. Madeline laid her head down, “Okay.” She sighed. Madeline could see Stellata’s thorny grin on the other side of the mirror over the sink as a vine grew out of her hand. It was a bristled vine covered in some kind of cleaning minty sap. Stellata didn’t wait before it went right into Starlight’s mouth. Brushing every angle of every tooth thoroughly. Smaller vines making their way between her teeth as she brushed. Flossing her teeth roughly at the same time as fae brushed them. She would not let her wards teeth fall into the same disrepair they were found in. While the vet was surprised how mostly healthy she was, the same could not be said about her dental health. Comparatively she was about as healthy as some of the Accords old wealthy elites from Titan, although they had plenty of other issues beyond their health that Starlight seemingly didn’t seem to have. None of them had ever celebrated the fall of Capitalism like Starlight did. The lack of pollution in her body and the fat storage in her body imply better eating condition than the common wild terran does add to the validity of her time traveler story. As unbelievable as it is, there certainly was a good bit of evidence for these little timelost sophonts she had in her care. She pondered getting the aid of a xenoarcheologist. If anyone could find any evidence at all from the old archives of pre Accord Terra, they’d be the best at finding it. And if they found nothing than it’d be proof that this cutie has been lying, whether they believe they are or not. She hasn’t questioned her under the effects of a class-D yet, perhaps something she should do before contacting the Offices of Xenoarcheology. She figured out her plan, tomorrow should would get the grafts she needed for her ward, ask her about her past on class-D’s, and improvise from there. She’d hate to bother Paradise again, they already looked after the shop after Starlight’s surprise visit to her hab. Asking them to watch the cutie for the day the very next day felt like taking advantage of them. But on the other vine, introducing Starlight to Vivian might help her get more comfortable with the idea of the floret life. It’s a common tactic for helping nervous seeds. When they see how good it is they begin accepting florethood as a part of their future with open arms. She’ll just have to see if Paradise is available. Worst case scenario, she takes Starlight with her to the graft garden with her. Far from harmful, it’d just be a bit boring for Starlight. It’d probably useful to show her more of the culture of the Aquilfolim. To Stellata, this was a good thing no matter what. And if Paradise accepts she’ll have plenty of opportunity to take her ward out for walks in the future. Stellata pulls her vine out of the cuties mouth, as fun as it was she couldn’t just keep playing with the cuties mouth. It was getting late and she needed them to be up somewhat early tomorrow. “There we are, all done!” She put her vines on the cuties cheeks and made her give a big smile. “Look at those pretty things, white as winter!” Madeline stared at faer teeth, she’s never seen them this clean before. They’ve always been some shade of yellow for as long as she could remember. It was unbelievable to see, only a single visit to the doctor and all of this. Her chronic pain was gone and her teeth looked better than ever. The future was certainly impressive in the eyes of these timelost sophonts. Stellata sweeps Starlight off of her feet and cradled into faer vines. “Now to show you all your room for the night you pretty things you!” Madeline rolled her eyes at the compliment. They’d accepted the fact that Stellata was a ceaseless flirt at this point. Still they hoped fae’d stop when she could move on her own again in the morning, as unlikely as that is. Or better yet that she’d wake up in her actual bed again and all of this was just some strange dream. The affini left the bathroom door and into the door opposite of the garden door. It slides open, revealing another bedroom. “Here we are cuties! Your new room!” Fae gestured to it. It had everything a bedroom needs, bed, nightstand, end table, drawers, and a wardrobe. All oversized and all with some floral motif. “Normally this is a guest bedroom but seeing how you’re going to be staying with me for awhile, this is going to be your room from now on! We can change up its aesthetics later to make it feel more homely for you, as well as some terran sized furniture. I hope it meets your 21st century standards cuties!” Madeline looks around the room,“It does Mabyrne, thanks.” Madeline was surprised she was getting an actual bed. She was expecting to go into some pet bed or something like she saw in Stellata’s room. “So like, do we really need to go to bed? Isn’t it still a bit early for that?” “Yes you need to go to bed, it’s 23:13. Well past the time you should have been asleep, but you spent most of today asleep so it’s fine to be in bed a little late.” Stellata explained to her ward. Madeline spent a moment translating military time in her head. “11:13? That’s past bed time? That’s nothing!” The defiant girl claimed. “Also why do we even have a bedtime? We’re used to staying up way past this on way less sleep” Madeline told the plant woman, who responded in shock at what she just said. “How late did you all stay up at night before?” Madeline scratched her chin, “I don’t know like, 2am-4am usually.” They saw Stellata’s eyes turn from a deep blue to a bright yellow, “Petal that is way too late at night! Absolutely no way you can stay up that late, it’s not good for you! If you’re having trouble sleeping I’d be more than happy to give you a dose of class-Z.” She couldn’t stop herself from petting the girls after hearing their plight. Her injectors ready to give her a dose of Z’s in a moments notice. “What is a ‘class-Z’?” Madeline asked. “It’s a xenodrug! Medicine grafted into my body designed for xenosophonts like you to help you sleep. I actually injected Aria with one this morning before your checkup at the vet.” She explained. This was Madeline’s first time learning it. She hadn’t questioned why she passed out this morning, being distracted by many other things this night. She wasn’t really that surprised. She already had invasive surgery done to them, whats a bit of drugging to go with it. “I… huh so that explains what happened earlier today. Anyways I think we’ll be fine without it thanks.” Madeline waves her hand as a dismissing gesture to the idea. This disappointed Stellata, she was really hoping she’d say yes to at least one xenodrug today. She hid her disappointment, there would be time in the future she was sure. When the cuties were just a bit more comfortable. “So be it, than I’ll just get you tucked in than.” Stellata carried her over to her bed, lifting its covers and placing the ward on the mattress and covering her with the blankets, tucking it in around their body. Madeline immediately melted into the blankets, they were just so comfortable. This was absolutely pleased the affini in the room. “Awwww, looks like you like it!” She cooed. Madeline turned her body away from Stellata, hiding her flustered face from sight. She grumbled, “Yeah it’s pretty comfortable thanks.” She spoke quietly and quickly, not wanting to be heard but not wanting to seem ungrateful. “Hmm? What was that Maddie?” She leaned over the bed, the side of her face towards Starlight. “Couldn’t hear you~.” “I said thanks for the bed.” She said, louder this time. Stellata rewarded the little rebel with a pet on her head. “You’re very welcome cutie.” She stood up and walks to the door, more specifically to a switch by the door. “Goodnight Starlight.” “Goodnight Stellata.” With a flick of a switch, the lights in the room were off. And Stellata left the room. Starlight was alone. For the first time all day, she was alone. She let out a breath of relief.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Madeline collapsed on a hammock over the gravel beach. “Fucking finally.” She exclaimed. Ranni nodded in agreement. Despite being awake for only 4 hours at best, today lasted forever for the girls of the Starlight Forest. Everyone was exhausted, even Aria, who normally has enough energy to maintain control over the system. But right now, everyone’s social battery was drained. No one felt like falling asleep, but everyone was tired. “Fuck today. Absolutely fuck today. Fucking time travel, fucking affini, fucking fuck.” Madeline complained with excessive swearing. Recalling the events of the day. From the morning, the vet, the walk to the hab, the feeding, the bath, everything was just too much today. And none of the people who actually help her feel better were around anymore. All because whatever cruel god out there that decided to send them to this future just had to send them in alone. Trying to hope that they’re all doing okay even tho they were missing was inherently a false thought process. This wasn’t getting teleported to just a new location, but a whole new time. With no sign of going back. No portal between time and space to bring her back or anything, no explaination of how or why. The affini clearly are just as confused as she was, so the hope of having a way back were slim. She tried to imagine what they’d be doing right now seeing her missing. But there was no “what they were doing right now”. They weren’t around right now. They got left behind, gone, dead. Dead… and they never even got to know what happened… they lived their whole lives without her, probably wondering where they went. Grieved her loss, shed tears for her, and died without her. Madeline couldn’t hold it in anymore. She had to let it out, the sorrow was overwhelming. Luckily, this time they were alone.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Madeline buried her face in the pillow, she was finally alone. This the only time she felt she could let it out. When no one is watching. And so she screamed into the pillow. Damning the world for separating her from the only family she cared about. “WHY!” Her screams were muffled by the padding of the pillow. “WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY!!! WHY JUST US! WHY!?” She punched her bedding, “HOW COULD YOU! HOW FUCKING COULD YOU!” Her tears and snot soaked the pillow. Everything in her hurt, every blade of grass, every tree, every atom in the Starlight Forest screamed in agony. Her mind and body were overwhelmed beyond rational thought. “FUCK TODAY! FUCK OUR LIFE! FUCK THIS STUPID FU…”  “Starlight are you okay? Mulch, do you need Miss Stellata? What happened?” SeaGlass chimed in. Starlight forgot about the AI. They panicked, they didn’t want to be seen like this. Not even by the AI. She turned her face off the pillow, screaming turned into shutting down and a need to disengage, “Leave me alone… go away.” Madeline whimpered at the AI. “Starlight please, it’s going to be alright. It’s okay.” The AI tried to comfort her, but she would not listen. Starlight scoffed at the AI’s attempt at comfort, “What do you know, you’re an AI, an algorithm. You’re not a real person, you said so yourself.” She dismissed at the AI. “Algorithm? I’m not a… What do you think an AI is?” SeaGlass inquired. Starlight didn’t respond. SeaGlass already said it wasn’t a sophont. And she has pieced together that sophont is just another word for person in this culture at this point. She didn’t want to waste her time arguing with a chatbot or whatever specific thing SeaGlass is.  SeaGlass paused for only a moment. “I… I’m going to contact Miss Stellata.” This caused panic in Starlight. Her heart jumped, she did not want to see Stellata right now. Not like this. “NO! PLEASE NO DON’T!” Madeline pleaded to the hab. “I…”
Beep
 The collar just beeped. Starlight didn’t know what this meant. She could assume however, it is a monitoring device meant to check… “Fuck.” The door opened, the familiar mantis affini rushed over to the bed. Her petals and leaves looking unorganized and her eyes glowing the bright yellow again. “Petal!? What happened I just left the room. Are you okay? You’ve been crying here let me…” “NO!” She barked and the affini before curling up, turning away from Stellata. “No… Please… just go away. Let us grieve please. We just want to be alone.” Madeline spoke through her tears. Mabryne did not listen to her pleas, instead choosing to sit by her bedside and clean her wards face. “No, petal I’m not abandoning you like this. You’re going to tell me whats wrong. And then I’m giving you some class-Z’s. So talk to me.” Her request echoed in Madeline’s mind. “We just.. we… I… I want to go back…” Her words were difficult to make out through her tears, but Stellata could understand her regardless. “We had people we loved back in 2025. And they’re gone…” She spoke weakly. Sniffling interrupting her words. “All of our friends, our family…” Stellata wrapped her vines around her ward. Her core ached more and more with every word Starlight spoke. She had lost the pinnates she had from her time, the thought felt like a shards of burning hot blades wedging themselves into her core. “Everbloom… You poor girls, I’m so sorry. I should have realized this was hurting you. You don’t have to hide this from me petal. I want to help you. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize sooner” She pulls herself away to look at Starlight’s eyes, wiping away a tear from her cheek. “I will do everything in my power to make up for this pain in your heart. I promise.” Stellata’s words comforted Madeline, it made the tears flow a bit easier and less painful. But the question still burned in her mind. “Why? You haven’t even known us for a day, you don’t even know all of us. Why make a promise like that to someone you don’t even know?” Stellata brought Starlight over to her chest in a deep embrace, keeping their head to faer chest. Her core humming to her, singing its calming melodies to the greiving ward. “Because you are worth it. Your happiness is worth it. Your smile is worth it. Every good thing I can bring you is worth it.” Stellata pulled away and wiped down the crying wards face. Cleaning every inch of it as many times as she needed no matter how many tears fell. Madeline still didn’t understand, but at this moment she didn’t care to understand the psychology of this alien caregiver. Stellata reached out a vine that had a bright yellow and blue flower with a thin needle on its tip “Now hand me your arm, it’s time to get some sleep, tomorrow will be better okay?” Madeline pulled her arm away from the affini, a quick panicked look gazed up towards the affini. “N-no injections, please. N-no needles.” She pleaded. Stellata pulled back her injector, retreating it back into her body. “No needles than.” She spoke softly, lifting a finger up as a glob of golden sap formed on its tip. “Stick your tongue out for me petal.” Starlight listened to the Mabryne’s request, slowly sticking out her tongue as she was asked. Stellata pressed faer fingertip onto her wards tongue and guided it back into Starlight’s mouth. Starlight felt the effects immediately, her eyes growing heavier by the second the moment she closed her mouth. “Good girls, it’s time for bed now.” The affini’s voice sang like a harmony of angels. Starlight felt everything dim, her eyes grew heavier with each fraction of a second. “Goodniiight Stel…” She could not finish, as her mind drifted to slumber. “Goodnight Starlight.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Mabryne Stellata First Bloom leaves her wards bedroom, pulling our her pad to turn on the habs recorded footage of her bedroom. She watched her pad and reviewed the footage from this morning and early afternoon looking closely at her bedroom. This was the room Starlight was found in from SeaGlass’s telling. She’s already reviewed the footage of Starlight leaving the bed when SeaGlass messaged her at 12:07. It told her next to nothing, from how it looked the sohpont just was under her blankets from the moment she made her bed in the morning and than Starlight just flipped over the blankets when she woke up at noon. She reviewed the footage again and again looking for some sign of her entrance, but at no point was there any sign of a Starlight sized lump in the bed. Perhaps a fault of her multiple thick blankets, seeing anything as small as her underneath three layers of affini sized blankets might have never have been possible. There was no clear sign of entry, nor a sign that she was was moved there from space and time like Starlight’s story may imply. Mabryne Stellata was stumped, she struggled to find any explanation for how Starlight found herself in faer bed. Until she saw her flip the blankets out of bed and noticed something. She’s been so focus on looking for a moment of entry that she hadn’t paid full attention to the girls leaving the bed. She saw a gray spot, one only slightly different from the gray colored blanket she kept on the first layer of her bed, underneath her blankets get thrown off the terran.It was perfectly sized for Starlight’s body. This was evidence! Or at least fae hoped it was evidence.Stellata wasted no time, she rushed out of the small hallway into the central room and unfurled her body.Stretching her form into a cluster of long vines and climbing up the balcony with her might strength. The door to her room slid open as she approached.Stellata wasted no time to investigating.She saw her bed was still disturbed from the little ones tossing the blankets aside when she woke up. Fae looked at the flipped over blankets and there it was, some gray fabric caught on her blankets. A gray fabric she has never seen before was laying in her bed. It was almost identical to her blanket underneath but it was a different material and a slightly lighter shade of gray than her blanket. She reached down to it and examined the unknown gray blanket. It was a soft material, a faux fur of some kind, much higher quality than you’d expect from a wild terran. Perhaps she wasn’t wild at all, she was inside an Affini space station after all. She could be some independent playing a little game with her. Cuties sometimes skipped the domestication centers and go to their desired affini directly. But than why would she seem so unclear about domestication, and even more so confused by her surroundings? That didn’t add up, not unless she somehow class-B’d herself when before she came in. But why would she do that? She wasn’t sure, there had to be an explanation somewhere. The gray blanket wasn’t the only strange new thing here, there was a sheet under her blankets she hasn’t seen before. It had constellation patterns on it, picking it up it was easy to tell this was made of a cheaper material than the gray blanket. Like the cheap mass produced products made by the Terran Accord. Under the sheet there seemed to be a cut up piece of a mattress on her bed. She lifted the mattress up. It was torn apart, little bits of metal implied spring coils were inside of it but they seem to have been cut apart before being placed here. Starlight was lucky she didn’t cut herself on these on her way out, this was shards of metal on her bed for goodness sake! This is dangerous for cuties like her! This didn’t make sense, she knew terrans often bonded with objects, especially soft things like blankets. But this mattress was trash even by Accord standards. How’d she even get it in here unnoticed?“SeaGlass dear?” She called to her AI.There was a short pause, one Stellata was not expecting from her hab AI. It did not lost for more than a second but she still took note of it. “Yes Miss Stellata?” The AI responded.“You’re positive you didn’t see anything strange happen in here last night right? Nothing at all?” This didn’t make any sense, why would she leave a torn up mattress here? “Nope! It was like nothing happened at all! You’ve seen all I’ve seen Miss Stellata. I can’t make any sense of it either.” SeaGlass answered. Stellata didn’t expect a new answer from SeaGlass, but she was positively stumped on what this could be.Stellata sat on her bed, holding the gray fabric and the constellation sheet in her vines. This was new evidence, the more and more she learned about Starlight the more and more possible it felt that she might have actually have come from the past. Yet at the same time, time travel was still such an unlikely possibility. Surely if such a thing was possible the Compact would have already been using it, right? Helping cuties across the universe before they ever had a chance to hurt themselves, before they ever felt hunger, or before being without a hug in this great void above the sky. She couldn’t come to conclusions yet, she still needed to ask Starlight questions when she had no ability to lie whatsoever just to make absolutely sure she wasn’t playing some trick on her. The most she could do for now is contact Paradise and see if they’re available to pet sit little Starlight while she left for the grafts she needed. She opened her pad and sat at the edge of her bed. There was a few new messages, most importantly there was one from the vet and one from Paradise. She chose to start with Doctor Apican’s message, possible medical updates are more important than chatting with friends.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[PlumingHearts] Hello Miss Stellata, thought I’d throw you a message letting you know that no extra complications were found in the cutie LOL (I learned that means Laugh Out Loud! LOL). But I am personally curious on how they’re doing now that they’re at your hab. Did you enjoy the helpless little cuties?[Collars4Cuties] Overall I want to say it went well! Tempest switched out to Aria on the walk home. They did get a bit scared when they learned about florets however, as many wild sophonts do. Aria is going to be interesting, she’s not a feralist she’s just… how do I put this... She hasn’t accepted that I’m taking care of them and that she doesn’t have to anymore. She very specifically said her systems wellbeing was her responsibility. [Collars4Cuties] And than there’s Madeline. Between her and Tempest I believe we found the most feral cuties in her system. She tried fighting every piece of care I gave her. Either being a little grump about it or forcing a switch with Ranni to avoid the treatment. Everbloom, Ranni was an absolute delight to take care of! She’s going to~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~She paused typing. Fae were going to say, “She’s going to be an adorable floret!” She can’t just claim them as her florets yet. They don’t seem know the world around them yet. They might still find more happiness in independence or with a more qualified affini in the end. Even if she couldn’t imagine them being happier anywhere more than in her vines.

She shook the thoughts from her head. “No, bad. I still don’t know if I’m a good fit for her.”

She discarded the thoughts, looking back down at her pad and finishing her message.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Collars4Cuties] And than there’s Madeline. Between her and Tempest I believe we found the most feral cuties in her system. She tried fighting every piece of care I gave her. Either being a lil grump about it or forcing a switch with Ranni to avoid the treatment. Ranni however was an absolute delight! She’s a wonderful little cutie! I can’t wait for you to see them again!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~That was enough of that until Apican responded back, he was probably tending to Treshrak right now. Stellata knows how much care that cutie needs nowadays. Now to message Paradise, who she imagined was going to ask the same question about Starlight as the vet.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[TrueParadise] Let me know when you get her back to the hab! Lil Vivi and I are absolutely wilting to learn more about this little mystery you found!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Right, she never checked her messages when she got back to the hab. They were expecting her to respond. It was pretty easy to get distracted with sophonts like Starlight. Still, it felts a little bad to have never messaged back all afternoon. They deserved to know more about the girls who made faer leave her business for the day.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Collars4Cuties] Hi! Sorry for the late reply, got distracted. It’s been a very active day taking care of a cutie who couldn’t move for the entire day. Hold on let me forward the summary I gave to Apican about how they day went.→ 2 FORWARDED MESSAGES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Stellata pondered what to do as she waited for a reply. Perhaps come up with some new shapes for her body. Starlight mentioned a fear of bugs, and the last thing she’d want is to freak her out with her mantis body. She did specify that it was specifically “swarms of bugs” so maybe the mantis body is still good? No, it’s better safe than sorry with Starlight, she’s clearly got enough on her plate. When was the last time she went full humanoid anyways? A month? It might be a good time to bring it back, Vivian did like a more fairy approach to her appearance. Could be a fun surprise for both Starlight and Vivian.DING!A message, a reply from Paradise.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[TrueParadise] OH STARS WOW! Did you bathe them? You need to send me the footage of their first bath! Tell me EVERYTHING![Collars4Cuties] Yes actually! They seemed mostly docile during it, Madeline made some attempts to take control that I swiftly denied. Silly girl wasn’t very happy when I had to clean her genitals though hehe.[True Paradise] It’s adorable how flustered new pets get about their “private parts”. Although I’m surprised to hear she was fighting it at all. Did you not use class-A’s? It’s basically a tradition to use class-A infused soaps. I know you have some.[Collars4Cuties] That is true. I didn’t want to overwhelm her however. She had a long day as is and the response Tempest had over a beneficial surgery has me a bit worried about taking it too far, at least until I have the proper grafts to manage it.[TrueParadise] Stellata you beautiful first bloom you. Cuties are just like that. They fight against anything that helps them at first but as you keep doing it they learn how nice it is and absolutely fall in love with it. Do you think Vivi was cheering my praise after her first class-J dose? Dirt no! But do you see her get upset about xenodrugs nowadays? She absolutely loves her J Days now! [Collars4Cuties] I know I know. It’s just that…[TrueParadise] Just what Mabby? Talk to me. [Collars4Cuties] I want Aria to trust me. [TrueParadise] How would xenodrugs stop that exactly? [Collars4Cuties] I know I know. It’s just... how she talked about her responsibility over her system has me worried that if I do too much she won’t trust me to care for her system. And I won’t lie, I’ve been fantasizing about her surrendering to me and willingly putting my collar on her system. I need her trust before that can happen and I don’t think drugging them immediately is a good way to have that at the moment.  [TrueParadise] If that’s what you want I’ll respect it. Just promise me that if she refuses to let you take care of Starlight that you won’t let her hurt any longer than she needs to. Her happiness should be your priority Mabby, regardless of what Aria says. You’re the affini here, not her. She can’t take care of them the way you can. [TrueParadise] Anyways, I wanted to talk about the whole time travel thing you mentioned. There’s no way she’s telling you the truth, at the very least she’s only thinking that’s what happened. Time travel can’t exist, the Compact would have been using it by now if it did.[Collars4Cuties] I’m not too sure anymore, there’s actually a good amount of evidence for her story here. I do plan on asking them questions about it while on class-D’s. If they say the same story than we’ll know they’re not lying.[TrueParadise] I’m not going to say you didn’t find evidence. I’ve seen some sophonts make really convincing tales only to crack under a bit of class-D’s. Evidence can help you feel confident in an outcome but in the end for a case like this I really suggest you find proof before you come to any conclusions.

[Collars4Cuties]

That’s a fair enough point. That being said,

if she still says she’s from

the 21

st

century

on class-D’s I plan on contacting the Office of Xenoarchaeology to find proof.

[TrueParadise] Sounds like a plan than. Please keep me updated on the cuties progress! [Collars4Cuties] Oh and one more thing Paradise. Do you think you and Vivian could watch Starlight for me tomorrow… or later today at this point, for me? I need to get the xenodrugs grafted and get some groceries to properly cook for Starlight. [TrueParadise] And the shop? [Collars4Cuties] I’ll have to not open for the day, closing for a bit to look after a ward. I’ll show her the shop when they’re all a bit better trained. Tallence can use the bathing rooms to clean any of the sophonts from the cafe if he needs to still. [TrueParadise] We’d be delighted to watch the cutie for the day! Vivian said she wanted to meet the cuties and who am I to say no to a girl who begs like her.[Collar4Cuties] Thank you so much Paradise. Sorry for so many requests from you these past 2 days. [TrueParadise] Mabby darling you’ve only asked two things of me, that’s hardly anything! Besides, it’s not everyday cuties magically appears in your hab! I’ll be there by breakfast, want me to pick up breakfast for the cuties? I can be there at 10:00 in the morning.[Collars4Cuties] Sure that works perfectly! We don’t know her tastes yet beyond a fondness for dragon rolls. Get her anything and we’ll watch her reaction together![TrueParadise] STARS YES! Looking forward to it! Mind if I get her something with a class-A in it for her? It’s just an ingredient and it won’t last too long. She’ll barely notice I promise. She will feel so good eating on it it’ll be adorable![Collars4Cuties] I… hmmm, okay. Only a little bit though. Fast acting so she won’t feel it after she finishes breakfast.

[TrueParadis

e] You got it! I’ll see you at 10 than!

[Collars4Cuties]

See you at 10!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mabryne put her pad down back into faer form. She was lucky to have a friend like Paradise. And this would all be good for Starlight too, meeting Vivian is sure to relieve some of her worries about being

a

pet. Or possibly being

her

pet

she hoped

. Perhaps it was best if she got some

rest, Starlight shouldn’t wake up on her own for the rest of the night

. She untangled her form and slithered her many vines into her bed.

Moving all of the leftover unknown mattress bits aside and spreading out on her mattress,

she’d decompile those when she gets back up in an hour

. Tomorrow, or today

at this point since it’s past midnight

, was going to be good for Starlight. She had a good feeling about it.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Mabryne Stellata sat at the foot of her wards bed, the mornings light trapped behind the floral pattern curtains over the windows. It was well into the morning at this point and about five minutes past the when she had originally planned to wake up the cuties. But looking at her all curled up in bed like the precious cuties she was, she couldn’t help but just watch her rest for a little while longer. Fae knew fae couldn’t keep faer sleeping beauties lost in dreamland forever, but at least for this moment fae thought fae’d cherish these fleeting moments of indulgence a little longer. After all, Paradise was arriving at 10:00. She still had a whole twenty five to give them their new pad and get her ready for her pet sitter... Or ward sitter to put it more accurately. Stellata reminded herself that Starlight wasn’t her pet, nor should she be keeping her asleep this late. She stuck out one of her injectors and hung it just over the cuties barely open mouth. Letting a small golden drop of the counter class-Z leak out and drip right into her pretty lips. It should take about a few seconds before it starts kicking in. Giving faer the perfect chance to leave the room now and walk in on her ward waking up without surprising her too much. Stellata sneaked out of the room without a sound, closing the door behind her as she waited. Patiently looking at her pad she enthusiastically waited to see the exact moment the collar detects her waking up. It would be any moment now before it would…  Bloop! They were awake.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The morning sun rose upon the Starlight forest and blessed it with its golden rays. Casting away the shadows of unconsciousness and bringing life back to Starlights wonderland. The stream began to flow and the winds blew noiselessly through the trees. Aria rose from the waters surface, rubbing her eyes and as she looked around to see if anyone else had become conscious yet. She could feel there were others waking with her, very obviously Ranni’s presence at least. There wasn’t any rush that she knew of, so she felt confident in waking up slowly and lay in her bed for a little while longer. Something about it today felt even more comfortable than usual. She made her game plan for the morning. She would get up, prepare the medication for the morning, get everyone some water, and… She paused. “Wait a second... OUR HORMONES!” She suddenly remember where she was. She wasn’t in Texas, she was on the Aquafullium or whatever it was called. She couldn’t really remember, she was kind of freaking out at the time she heard the stations name. “Damn it, okay role call everyone where are you!” She cried out into the woods. She wouldn’t normally have everyone wake up so soon, but these were special circumstances. Ranni was the first to make herself known, stretching out her vibrate multi-colored wings as she walked into the sunlight.“Here!” She called out in her high cartoonish voice.“Here” Madeline responded, stepping out of the dark thicket. Her blonde hair looked like a mess, even in the mind she would give herself bed hair. What followed next was a few moments of silence before a fourth voice spoke up, but this one was not from the forest.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The door slid open, even though they could not hear her enter they knew it was her. “Starlight, wakey wakey~!” Stellata called in a bright cheery tone, walking over to their over sized bed. It was exactly as Stellata had hoped, they didn’t get up out of bed immediately. Her core hummed happily, she knew they were awake which means she got to pull the blankets up and see her open her eyes for the first time in the morning. Oh how she hoped she would do that cute thing terrans do where they rubbed their faces when they wake up. Her vines grabbed at the blankets and pulled them back, revealing the cuties in their full adorable glory. “Come on petals, I have a gift for you.”Starlight lifted her body, sitting up with her back against the wall of the wooden bed frame. She noticed the lack of aches this morning, whatever that doctor did yesterday must of really fixed her up. She stretched her arms out above her head, she was so used to hearing her joints pop wildly anytime she did this that the lack of noise felt out of place. Still, it felt nice to be able to move again after yesterday. She relaxed her arms down at her side before bringing her hands to her eyes and started rubbing them one at a time. “Morning Stellata.” Ranni said, one eye open barely opening as she rubbed the other. She noticed something was different about Stellata this morning. She looked to be wearing a halter style dress made of almost glowing flower petals that flowed down around her with leaves around her breasts and over her shoulders. But more noticeably, her mantis parts were gone. Instead looking more humanoid with two legs and no thorax whatsoever. Starlight stared at the affini’s legs, “Where’d your mantis body go?”Stellata’s core was positively glowing seeing the adorable display her ward had given faer. “Oh! I decided to go a little more terran in my appearance today. You mention bugs causing you distress yesterday and decided to bring out this classic look.” She explained, gesturing to her legs and lifting one up for demonstration as she spoke. “But enough about me, how’d you sleep cuties?”“Honestly? Really good. Probably one of the better rests we’ve had in a good long while. That stuff you gave us really knocks a girl out huh.” She moved to sit off the edge of the bed, letting her feet hang over it. Looking down over the edge of the bed gave her a bit of a pause, she would have to jump off the bed to get down at this height. It wasn’t a long fall by any means, and the carpet looked soft, but it still surprised her how high up she was regardless. “You um, didn’t have to change your appearance for us we hope you know. We didn’t even know you could do that.” She said looking down at the floor, deciding the best approach to jump down from.“Well, us affini do have a bit of a talent for changing our shapes. It’s a bit of a hobby of mine personally.” She gestured to her body and its many shades of greens and blues as if to show off the talent of her form. “I enjoy finding what fun new looks I can come up with while still keeping myself identifiable to the cuties I work with.” She stood up and turned around to turn to Starlight once more. “Alright cuties, lets get you ready for the day shall we? Want me to carry you down?” Fae asked, offering faer hand shaped vines to faer ward.Ranni considered the affini’s offer. She’s had a history with her bad ankles that a short fall like this felt intimidating, especially when considering the addition of her weight. But the doctor did do a lot of surgery on them yesterday. Specifically one of which seemed to have been repairing their aching joints. Perhaps jumping down would be alright. There was only one way to find out. “I got it, don’t worry. I kinda want to move around a bit after yesterday anyways!” Ranni claimed. She leaped down to the floor below, the soft carpet catching her as she landed on her feet. She felt her own weight bare down on her legs but not in any painful way. She was surprised that it didn’t even ache a little bit. “See? Now you said there was a gift for us?” She asked her tall plant companion.Mabryne nodded as she adjusted the vines inside her to grab Starlights gift, “Indeed, in fact I have it riiiiiight here!” She pulled out one of those strange tablets from her chest, similar to the one she had been using except this one was smaller to accommodate the size difference between the two bodies in the room. “This is for you cuties, you’re own pad! It can connect to the net over this station and the surrounding celestial bodies as well as… Dirt do you know what the internet is? Did terrans have that in your time?” Stellata genuinely asked the girls. Ranni giggled at the question, it warmed Stellata’s core to hear her chuckle. “Yes we know what the internet is. It was around for a while during my time.” Ranni answered. “What’s the internet like nowadays since capitalism is gone and whatnot?” Stellata perked up hearing them mention they knew the internet, it gave her some hope that if they truly were from the past the old terran internet archives would have some hint of her presence. “Well, it’s the window into the full collection of information gathered by the Affini Compact from the countless worlds and sophonts under our care. As well as entertainment, chat rooms, VR and AR spaces, and more I’m sure you’ll discover as you use it. I’ll get you a set of clothes to change into while you get yourself set up on that okay? Let me know if you need help with anything cuties!” Stellata grabbed a pillow from the bed and laid it down on the floor, patting her hand shaped vines on it. “Here’s a seat for you for now, I’ll get you a proper chair later today I promise.” With that she skipped her way out of the room. She was in a good mood, that much was obvious.Starlight sat down on the comfortable pillow and turn ed on the affini’s device. It opened with a greetings screen and a profile creator. The screen read, “Hello cuties! Welcome to the Affini Compact! Please make an username and you’ re all done!” in an extremely high resolution picture. Even the computer knew their plurality. There was an empty text box underneath it for entering the username. Starlight had an username back in her time, although she didn’t really associated herself with it anymore. Especially ever since Aria formed in her system four and a half years ago . Perhaps new times called for a new username, not like she had any brand nowadays anyways . She’ll figure out a new username eventually, for now Starlight would be good enough. It was an obvious choice , it is just their system name. “Welcome Starlight!” Splashed on the screen before going to a hub menu. There was many tabs available as well as just a search bar for anything she wanted to look up. The UI was surprisingly readable at a glance, tabs for different types of media, chatrooms, web searching, something called Pluribus Profiles, and a “new cuties start here!” tab. That was the place to start probably, she reached down to tap it before Stellata came in with some clothes.“Got you your clothes cuties! I don’t know what you like to wear so I compiled multiple options for you.” She laid them all out. Most of them were floral designed dresses, a few of which matched Stellata’s blue and yellow flowers. Starlight stared at the options before her, none of these looked like appropriate outfits for winter. Some of them did not even look appropriate for public. Starlight enjoyed wearing layers, it helped her hide her less feminine features from the world and kept her body hair under wraps. The dresses here however look like they’d just show off those details on her body .She looked away from the outfits and towards Stellata with an uncertain expression, “We uhh, we’re not sure we can wear any of these Mabryne. They just… I don’t know how to explain it. Do you have anything thicker? Sweaters or something? Winter clothes?” She explained to Stellata.“Well, I can definitely get you something to wear over some of these if you want warmer clothing, but I really do suggest you wear one of the outfits here. You can have a coat you get cold later, but I imagine my habs environmental control will be more than enough to keep you comfortable petal.” Stellata lifted up one of the outfits and pointed a vine to it, “Why not this one? We’ll match!” Stellata was pointing at a dress shirt with a pattern on it that looked like vines growing stars on them, the same blue as her hair with the stars being pretty golden stars like the flowers blooming in Stellata’s hair . It was a very pretty dress, but it showed off a bit too much of her legs for her comfort. Especially with how much thick leg hair she had. She didn’t like keeping them exposed in the open air like this, her hair had a tendency to catch on itself when it move and feel like fleas hopping on her body again.Ranni shook her head. “I’m sorry, we just don’t feel comfortable wearing that.” She had hoped that statement would have been enough to get the affini to stand down. She was wrong. “Why not little ones?” Stellata had a suspicion on her wards reasoning.Of course she wouldn’t just accept no for an answer, she hasn’t any of the previous times they said it. “We haven’t shaved our legs in a while and we don’t want our body hair in the open.” She reached up to scratch her face, a bit of facial hair has grown overnight. “ It’s also been a bit since we shaved in general.”Stellata nodded, her assumptions were correct. “I see, your body hair and facial hair gives you dysphoria doesn’t it?” Sellata put her vine on Starlight’s shoulder. “I can take care of that for you you know?”Starlight gave a befuddled look at the affini. “Like, shaving our whole body for us ? No thanks, you’ve already cleaned us enough after last night” Starlight gave a dismissive hand gesture to the affini.Stellata shook her head in short slow movements as she spoke. “No petals, I won’t be shaving you. You see.” She held out a vine, a beige transparent sap oozed from their appendage. “I can produce a sap that can remove your hair, permanently. Or at the very least until you may want it back.” “Really?” Starlight’s eyes widened and sparkled in the morning light. This was something she never thought was going to be possible. She thought her hair was going to be an endless sisyphean task for her entire life. The endless maintenance had an end in sight, assuming that Stellata was telling the truth at least. She hasn’t lied to them yet, at least not that they could tell. Not to mention that fae seem to have many strange things about faer alien affini biology. Despite that, a permanent hair removing sap sounds a bit outrageous and too good to be true. The only way to know for sure is to take faer offer, the offer was too enticing to say no to in this situation.“Indeed little ones. I won’t let any of it touch the top of your head either don’t you worry your cute little mind s about that.” She brings her vine to Starlight’s head to ruffle her hair. “So, is that what you want cuties?”Ranni still couldn’t believe it, this felt too good to be true. But that disbelief wouldn’t stop her, this was her chance to be rid of the source of so much discomfort in her life. And hopefully an end to the disgusting flicks of her leg hair catching on itself . Even just wearing this night gown she can occasionally feel the phantom sensation of insects jumping on her moments before they would bite . “Yes, please.”“Good girls, now first I’m going to need you to undress. Would you prefer to keep your pubic hair?”Ranni thought about it for a second. She knew her friends would be disappointed in this decision if they were still around , but it was her body and she knew what she wanted. “No, get rid of that as well.” She grabbed her gown, starting to lift it until she noticed the affini staring at her with those glowing and unblinking eyes. “Can you ummm, turn around for a bit ?”Stellata looked at the girls in confusion, “Why? Is this another thing about me seeing you nude? Petals I’ve already seen it all. I bathed you last night remember?” Stellata could have easily have done as the cutie requested, it wasn’t like the 2 eyes she had was where she actually saw from. She did want to help the cuties get used to having her body seen however.“I… I guess that’s true. Still it feels uncomfortable to be stared at like that.”Stellata suddenly realized the possible problem. This might be more of an eye contact thing than an embarrassment thing. It still had a lot of embarrassment to it that much she knew for certain, but perhaps this time she should yield for her wards comfort. “Very well, I’ll turn around for you. But do know you are going to need to be naked for me to take care of your hair petals.” Stellata turned around and had her eyes look at the wallpaper of the wards room. “That’s fine I get that, just please stop staring down at me like that. Do affini even blink?” She told the affini as she grabbed the gown and began lifting it over her head. Stellata has been so focus on how adorable the cuties were that she’s been forgetting to blink.Stellata blinked. “Right, I’ll be more aware of that, sorry for making you uncomfortable.” The affini apologized. Starlight had no idea Stellata could still see her. The girls threw off her gown, letting it land on the carpet next to her. She grabbed her panties and quickly slid them off trying not to think about how she was stripping naked with someone else in the room with her.Stellata observed her ward as she undressed. She was in fact covered in body hair just as she was during her bath. Stellata thought to instead make her more comfortable with her body’s natural hair growth. A bit of hypnosis could go a long way in helping her love that part of herself. But at the same time she did not want her to experience dysphoria for even another moment. She knows full well what that does to poor sophonts like her and the hypnosis wouldn’t be a permanent solution without the correct xenodrugs. Fae learned about the psychological effects dysphoria has on terrans in detail when fae took faer terran care classes.“You can turn around now.” Ranni confirmed for the affini. Stellata did just that, spinning her form around and gazing down at her wards. Everbloom she was adorable!“Good girls, now unfortunately we don’t have a lot of time this morning before breakfast arrives. So…” Stellata’s body unravels as her stomach and torso opened up. Revealing a hollow cavity in her body and showing Starlight that her body was in fact hollow for the most part. “I’m going to need you to step inside me so I can cover your entire body quickly and from every angle.”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Madeline, Aria, and Ranni all looked at each other in shock, this was yet another example of Stellata’s biology absolutely baffling the girls. At some point they’d need to look up the Affini on their pad just so Stellata didn’t get to surprise them like this all the time. They all knew this, this was a shared thought between all of them. The surprise after surprise with Stellata was getting a bit exhausting at this point. Madeline patted Ranni on the back, “Well go get em girl.”---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ranni took a quick breath, mentally leveling herself before she takes a step forwards. Walking to the open body of the affini and stepping inside. Stellata’s vines grew to support her to make sure she had stable footing and a safe entry into Stellata’s body. This was certainly one of the most bizarre things she’s ever done, walking into another person like this felt even more alien than everything else around her. When she was all in, the opening in Stellata’s body closed as all outside light disappeared. That wasn’t to say it was completely dark in the affinis body, there was little peaks of blue light shine in from gaps between vines above her head. Starlight wondered what that could be, what could be glowing inside the affini? Whatever it was it was a very pretty blue light that pieced through small openings like sunbeams through the clouds. She tried to peak through the gaps before countless vines began wrapping around her. Some vines lifted her hair and kept off of her body she felt the vines cover her in a warm thick sap substance that glistened the light shining from above. Vines wrapped around her legs, spreading this magical hair removing sap with every inch they touched. She felt them slither up her body, climbing up her legs, seeping more of the glistening sap everywhere they went. More vines grabbed her hands, coiling around her arms and lathering them with the same liquid. More and more vines wrapped around her and rubbed against her naked body. Spreading it on her back, her chest, armpits, crotch, butt, and stomach. Nowhere on her body was ignored from the loving embrace of the vines. She realized she was breathing a little heavier now, her heart rate was increasing. Not in the same panicked way she had experienced yesterday. Feeling the vines cover her entire body with this somewhat tingly liquid was oddly exciting. She tried to shake it off, suppressing the urge to make pathetic whimpers at the vines touch. This was a practical act, not a sexual one. She couldn’t let the affini know she was getting aroused from this, that’d just make it awkward for everyone involved.A hum was audible from overhead, the light was making a sound now. It was quiet, subtle, but absolutely audible and impossible to ignore. She didn’t have to work hard to look up at where it was coming from, a vine climbed up her neck and up to her face. Leaking more of the sap on her face, covering everywhere her facial hair could grow as it lifted her chin upwards towards the light. Covering her face in this thick warm substance. It felt good, it felt really good. Especially with that sound over her head. She needed to figure out where it was coming from. She needed to know what was making that light behind those vines. She squinted her eyes trying to make out what was behind those gaps in the vines. She needed to know what was there. It soothed her, calmed her heart, and melted her worries away. She didn’t really care about what else was happening, the warmth on her body made the light even better. It was good for her, the light reassured her. The light was good. The light was what she needed. She needed to get closer to the light. But she couldn’t reach for the light, something was holding her arms in place. Such cruelty keeping her from the light. She needed it. She needed that light. It was beautiful. It could be the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen and she’ll never even know because of these vines in the way. It brought tears to her eyes, but it did not change the smile on her face. These were good tears. All things under the light are good.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sky of the Starlight Forest was empty. No trees, no creek, it was all empty. There was nothing but the blue light. A blue sun shining blue light over the system washing the landscape around it. Even if there were no trees, the light still shined like it was going through treetops. Ranni and Madeline all looked up at the light. They’ve never seen anything like it in all their years. It was beautiful, they loved the light, the light loved them. Madeline hugged onto Ranni, her being melding into hers. Their thoughts becoming one. Ranni and Madeline under this blue light became one in this moment. The fustive thoughtform did not mind this, they were comforted by the light. They felt watched, they felt seen, this was true serenity. The light. The light. Th...----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Vines grabbed the girls and pulled them out of the grace of the blue light. No, no this was wrong! Just a few more moments would be all they need! This wasn’t fair! “There you are cuties, all hair free!” Stellata’s voice was quiet through the haze of their thoughts. Their headspace slowly trying rebuilding itself in their minds as they reached for her humming chest. “Huuh?” Starlight could not form words right now. The light was gone, where has the light gone? “Whaaa...?” They saw the affini looking over them. Was she always so beautiful?She giggled at the cuties under her, her voice was the most beautiful music they’ve ever heard in their life. They wanted to listen to it forever, the light would love her voice. “Come on, time to wake up cuties. Up up now .” Stellata’s words cut through the daze in Starlight’s thoughts. What were they doing? What happened? Why was Stellata holding them? “Are you feeling okay petals?”The fustive looked down at herself. Where they okay? They weren’t exactly sure. Nothing felt bad, in fact they felt really good, if not a bit of a longing feeling. Of what exactly they weren’t sure. They did see that they were still naked. Not only that, they were completely hairless. That brought a smile bright enough to blind a room to her face, she remembered a bit of what had happened. This was permanent hair removal from her body, she never had to deal with another damn razor in her life. She was ecstatic for a quick moment before she realized something horrible. She was fully erect. Her face immediately turned red as she reached down to cover her shame. “Ahaha, yep we’re good yep yep, we’ll get dressed now thank you okay buh bye!” She got up immediately and sprinted over to the dress shirt outfit prepared for her. Stellata couldn’t help but chuckle at the adorable display in front of her. They were definitely staring at the light produced by her core. She did think to perfectly cover it up, but a little bit of core exposure never hurt anybody. Stars they were so susceptible to it too! Even just a peak trances them so deeply! Hypnotizing the cuties was going to be an absolute pleasure in the near future. But right now she needed to focus on the tasks at hand, Paradise was going to be here in… Everbloom only 6 minutes! She had lost track of how much time had past. Starlight walked up to Stellata wearing her matching companion dress, she looked so adorable in it! “So uhhh, how do we look?” Starlight spoke in a strange new tone, deeper than Ranni yet softer than Madeline. Her hands covered her erection behind the skirt. Disguising her posture as proper, but Stellata knew the real reason the kept their hands down there. Who was this cutie in front of her?“You look absolutely gorgeous little ones!” She praised. “Who do I have the honor of speaking to in this moment?” Starlight looked perplexed for a moment. She gave it some thought, maybe she wasn’t entirely sure either. Or maybe Stellata accidentally made a new headmate for them by exposing them to her core? She didn’t exactly know how Starlight’s mind worked, she knew every pluribus was unique so it wasn’t out of the question the hypnotic effects of her core awakened something in her mind.Starlight pondered, bringing her hand to her chin. How would she explain what a fustive was? Stellata knew about plurality already but fustive as a term wasn’t exactly well known even in the plural spaces she was in back in 2025. She’d have to try to explain it at least. “Well, right now we’re not exactly one person. But not multiple either. It’s uhhh… like Madeline and Ranni’s beings became one and we become a new person from those pre-existing ones. It’s temporary so its not like you won’t see them again don’t worry, but this is far from the first time this has happened. You can call us Amy.” She explained. Amy felt pretty confident in that explanation. She just hoped it made sense to the alien in the room with her.Stellata hadn’t seen a fustive before, but she was vaguely familiar with the concept. It was kind of like those blonde muscle men in that anime Cammint’s floret turned on during the Growers Day party last spring. It was a violent show to be sure but so utterly ridiculous in concept that she couldn’t help but find it somewhat enjoyable. “I see! That sounds very exciting! It’s nice to meet you cuties. I guess I already met your parts already. Still, an absolute pleasure to meet you as you are now!” Stellata said to the cuties. “Lets head out to the living room, I imagine you must be hungry considering you only had 1 meal yesterday, lets get you…”DING DONG! “Miss Stellata, Mx Grandeur is at the door!” SeaGlass called out.They were early, they were supposed to still have some time to get to the living room! Paradise always was one who loved surprises. “Mulch they’re early. SeaGlass let them in and tell them we’ll be there shortly!” She told the AI. “Follow me Amy, I want to introduce you to a good friend of mine.” The affini and her ward made their way out of the wards bedroom and headed their way to meet their guest. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The wind blows hollow in the thicket of the Starlight woods. Broken sticks and dead leaves cover the mushrooms feeding grounds. Tempest felt itself reappear into existence, it was missing but for a moment. Nonexistent in the silencing blue light. Something has happened, something it did not understand. Something more powerful than itself, more powerful than the Overseer. Where emptiness and rage laid in its heart now lies fear. It was scared. It needed to get Starlight out of here, but how? They were in danger yet it felt like only it could see it. Everyone else is so damn blind, the fools. It needed to learn a way to get past their captors. And if it is to fail… they would be collared like animals.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Amy Starlight followed close behind the beautiful affini in front of her, her leaves silently rustling from the sprint. They rushed their way out of the hallway into the central room, the sun shined down onto the center tree piece and the tall slender figure standing next to it. They were clearly another affini, there was no doubt about it. “Aha! There you are Mabryne darling!” Spoke the figure. Starlight did not recognize this affini. They were noticeably taller than Stellata by at least a foot, their chest was covered in a soft cotton with leaves hanging below making a floral outfit over their body. Their head bloomed open like a lotus flower with 4 bright amber eyes that stared down right on Amy. They were holding some kinds of boxes with words in a language she didn’t recognize in their vines as well. “And good morning to you too our little mystery maker! We’ve heard a lot about you y’know!” They spoke in a deep voice, much deeper than you’d expect from such a slender form. But they say they’ve heard of them? Who was this affini?“Hey uhhh, you.” Starlight replied to the stranger, she was uncertain about how worried she should be right now. “We’re sorry you have us at a disadvantage right now, who are you?”The stranger put their vines on their chest and laughed a hearty laugh. “Hohoho! No worries little Starlight, you have nothing to apologize for. The name’s Paradise darlings. Paradise Grandeur, Sixth Bloom, they/them pronouns. And this cutie here is…” They looked at their side, there was no one there. Paradise looked around their surroundings, searching for something they had apparently lost. “Everbloom where did she go to? Vivian! Where have you gone hiding to?” Paradise called out, their smooth voice echoing in the large house.Starlight noticed a quiet playful giggle coming from the central rooms tree, bringing her attention to look to it. She saw what appeared to be another human hiding on the opposite side from where Paradise was standing. She wore a collar with flowers similar to the lotus on Paradise’s head on it, as well as a medium length spiky black hair with purple tips. They wore a pink floral pattern crop top and denim shorts with flowers stitched into the material. More noticeable than her outfit, she had a black and gray stripped tail coming from the bottom of her spine, two small ears on the top of her head, a darker toned mask around her glowing amber eyes, as well as some kind of green tattoo on the back of her neck that looked like swirling vines. The girl looked over at Amy, noticing that she was being observed and put a single finger to her lips and pointed towards Paradise. Starlight did not say anything, too stunned to speak as she studied this raccoon girl in front of her. Her tail was moving, with no noticeable sign it was clipped to her shorts at all. It was real. The ears and tail were real. They all moved on their own just as they would on an animal. Was she even a human or was she some kind of human-like raccoon alien thing? There was no way that was just something that happened in the universe right? It’s statistically not impossible sure but the universe making another human species but this time with animal ears and tails was… well is was ridiculous. It’s the kind of thing that showed up in art or headspace, not actual realspace. Paradise noticed Amy’s staring behind and looked over to where she was staring. They gave a grin with their needle-like teeth and peaked around the tree in slow silent predatory movements. “Ah, there you are my little rouge~.” The tall affini grabbed the raccoon girl with their vines and lifted her up to their cotton covered chest.The girl flailed fruitlessly in the affinis grasp as she shouted, “Baaah!!! No fair! I told ya to look forward! Ya gave me away ya cheater!” She pointed at and accused Starlight before crossing her arms and puffed up her cheeks to make a pouty face.Paradise let out the same hearty laugh as before, uncannily note for note as their previous one. “Hohoho! Now now Vivi, that’s no way to speak to Mabryne’s wards now is it? Try introducing yourself instead hmm?” Paradise scratched the raccoon girls chin, causing the raccoon girls face and tone to change instantly to one of bliss with a lazy smile.She moaned at the affini’s touch. “Mmmm yes Maaaa’aammm…” She lazily stared down at Amy. “Hiiii, my names Vivian Grandeur, First Floret, She/They. You must be Miss Stellata’s seed yeah?” She said, dangling her legs off Paradises vines. Her pupils were dilated, she was clearly on something and loving it.“Seed?” Amy questioned. Starlight hadn’t heard that term before, nor could she could parse its meaning. By the sounds of it, it sounds almost like she implied Stellata was their mother or something. Which was absolutely not the case here, they were two different species for goodness sake! “We’re not her seed? We’re her ward, what the hell is a ‘seed’ in this context?” They asked the girl hanging her feet off their owners vines.Vivian waved her hand dismissively at Amy’s comment. “Yeah yeah, those are basically synonymous terms anyways. Tell me ya name girlies!” She stared at us with excitement in their eyes. Like she was looking at a new plaything, swaying her tail lazily back and forth.Amy tried not to make eye contact with Vivian but didn’t let herself look away completely. “Our name is Starlight, right now we’re a merge of Ranni and Madeline Starlight. Call us Amy please. She/they pronouns.” Amy wasn’t sure how to talk to this girl. She figured she was a pet to Paradise, the collar and same last name were clear giveaways. It was a bit concerning to Starlight to hear pets get their owners last names, especially given her new last name was her system name. To lose that would be like erasing an important part of her plural identity. More reason to stay independent by the end of this she figured. Vivian tilted their head at Starlight, “A merge-a-what now? Who’s Ranni and Madeline?”Right, not everyone is going to understand her experiences with plurality, she went to try and explain before Paradise spoke. “They’re pluribus petal. She’s a bunch of sophonts in one body. And it seems some of those sophonts can sometimes become one.” They booped their pets nose with a vine, causing her to giggle. The Affini had a better understanding of plurality than most humans did. They had their own word for it so it was easy to assume it had a notable presence in their culture.Vivian widened her eyes at the realization, “Ooooh! Alright yeah I get that, just like that anime.” Anime? Which one could she be talking about where fustives happen? “Nice to meet y’all Starlight!” She said with a big smile on her face. “Hey Ma’am I’m hungry is it breakfast time yet?”Paradise brought a vine under her chin, scratching it as she leaned into it like a cat. “Of course petal! Sorry for making you wait until we got her to feed you. Come join us Starlight, I got something yummy for you as well.” Starlight was surprised to learn the stranger had something for her. Normally they didn’t eat until sometime in the afternoon, she hadn’t realized how hungry she was until food was offered.Stellata patted the girls on their back, “That sounds wonderful Paradise! Come now little ones, lets see what Mx Grandeur got you.” She guided Starlight along over to the dining room, keeping pace with the girls that were less than half faer size. She tried to walk ahead of Stellata only for her vines to step along side her, always matching her speed. Fae would not leave their side. She could try and run but someone as large as Stellata could catch up with her in an instant. They weren’t exactly a fast runner, nor did they have much stamina either. They simply let the affini walk with them, quietly stepping to the dining room where they found Paradise at the end seat of the long table opening boxes of meals. Vivian sat on their lap eyeing the food being prepared in front of her with incredible mouthwatering excitement in her eyes. Amy looked up at the tall affini furniture, she remembered the climb up the chair from yesterday morning. She could easily do it again, especially with the lack of aches in her body. Stellata leaned over to look at her ward, “Want me to carry you to your seat petals?” She asked with a soft smile on her face.Amy considered it, at the same time she was carried enough yesterday as is. She could move now, she wanted to use this privilege. “No thanks Mabryne!” She responded politely. Stellata couldn’t help be a little disappointed, and Paradise simply shook their head. Starlight grabbed the chair and slowly lifted herself up to the seat, using the support structure between the legs of the chair to lift herself up. She sat down at the table, Paradise slid a plate over to where she was sitting. On the plate was multiple very thin pancakes filled with a thick white cream, strawberries, strawberry syrup, powdered sugar, and lines of chocolate topping with a fork at the side. These were crepes, an incredibly sugary sweet breakfast. Next to it was a steaming mug of what was certainly hot chocolate with a whipped cream on top.Paradise smiled at Starlight, “I’ve heard you’ve been having a bit of a rough time lately sweeties, so I thought you’d appreciate something sweet for breakfast.” They explained. “Welcome to the Compact Starlight. Bone apple tea!” They gestured their vines in a welcoming fashion, spreading them wide for dramatic effect as they clearly mispronounced the phrase.Amy lifted the fork off the plate and used its edge to cut a piece of the crepe of before stabbing it and bringing it to her mouth. The sweet flavor burst in her mouth, this was delicious. Delicious in a way words could barely describe. It was sweet, the berries tasted fresh, the cream made her loudly moan when it touched her tongue. “Mmmmm. Gods damn this is good! Thank you Paradise!” Starlight went in for another bite, filling her mouth with another forkful of her overwhelmingly delicious breakfast.Paradise body creaked as they chuckled at the girls compliments. “Hehe, I’ll have to pass your praise to the chef next time I go to Hazels Diner. You’re very welcome cuties.” They sat their floret up on their lap, taking a forkful of her breakfast and feeding it to her. She got something different, something much less sugary than crepes. There were fresh hash browns, scrambled eggs, four large strips of bacon, three sausages, and two pieces of buttered toast. Vivian happily wagged her tail and kicked her feet on her owners lap as she took a bite of the delicious meal. “By the way Starlight, I hope you don’t mind my asking. Could you please refrain from swearing around us?” The slender affini asked.Amy looked up at the amber eyed affini, chewing on her crepes before swallowing. “Oh, yeah sure. Why though if I can ask?”Paradise pet their floret, causing Vivian to shutter in pleasure under their vines. “It is simply not something I prefer to hear. That kind of language has a lot of negativity associated with it and I simply do not prefer it in my presence.” They explained. It felt strange for Starlight to be told to watch her language like that. She’d gotten so used to swearing that she was barely aware of when she did it, what started as a rebellious act against her mother and her faith has become her common lexicon. Especially being from Northern California where the f-word was mostly an adjective.Starlight cut another bit of crepe from her plate, “I can try. Although some may still slip out just from sheer habit. I’m sorry in advance if that happens.” Amy told to Paradise.Paradise lifted its cotton covered shoulders in a shrug, “That’ll do, thank you Amy. You’re very sweet girls I hope you know. We’re lucky to have you here Starlight.” Paradise’s comforting words made Amy feel good. If only she had felt the same about being here. Despite the kindness she’s been shown she still felt an aching frustration in her heart. But the compliments and praise helped numb it down to manageable levels for now. Or so she had hoped, she hadn’t noticed the tear that made it down her cheek. “Are you alright sweetie?” Paradise asked, seeming to notice the drop of water on her face.“Y-yeah it’s just that… it’s just that I don’t know what we did to deserve this.” Starlight admitted. Hiding what she meant behind her vague wording. She missed her sister, she missed her friends, normally she’d be messaging them around this time. Checking in on them for the morning. They didn’t get that comfort anymore. And Starlight didn’t get hear from them ever again.Paradise did not catch that meaning however. They instead looked over to her and said, “You deserve this because this is what all sophonts deserve. A loving vine, a warm meal, and the kindness that the systems that came before denied you. I know you terrans have a hard time accepting that sometimes, but it’s true.” They scratched their florets ear. “I can’t say I know what pain you dealt with in your previous life. But here!” They waved their hand towards everything around them. “Here you are loved, you will have everything you could want and more. You terrans had a word for what this all is, a word so beautiful I took it in as my own name. Paradise.” The way Paradise spoke made Starlight uneasy, perhaps it was the fact they used the term “paradise” to describe the world around them. That word, they had accepted it was their name, but hearing it describe the Affini Compact rubbed them the wrong way. The preachers at the old panoptic halls loved to parade that word around like it was going out of fashion. Paradise clearly had some kind of complex going on, but she could understand what they meant. A post-scarcity society does feel like something that could fit the description of ‘paradise’. Still, it felt weird.Starlight tried to move past the feelings. This was Stellata’s friend, she’d probably be seeing them a few times in the coming days so it’d be best not to create bad blood between them over something as simple as a word. She reached for the hot chocolate and brought it to her lips. The whip cream poking her nose as she took a sip. The sweet rich warm chocolate drink warmed the girl, she felt in flow down her body as the rich delicious flavor of the hot drink blessed her senses. The flavor only got better the more she drank, unreasonably better. The warm feeling of the drink going through her began to feel better and better. “Whoa…” Amy said unconsciously as she put down the drink. Paradise and Mabryne clearly heard her as they both cooed admiration at her. She tried to look away as her cheeks blushed at their praise. Did they really need to do that every time they did literally anything?Vivian was clearly more excited to eat than anyone else here, in fact it seemed like only Vivian and herself were the only ones eating. The two affini had large cups of water by them, their vines were casually dipped into them. They were plants, she supposed they didn’t need to eat like humans or any other fauna do. Maybe all they needed was some water and sunlight, as impossible as that sounds for how much they do. She thought of the nature of the Affini as she cut into the last crepe on her plant. Taking another forkful and bringing it to her mouth. Something about this bite, or maybe this crepe, was different. It was really good, impossibly good, the best thing she ever had in her life. The flavor was nothing short of orgasmic. She didn’t want to chew and swallow it, keeping its flavor in her mouth forever. As much as she wanted that, she couldn’t stop herself from chewing on it, every bite releasing the flavors underneath. Her hand slammed on the table, she had never been so overwhelmed in such tasteful bliss by a meal before. She held herself up on the table, breathing heavily as the flavors disappeared from her palette. She needed another bite, she didn’t cut into it this time, instead stabbing into the rest of the crepe with her fork. She leaned forward, not caring anymore about the rules of table manners. The primal urge to eat was stronger. She bit off the bit of crepe like an animal. It was just as good as the first bite, she needed to fill her mouth to the brim with the heavenly breakfast. Something Stellata had to intervene against.Stellata stopped her hands and pulled the ravenous hungry beast of a woman away from her breakfast. “Petal, eat slowly. You’re going to choke if you eat like that. Chew then swallow little ones.” Stellata told to the hungry girls. Her touch, her soft of silk vines, brushed against her skin. It felt different this time, sending ripples of pleasure across her body. She wasn’t sure what was happening or why, nor did she have the energy to care. The pleasure was overwhelming her common sense. She was hoping Stellata would keep her vines on her body. But she couldn’t possibly want that, it would be a disaster! Amy struggled to keep herself together. She felt her mind splitting as she grew more and more overwhelmed by the wonderful sensations.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Madeline and Ranni lay on the gravel beach, they had split apart again. Amy was always temporary, same with all the other fustives Starlight could make. Madeline stood up first, shortly followed by Ranni. Aria was no where to be seen in the system, but she had a tendency to always be around somehow even if they couldn’t see her in the forest. Madeline turned to Ranni. “So, crepes huh?” She commented at her angelic headmate.Ranni giggled at her headmate, “hehe, yeah. Crepes. I wonder what they did with this final crepe that made it this good. We haven’t had many crepes in our life so maybe this is just what a high quality crepe is like.” Ranni tried to logic how impossibly good her breakfast was. How were people not talking about these crepes? It was a mystery for certain, one she’d have to solve at another time. She pushed the crepe thoughts aside, for something else of importance needed a discussion. “So uhhh, who’s fronting now?”She asked the imp.Madeline quickly pointed faer thumb to faer chest, “Me, obviously.” Fae said self assuredly. “No offense Ranni, I don’t trust you to stop yourself from begging for attention given how you made us shiver at her touch. So clearly I need to be the one on the front!” Madeline was high and mighty with her tone. A sense of pride and superiority in her voice. She was hyping herself up, feeding her ego almost as much as she was feeding her stomach. Ranni would’ve entertained by this display if she hadn’t kind of done it at her expense. She wasn’t wrong exactly either, Ranni did feel good after being touched by that vine. Something that she could put under the category of ‘pet behavior’, and should best be avoided. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Miss Stellata? I think she’s broken.” Vivian said. Madeline had not realized how long they had been discussing in headspace about the nature of crepes. It must of looked like they’ve been staring off into space for a bit there.Madeline shook her head, trying to get a hold of herself. The soft fabric of her own outfit was starting to distract her as well. She just wanted to grab on to it and rub it between her fingers. No, not in front of all of them. Maybe not ever considering SeaGlass is always watching. “Sorry, we sorta split there for a second. Madeline now.” She looked towards the affini who still had her vine on their chest holding them back. They thought she’d be worried but by the looks on her face you’d think she just saw cat playing with a toy. “You can let go now Mabryne.”“Thanks for letting me know petal~.” She said with a coy smile, not removing her vine from their torso. Instead they gave it a bit of a rub and sent a jolt of pleasure across her body. It shivered under her skin, Stellata knew exactly what she was doing. The mix of fear and pleasure in her heart was suddenly left only with wanting as she took her vine away. Madeline instinctively lifted her arm up to try and grab it but stopped before she fully reached out. She couldn’t, she needed to focus on breakfast, the delicious mouthwatering crepe was still on the plate. She composed herself as best she could. She just needed to cut in into the crepe, there was only about two bites lifts and she needed to prove… something? That didn’t matter, what mattered was she needed to eat that crepe. She steadily lifted the fork to her mouth and took a bite. All she needed to manage was not to moan at it again and she’d be fine.The strawberry and cream flooded her senses in blind delicious pleasure. She couldn’t stop herself, she closed her eyes and made the kind of noise she thought only existed in the exaggerated reactions of restaurant commercials overselling the quality of their meals.”Mmmmmmm!!!” She moaned, she had failed to keep under control. For her punishment Stellata put her vine on the top of her head and gently stroked her hair. The vine, Stellata’s soft beautiful vine gliding across her head leaving waves of ecstasy in its wake. Madeline was leaning into it, she had completely lost control of her ability to resist the pleasure. It felt too good for her to keep in control. Vivian started laughing at the girls helpless situation. “Stars girlies, you really like your breakfast huh?” Vivian was right, they really did like their breakfast. But they were being laughed at by the girl. This felt like a bad idea now, even though it felt so good. They needed to keep it under control, Madeline wasn’t going to let a few pets and food break her. She was better than this, she would prove she was better than this! It was just not but one more bite, they would just need to keep it together for one more bite. Madeline’s fork punctured the delicious sweet breakfast. Lifting its chocolate covered pancake to her lips and chomped down into it. The final blow to the powerful crepe enemy. The powerful mix of savory and sweet would not go without a fight in the girls mouth. Madeline kept her throat tight as she chewed the sweet treat doing everything in her power to stop herself from moaning this time. She was fighting a war unlike any other, a war of endurance and pleasure. This battle of the crepe would be one for the history books in the Starlight Forest. She’s made it this far, the audience watched her enamored like she was a gladiator in the arenas in Rome fighting for her life against the many warriors of unimaginable delicacy.She swallowed, she could breath now. She did it, she managed to eat the final bite without a single moan of pleasure no matter how much she needed to. Madeline was victorious! Paradise gazed at Stellata with their many amber eyes. “Interesting little sophonts aren’t they?” They asked before returning their eyes to Madeline. “Can’t say I’ve seen something quiet like that in my blooms. Are you alright Starlight? Madeline correct?” It was hard to tell what they were feeling right now. Their facial expression barely changed, their voice felt like it could have been of concern or confusion.Madeline cleared her throat, “Yup! I’m good, we’re good! Thank you Paradise. Really good breakfast thank you for that.” Madeline’s brain was scrambled, she had just fought a battle unlike anything she’s ever fought before. But she came out victorious, nothing could stop her now. She felt her confidence rising, she can withstand anything these affini throw at her!Stellata gave her a pat on the head, another burst of impossibly strong pleasurable sensations washed over her. She gasped a quick moan at her touch without any control. Stellata lifted the plate off the table and slid the hot chocolate over to its place. Madeline had forgotten about the hot chocolate. She looked up to the rest of the table, Vivian had finished her breakfast already and watching intently at Starlight. “Finish your drink if you can, petals.” Stellata asked of her.Starlight grabbed the mug of hot coco. Looking into it, there wasn’t even half the cup remaining. That was good, she could do this. She could survive the crepe she could survive the warm drink. She lifted it to her lips and drank it down. It was even better than before, for a moment her eyes widened as she realized this battle was far from over. The surprised made a bit of the liquid go down the wrong pipe, causing the girl to immediately starting coughing up over the table. Paradise moved their vines to cover their floret from the hot chocolate projectile. Stellata immediately caught the girl in her vines, firmly patting her back to get it all out. “Starlight are you okay? Did you drink a bit too fast petals?” She worried over the chocking girl. Her coughing was a surprise but it did not last too long before showing signs of recover.“I’m fine! We’re fine. Just went down the wrong pipes is all. It’s okay, this happens.” Starlight explained to her worried companion. Letting out another cough after she finished her thought.Mabryne did not let the girls go. Patting their back, sending more ripples of pleasure across their body with every impact. She wrapped one of her arms around her, whispering to her in her native tongue. “It’s okay petal, I have you. I’ll take care of you.” Starlight had no way of knowing what she was saying. But her gentle tone and tender voice eased her regardless.“What are you saying anyways Mabryne? We’ve heard you talk in that language before.” Madeline inquired the girl holding on to her. Madeline’s muscles easing up after being tensed since her battle at the table.Stellata’s chest hummed a soft drone sound onto Madeline. Madeline felt herself losing focus and instead spacing out into the plant woman’s chest. “Just some comforting words Maddie. Letting you know it’s okay.” She explained to her. “In fact, it’s okay translates basically to ‘it’s okay’.”Madeline repeated it to herself as best she could. “<It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.> Neat… Thank you Stellata,” It was a surprisingly easy language to speak, at least from what you’d think from a bunch of plant aliens from gods know where. “And uhhh, while we’re here, I think we’re done with the drink as well. Kinda shot it all over the place. Sorry about that by the way.” Madeline did feel bad for coughing up her drink over the giant table. Surprisingly however she seemed to get none on her clothing. At least she wouldn’t need to change her outfit after only one meal.“<It’s okay> petals.” She said to her ward, purposely using the phrase she had just taught to the girls. “Do you think you’re capable of brushing your teeth on your own petals? I’d like to chat with Paradise in private for a little while before I have to head out this morning.” Stellata asked the girls.Madeline looked at the affini. “Head out? Where are you going?” She asked. She didn’t know Stellata was leaving this morning, nor why she needed to go.“I’m going to be heading to get some things. Groceries, grafts, order you some furniture, and some other things. Paradise will be looking over you while I’m out, alright petals?” She explained to her ward. Starlight knew it was reasonable for her to be heading out, honestly it might be nice to spend some time away from her for a while. She’d prefer to be alone instead of with Paradise for the day, but something more important came to mind. Something she had forgotten since the body hair removal that morning.“Crap, hey Mabryne there’s something important I need to tell you.”Stellata was immediately on alert. “What is it petals?” She tried her best not to worry too much, hoping it wasn’t anything that demanded her specific attention for the day. She’d hate to have invited Paradise to watch her only to have to take her with her anyways and waste her friends time.Madeline rubbed the fabric of her dress, it felt incredibly soft between her fingers. She could do this for hours. “Well… We were on estrogen before we got here and now that we’re here we don’t have that anymore. Is there any possibility that we can continue what we had? It was Estradiol, S…” Stellata put a vine over her wards lips.The worry disappeared from Stellata’s core. “Petals, I am well aware of your transition. I’m getting a graft of class-G’s while I’m out.” She explained to Madeline, who looked at her confused. “And a class-G is?”“That’s a xenodrug that helps sophonts develop changes to their body. I’ll be getting you some standard feminizing class-G’s, it should work much faster than what you were on before. And if you have any more specific wants for your appearance do tell me and I’ll be happy to do what I can for you.” She told her ward. Anything she said? She looked over to the raccoon girl across the table currently getting doted on by Paradise, could that be how she got those? Could a drug really make her grow those ears or the tail? Is that something they’d even want? Maybe some of them, but some of them would also want wings while others wouldn’t. This seems like the type of thing they’d need to think more on, preferably with more research. Regardless, Mabryne had already taken her transition into account and was getting her on a new prescription.“Oh, alright pog. How much faster? We’ve been on HRT for like, a yearish? How will it compare to that?” She asked the affini.“Much faster, I imagine for you the physical transformations should be done in a bit over a month. Than you only need to take it a bit longer before the changes are permanent.”“ONLY A MONTH!?” Madeline exclaimed. That sounded unbelievable, something that would have taken years being done in a month sounds impossible. Yet so have many other parts of the Affini have seemed impossible as well. “Huh… wow okay.” At this point she should make a list of how much the Affini have baffled her so casually. Vivian looked over to Starlight with a confused expression, “What does pog mean?”Starlight realized that perhaps that term would have been forgotten in the multiple hundreds of years. How does she even begin to explain that term she wondered. “Well, it’s an expression of excitement from my time.” She tried to explain, hoping that’d be enough.Paradise chimed in, “According to this they were a small plastic disk thing terrans sometimes collected.” They showed their pad with a search result for “pog” on it. “Alternatively it seemed to have been an emoji of a lizard from some time back in old terran internet culture.”“You see, it used to just be an emote but it got so much use that the emotion it displayed sort of became a slang expression for excitement and hype.” Madeline could not believe that she’s having to explain what pog means to people from the future.Paradise looks up from their pad and back to Starlight, “I see. How interesting little ones, you seem very well researched on such a niche part of a niche era of Terras culture aren’t you?” They’re words sang the same infantilizing tone as any other affini.Madeline shrugged it off, acting cocky to the affini across the table to try and regain some power in this conversation, “I should hope we are, we were alive to see it.” The tone in the air suddenly changed, the humming quieted down for a moment before returning to normal.Paradise chuckled to themself, “Right, of course. Stellata told me about that. Anyways I think it’s time for my cutie to get her teeth brushed. Same with you Starlight, be a dear and lead my floret to the restroom with the steps in it if you know where that is.” They asked of Starlight while gently placing Vivian on the ground. Starlight followed suit and jumped off the side of her chair before Stellata had a chance to ask if she wanted to be carried down. She watched Stellata get ready to ask, but she had denied the affini even that. She needed to prove she wasn’t a pet, this was another victory for her over the affini. Her attempts to prove she could regain control over breakfast to mixed results, she just had to perfect everything else. Luckily she did know where the restroom in question was at least, which meant she would not need to ask for directions either. She had all the tools to prove herself here.“I know where that is yeah, follow me Vivian.” Starlight began leading the raccoon girl out of the room.“I’ll see you soon petals, I’ll wait until your back to say my goodbyes and leave for the day cuties!” Stellata called out to the girls as they left the room. Starlight gave a wave to the affini while Vivian completely turned around to wave goodbye to the affini in the room.“Bye miss Stellata! Bye Ma’am! I love youuuuu!!!!” Vivian called out.“Love you too my little rogue!” Paradise Grandeur called back waving their vines to their floret.The terrans had left the room, it was just Mabryne and Paradise now. The two affini began gathering all the dishes and silverware from the table and carried them to the compiler to be decompiled. “Looks like you got yourself some absolutely adorable florets Mabby. I was wondering how long it’d take.” They worked with a smile, pressing the button on the compiler to return the matter into its more primal form in the appliance. “Granted I always expected you to pick up one of the cuties at the class-J cafe next to your shop. You do work with them everyday after all.”“Paradise you know they aren’t my floret, nor do we know that they will be. We still don’t know what they need to be happy. Normally looking through their internet searches can give some hint on what they like but… Well they don’t have a profile Paradise. I’m telling you I think she might be telling the truth.” Stellata told her friend. She knew they didn’t believe the story, the worried change of biorhythm when Starlight said she’s from the 21st century was so loud she’s sure even Starlight picked up on it.“It doesn’t really matter whether or not she believes she’s from that time, honestly I think there’s a lot of potential for an adorable dynamic between you two with the time travel hook. Terran who traveled through space and time to be in her owners vines is an absolutely adorable prospect. On the other finger however, I’m just a bit worried she’s plotting something.” Paradise walked over to the sink, turning it on to wash their vines of the little food bits they accumulated while feeding Vivian and the drops of hot chocolate spat up by Starlight.“What could she even plot by making such a story like this? Besides there’s more evidence I found last night that adds to her case.” Paradise looked inquisitively at their friend when she spoke of more evidence. Stellata pulled the grey blanket and constellation sheet she found on her bed. “I found these under my blankets, where she woke up yesterday morning. As well as some torn apart bits of a different mattress.”Paradise observed the blanket and sheet, they had been cleanly cut with no observable errors in the cut. No sign of mishaps, no sign of damage outside of the edge of the cute. It was impressive, and the same was true for both parts of the bedding. They sigh, “I admit, that is bizarre. Although I’m not sure they really prove anything. Vivian was a part of a Terran group called the OCNI who have some members who specialize in making up complex stories with some grand plan in mind, spies and the likes.” Paradise handed the fabrics back to Stellata. “Now I don’t know how anyone would sneak into your hab or even this station. But they possibly could have lied about their name on the initial interviews on the station or they’re lying to you. What did the blood work Apican give you say? Any matches with any known profile?”Stellata shook her head, “Nope, if she’s from the Aquifolium she never got her blood work done before, which I find extremely improbable. And the idea of someone outside the station sneaking in even more so. No other explanation is adding up except that she was brought her through some strange means we maybe don’t understand yet.”“Guess we’ll have to figure it out after you give her a class-D than. I’m just… I’m worried that this mystery of hers is going to get her hurt. You said she was panicking when she learned what year it was. Regardless if she’s being honest or not, that is what I’m most worried about Stellata. She’s clearly hurting Mabby.” Paradise was right, Stellata knew that.“She told me she had people she loved back at her time. She was grieving their loss. I found her in her room crying. The hab footage showed me everything, she was screaming and cursing the universe for separating her from her pinnates.” Stellata told Paradise, her core ached recalling the events of last night. Those poor sophonts.Paradise froze for a moment at what Stellata just said. They felt a stab in their own core just hearing her say that. “I… Everbloom the poor girls.” Paradise felt their injectors itch. They had class-B’s on them, they could easily ease that burden from Starlight while Stellata was gone. They weren’t theirs to do that too, not without Stellata’s permission. “I suggest you get some class-B’s and class-F’s than. If those memories and intrusive thoughts are hurting her that much, she needs them Mabby. As well as some others.” Paradise and Stellata sat back down on the table, putting their vines in their respective glasses of mineral water. “If you need me to while you’re gone, I can give her some class-B and have her forget the pain until you get back.”Stellata shook her head in disapproval, “No, we need her to remember her past clearly to try and pick up on some stuff she enjoys. If she’s telling the truth erasing her memories, even temporarily, will make it much harder to learn what she enjoys doing. Can’t exactly expect her to know her own hobbies if she can’t remember anything right?” Stellata explained. “At least wait until she’s found her footing before giving her too much xenodrugs.” Stellata pointed her finger shaped vine at Paradise. “The class-A’s in her drink may have already been too much.”“Mabby dear, you worry too much. Despite the wrong pipe incident breakfast went wonderfully. When I told Hazel about Starlight ae immediately agree’d she’d love the drink. A warm drink always helps the cuties calm down. And a class-A is always just a favorite of any sophont. If only she didn’t fight it so much, I’m sure she’ll accept the pleasure eventually. Or you could make her accept it now.” The two affini finished their mineral waters.“As I said, I want Aria to trust me. I want to get to know them before I make them mine.” Stellata failed to catch herself in time. “Or something else.” She attempted to save it, but it was too late.“Ah there you are, you remind me of how I was during my first bloom. So nervous about doing everything right or messing something up. Yet also that hunger you feel inside you doesn’t ease up. You don’t just want Starlight, you need her. She’s attuning to your biorhythm already. Her breaths match your hums, her steps match your steps. It’s frankly adorable how quickly that happened.” They leaned forward on the table, a cocky smile towards their friend as they laid their head on their hands.“Well, they did get a little exposed to my core…”Paradise immediately lifted their head up and gave a hearty laugh, “Hohoho! Atta girl! Just couldn’t help yourself to a bit of core time with her huh? No wonder you two are attuned so fast.” Their hand was over their chest, a common additive to the laughing expression of terrans. “She’s basically already yours than. Deny it all you want, you want her! You can’t lie to yourself forever.”Stellata knew they were right. She wanted Starlight badly. Perhaps it was time she stopped pretending. She knew what she wanted, she knew what Starlight needed. But it still had to be done her way. She knew what she wanted, the fantasy that played in her mind again and again. Aria lifting her neck, her entire systems neck by extension, and giving them all to her. Every inch of Starlight belonging to her. She could imagine the collar Aria would wear. It would read “Aria Stellata, First Floret, Pluribus” and any other details she’d need to discover form the system. She didn’t even know if they had a formation order to track. She could feel her injectors leak phytotoxins at the thought alone. “You’re right, I do want her. But I want her the way I decide. I want her to come to the conclusion that she’s mine.”“Than she’s already yours Mabby.” Paradise told her, lifting a vine as if they held a class up for a toast. “Congrats on your future floret.”

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Madeline brushed her teeth up on the tops of the sink steps, Vivian stood at its base brushing her own. She was glad she was able to do this on her own today, the last time she looked into her reflection in the mirror she had a big grinning affini behind her back. As well as a small growth of a beard that was no where to be seen. Her face was smooth as butter this morning, she couldn’t help look at the details of her face. She couldn’t believe a bit of… sap? She was pretty sure it was sap, her memory of what happened was a bit fuzzy for some reason. Foggy memory is nothing new to the system, memory sharing was never perfect and most of her memories of life before 2015 was lost in a haze as is. Regardless of her recollection of the events she couldn’t believe a bit of sap truly removed her facial hair, there wasn’t even a trace of its existence left. Even the closest shaves tended to leave some visible pigments on her face, but it was all just clear now. And this was all over her body too, she could look down at her legs and see no hints of hair anywhere on her. This felt like a dream come true, she couldn’t look away her reflection now.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aria smiled at the girl staring at her reflection, wrapping her mechanical limbs around the imp. A gesture that they could feel in realspace through phantom sensation. “You look beautiful Madeline, Stellata is right to call you cutie.” The pink haired robot girl flirted. Madeline rolled her eyes at her headmates response both in and out of the Starlight Forest. “I mean it you know.” She added, not letting her headmate avoid the compliment.“I do, it just feels weird to be called ‘cutie’ now. I think Mabryne has kind of over used it a tad, don’t you think?”Aria shook her head in disagreement, “Not at all, in all honesty I agree with every compliment she’s call us so far.” Aria spoke with a bit of distance. She had been in her own layer of the consciousness for most of the morning, that usually meant she was doing something or something was wrong. Normally she takes other alters there with her when they’re distressed enough, but no one has really needed that from what Madeline could tell.“Aria, something on your mind? Can’t read your thoughts you know. Well… whatever, you know what I mean. Speak your mind, what gots you so busy this morning?” Madeline was always good at noticing when something was wrong with Aria. As tough as she acts, Madeline was always good at grounding her headmates.“It’s nothing, don’t worry. If it is something actually important I’ll let you know okay?” Aria told her headmate. “I love you Madeline.”“Love ya too Aria. Why are you bringing that up?” Madeline was getting a bit concerned for her overseer. She didn’t normally worry about much beyond making sure the system was safe. Normally when she got worried she would always say…“All will be well, Madeline. You have nothing to worry about. I have it covered.” Aria tried to disengage from the conversation she realized she found herself in.Madeline struggled to believe Aria, but fae didn’t have the time to get to the bottom of her headmates reasoning right now. “If you say so. Just don’t withhold too much information from us okay? Our communication is important, especially right now.” She saw Vivian spit into the toilet back in realspace. She probably should follow her example at this point and spit the toothpaste out too.“I promise, I don’t plan on keeping secrets. I just am figuring things out is all. Finish up what your doing dear.”---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Madeline spat the minty toothpaste into the sink and rinsed it out, washing her newly compiled toothbrush under the nozzle. She looked over to the raccoon floret by the compiler making herself flossing sticks and a transparent bottle of mouthwash. She stuck the floss into her mouth and chose then to start talking. “Y’know, normally I don’t need to floss. Ma’am usually takes care of this stuff for me. I’m normally bad at rememberin to do this kind of thing y’know?” It was hard to understand her between the pick in her mouth and her accent. She had to have had some kind of Southern US accent but something about it was different Madeline couldn’t put her finger on. Maybe it was just the natural evolution of the accent over the past 500 years or something. Or perhaps Starlight’s difficulty with voice recognition made it hard to pinpoint. Growing up in isolation made some basic social identification skills difficult, not even adding the added difficulties with her autism. She handed another flossing stick to Madeline up on the stairs, who grabbed it and started cleaning her own teeth before Vivian continued. “So where ya from girlies? Ya one of em Titan bluebloods?”“Awuhtnow?” Madeline tried talking without taking the floss out of her mouth, making her words messy and difficult to get out clearly.“A. TITAN. BLUE. BLOOD.” She pronounced it very clearly as if pronunciation was what the problem was. As difficult as it was to understand the girl cleaning her mouth, Madeline did in fact understand what she said the first time, just not the meaning.Madeline pulled the floss out of her mouth. “I don’t know what you mean by that, but we’re not from Titan. We’re from Earth... Or Terra I guess.” She realized she should probably get used to calling it that. It seems like dear mother Earth had a bit of a name change in the past 531 years.“Nuh uh, no way you’re from Terra. Girlies, ya look like ya haven’t worked a day in your life and given that belly I assume you haven’t ever starved before from not workin.” Madeline looked down at her stomach, she wasn’t sure if that was an insult or not. Despite how she rarely had 3 meals a day the body did have a good bit of weight to it, regardless of how much she wish she didn’t. “I guess y’all could be from the north but… nah y’all strike me more like one of those hipsters from Titan who was obsessed with the 21st century, that ‘pog’ stuff kinda proved it.” Pog proved she was from Titan somehow? What is this girl talking about? Her tone was impossible to read, this felt insulting. And she was calling them a liar at the same time. “Ain’t nothing wrong with that y’know? We in the compact now, don’t matter how rich or poor you were. I wasn’t exactly poor myself back in the day. Not rich, but I kept myself fed.” Vivian definitely had a tone change at the end there, something less accusatory sounding at least.Madeline felt her irritation and frustration build up. “Look, I’m from Ea… Terra. I don’t know what you want from me. I’m from a different time is all.” Fae didn’t know how else to tell this floret that they're from Earth. Why is it so hard to be taken seriously?“Yuh, uh huh sure girlies. And I’m a beeple. Ya playing some kind of game with your owner or something?” She’s making her own idea of who they were now. Not only accusing her of being a pet but that this is all just some game. Of course she didn’t believe her, that she could accept. Time travel isn’t exactly something that makes sense. But her assuming this is all just pretend set something off in Madeline.Madeline felt the muscles in her hand tense, she was getting mad. “We are NOT lying!” She shouted, not intending to raise her voice. “This isn’t a fucking game or pretend or whatever the you think it is. This is real, we came from Earth in 2025!” Vivian recoiled away from the steps. She wasn’t expecting Starlight to get so offended by her antics. “And We’re not owned either.” Aria made Madeline take a deep breath in. She saw the raccoon girls ears pointed behind her head, a clear sign of fear. Madeline lost a bit of control there, with Aria’s aid she took another deep breath and calmed her voice. “I’m sorry for raising my volume.”“Okay, okay you’re from the past. Whatever ya say girlies. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to set anything off.” They put their hand forward with their fingers spread out wide for a handshake. “Let’s start again. I didn’t get to introduce myself to ya anyways. I’m Vivian Grandeur, First Floret, from the 26th century. She/they pronouns please, You?” She used her other hand to continue picking at her teeth as she spoke.Aria continued to make Madeline calm her breaths. Something she needed after that reaction eariler. The last thing she needs is to hurt someone elses pet over this, Paradise seemed nice enough and it’d suck to anger them by hurting their floret. She knows how she’d feel if someone hurt her cat. “Madeline Starlight, from the 21st century. She/they/fae. Sorry again.”“Water under the bridge girlies. So tell me, what’d ya do back in the past?” Vivian still didn’t believe them, Starlight knew that much. At this point she was humoring them. That was at least better than calling her an outright liar.“We didn’t do much. Didn’t have a job and barely left our room due to a general unsafe feeling of being seen in a transphobic state. And we weren’t about to start pretending to be a boy again. Unmedicated disabilities made it impossible to find work. We were too scared to seek an education as well, so we sort of just were around. We did occasionally draw, although we weren’t really any good at it.” She explained to the curious floret. “Right before we got sent through time we were also trying to get into painting miniatures. Expensive pieces of plastic but we got some to play around with. And that basically leads us to here and now.” Madeline used the end of her statement to get back into cleaning her teeth. Vivian already put a mouthful of mouth wash in her mouth and was swooshing it around. She went over to the toilet to spit it out before flushing it all down the drain.“So you were a NEET than? How’d you buy anything? How'd you survive in general?” She was genuinely curious at what they were saying. Even if she didn’t believe their story, she was curious what they had to say. “Also here, use this when your done. I didn’t spit in it I swear.” She handed the bottle of mouth wash over to Starlight.Why did she clarify that? Starlight took the floss pick out of her mouth, normally she’d see her own blood anytime she cleaned her teeth but today it was all clear. She took the top of the cap on the container and filled it with mouth wash. “Usually someone else had to handle finances for us. We tried to earn back what we could through other ventures like selling our art but that usually didn’t get much. We were lucky to have the people we did…” Madeline started talking quieter towards the end. Her somber eyes stared into the mint green fluid in the white cup, it did not reflect much but she could still make out her face in it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
“A parasite until the very end. Gods we’re awful.” Madeline thought to herself, staring into her reflection in the creek. It was still at this moment, it refused to flow under the weight of the guilt she had to carry knowing that she was only ever a burden to everyone she cared about.
There was a pain in her chest, but her emotions felt hollow. She felt empty after everything, she could do nothing but sigh.
Aria sat next to the imp,
patting faer on the back. Empty comforts from a kinder part of their collective minds. “Madeline, it’s okay. We were disabled trans women in the middle of a dangerously shifting political climate. There wasn’t much we could do and they knew that too. Yes we were a burden, but a burden they were willing to carry because they loved us.” Aria always had to speak up to counter these thoughts. Madeline couldn’t accept that this time.“Do you think they felt any relief when we disappeared?” Madeline asked the gentle machine
girl
.
Aria wanted to respond before Vivian’s voice called their focus out of mental space.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  “Ya doing okay up there? You look kind of sad.” Vivian’s voice snapped them out of their head. They normally didn’t get this lost in their own thoughts as much as this, but given the circumstance they figured it made sense that they’d be disassociating from reality a lot more. “You’re kinda just staring at the cup. Y’all space out real easy don’t cha?”“Yeah, sorry. We have a lot on our mind is all.” Madeline said before taking the shot of mouthwash. It’s sharp minty flavors felt refreshing in her mouth, especially after the sheer power of the crepes from breakfast. She’d need to figure out what they did to that last one in particular that made it so much better than the previous ones. And the hot chocolate as well, that Hazel they mentioned really knows how to make a meal. She felt a bit bad that she ended up spitting out the last bit of the drink, but it’s flavor felt otherworldly delicious for a cup of hot coco. Maybe due to the fact they it quiet literally was made on another world. This ship, station? Whatever this place is, it was orbiting Saturn from what Stellata said last night. That might explain the assumption that she’s from Titan, being a moon orbiting Saturn. There was already talk about life on Titan so there being some colony on there isn’t that strange of an idea if humanity did manage to make it to the stars. She wondered how they managed that, sure there was a lot of talk about going to space in her time but that was mostly from rich tech billionaires who had no idea what they were actually doing. She did have access to the internet now, when Stellata left she’d have plenty of time to look up anything on her tablet… er pad as Stellata called it. She wondered what Earth was like nowadays. Things were a bit of a mixed bag back in her time that felt like things were getting worse, but a lot can change in a few hundred years.Madeline spat out the mouthwash into the sink and rinsed the pure white bowl until no sign of the mouthwash was left. “Alright, all done.” Madeline stepped down from the steps up to the giant sink onto the soft water resistant floor.“Yay! Can I hug you?” The raccoon girl asked seemingly from nowhere with a tilt of her head.“Uhhh… why?” Madeline returned the request with a question.She brought her fingertips together like a nervous girl wanting to ask out their date, “Well… I just feel a lil touch starved is all. And I think y’all could use it with how you were looking into that cup. Please?” Her eyes looked bigger the moment she said please. She looked cute like this, the pet knew how to beg. The touched starved comment was a bit excessive, she was getting pet and hugged not more than ten minutes ago.“I… no I think we’re okay. Thank you. We probably shouldn’t keep your owner waiting either don’t you think?” Madeline tried to bring Vivian’s attention to the affini instead of her to redirect their need for affection. A subtle manipulation to get out of more of her begging that seemed to have worked. 
Vivians ears perked up excitedly.
“Oh dirt! You’
re
so so right! Lets go!” Vivian grabbed Starlight’s hand and dragged her out of the bathroom, Madeline was surprised how strong the girl was. Not that she was trying to fight much, but her grip alone showed she had a history of working with her hands. It was a familiar feeling to her, the farmers and hunters
in the forest and small town she came from
had a similar grip. Although most of them tried to crush her arm as a sign of strength or some other
masculine
bravado bullshit. Vivian however was simply excited and seemingly unaware of her strength
in comparison to Starlight’s frail grip. Madeline did not want to make a big deal about it and chose to endure the girls vice grip as they dashed back into the central room. They saw the two affini standing by the front door, talking about something they could
n’t
quit
e
make out. “Ma’am!!! We’re baaack!” Vivian called out
loud enough to have been heard from across a large football field
.Paradise was the first to respond. “There’s my darling little ro
gu
e!” They leaned down with open arms. Vivian finally let go of Madeline’s hand to rush to her owners vines and embrace each other. She was absolutely addicted to her owner wasn’t she? “Did you miss me petal?”
Miss them?
It had only been a few minutes.“Ahuh! I missed y
a
so so much I was wondering if I’d ever see y
a
again!” She was playing it up, she had to be.Paradise was eating it up, indulging their pets theatrics with more attention. “
Awww, my poor poor girl. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” They dragged their vine over the green tattoo on the back of Vivian’s neck as they spoke, causing the girl to shiver and moan with a simple touch.Stellata addressed
Starlight, “
Did you brush them thoroughly petals?
”
She asked. Starlight wondered why she asked that for a moment until she remembered the state her teeth were in when they found her. “Yes I brushed our teeth thoroughly. Ask her if you don’t believe me.” Madeline pointed to Vivian, who if she wasn’t looking at them she’d assume was getting laid with the noises she was making. Stellata dared not to disturb her friend and the neck rubbing they were doing.“I believe you Madeline, you’re a very good girl I hope you know.” Her tone was encouraging, she was proud of them over something so simple
as brushing her teeth
. Madeline tried to brush it off with the same dismissive hand motion she’s been doing before but Stellata followed up
her
statement,
interrupting her wards gesture
. “No, listen to me. You did something good,
you don’t get to dismiss a genuine compliment
. You earned it.” She spoke with a stern voi
ce.
Madeline was confused, she didn’t think she did anything worth praise nor the assurance of deserving it. “Okay, sorry.
Thank you for the compliment.” This polite stuff wasn’t Madeline’s strong suit
,
Aria or Ranni would have been better for this. Still, it was the best play for getting the affini off her back.“Good girl.” Another bit of praise for the ward. “Now, I’m going to be gone until probably some time around 1
5
:00 o’clock. Paradise will be watching you while I’m gone. When I get back I can start giving you your class-G’s and I would also like to talk with Aria if possible
tonight.
” She explained to her ward.
Madeline remembered the description of this class-G and she couldn’t help but get hopeful for her transition. But there was something else on her mind as well.
Madeline looked up at the cosmic fairy-
like
affini. “
Actually I wanted to bring that up earlier, why does Paradise have to watch us today? Like no offense to them we’re just not sure why.
We’re more than capable of looking after ourselves.”
Did fae
just
not trust them?
They couldn’t think of any reasons why she wouldn’t trust them on their own.
“Petal, you’re my wards. More importantly I know nearly nothing about you. I just need someone to make sure you’re safe and not at risk of hurting yourself.”
She leaned down and tapped on the collar around Starlights neck, a collar she had forgotten was even still on.
“The monitor can tell me how you’re health is but if something did happen to you while I was away than I might not be able to help you in time. That is why Paradise is here.” Stellata explained. The way she explained that made it sound like she was worried they would self harm, but she had no reason to assume they would.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
“Except you told her that everyone you loved was dead.” Tempest’s dark
raspy
voice chimed in from the darkest of
the thickets
shadows. “You grew careless in your grieving and fed her information that she did not need to know.”Madeline looked to the side towards the gray gravel she stood on, that was her that told Mabryne that wasn’t it? “I… fuck.” She knew they were hurting inside now, a deep wound in their very soul bled out. She thought they might not have anything to live for
now
didn’t she? “
This is your fault
O
ther
H
alf. You were careless and now they will have more eyes trained on us
because of your mistake
. Idiot.” Tempest insulted,
it’s venomous words poisoning the imps thoughts
.
T
his was their fault,
it was right
. She had showed her weakness to the affini and now has to suffer the consequences.
They were supposed to be better than this. Nothing to do now but to accept this fate, or at the very least bargain against it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Madeline did not want to be watched all day again, she needed her personal space. Having someone bear down on her all the time was nerve wracking and overwhelming. “Fine, but I still want some time for ourselves without someone breathing down our neck the entire time. Even just an hour would be fine.”Stellata thought about it, she did want the girls to socialize with Vivian and Paradise so she got used to the culture. She wasn’t asking for anything unreasonable by any means, fae were going to be out for multiple hours. Besides SeaGlass will have her eyes on her anyways. “
Very well, you can have some private time. If however, you are asking for this private time to hide your emotions from everyone or to practice any form of self harm you will lose this privilege. Do you understand petal?” Stellata wanted it to be clear that the privacy was for her wellbeing rather than an excuse to practice harmful activities.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
She did think they were going to self harm than. Tempest was right, admitting their grief was a mistake.
Madeline heard Tempest’s raspy voice speak to her. “She will use everything she learns to pick us apart until we are at her mercy. This is a war of information, she is studying us, we must study her and learn her weaknesses in return.” The shadows plotted against the affini.Madeline pondered the shadows words. Tempest was right that Stellata seemed to have been basing her actions on what she learned about them. They also knew with almost completely certainty that she was going to turn them into her pet if they messed this up. The way she talks to them was a dead giveaway
of her desire
. This hour of privacy time was going to be their biggest chance
they were going to get to learn more about the affini, and if they were lucky Stellata as well. Paradise was a concern as well but not as much as Stellata, Paradise already had a pet to distract them anyways.Aria cut in from the paranoid duo’s conversation, “Not everyone who shows us kindness is trying to manipulate us. Not everyone is the Panoptics!” Aria raised her voice at the conspirators of the thicket. “Stellata is just worried about us, and rightfully so. Letting her know that we were hurting was not a mistake.
In her situation I’d be doing the same thing. Strangers appearing in your house from the far past with everyone they know no longer around? You bet your ass I’d be worried about them too!” Aria’s voice became the focus of the entire headspace, her voice was like a divine decree. Light itself would bend to the whims of the robotic overseer of Starlight.Yet the shadows stay steadfast. “And you cannot assume
pure intentions either
.
You do not know why Stellata acts the way she does.” It argued against her. “More the reason to learn about her. If it is wrong than so be it, but we can not afford to be careless Overseer.”Aria pushed aside Tempest’s concerns, it was always so paranoid over everything. It needed to understand that not everyone had ill intentions. People were good more often than not and she was going to prove it to the poor shadow. But first she needed to make a decision. She turned her gaze over to Ranni, “
Ranni dear, you’re fronting now. I trust you to keep a level head and not jump to conclusions about the people around us.” She turned her head to address Madeline. “And you my dearest imp, you are clearly worried alongside of Tempest. I’m not mad at you for that, in fact I think a little bit of caution is a good thing in an unknown situation. But assuming the worst of people is unacceptable! Do I make myself clear?”
Her voice was stern, she exuded an air of authority over her system that their minds could not ignore.
Madeline nodded, “Yes… yeah okay yeah I got you. I understand.”----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  A vine placed itself on Ranni’s shoulder, “Petals? Do you understand?”Ranni collected the thoughts from the past few moments. No self harming or hiding emotions through privacy. Got it! “Yes Stellata! I understand.” Ranni answered, the change in her voice was clear. “Thank you”Stellata caught the change in tone and voice. “You’re welcome Ranni. I’ll be back soon. You be on your best behavior while I’m out cuties!” She pinched Ranni’s cheek before standing up straight. Ranni couldn’t help but blush at the affini’s gesture. “I’ll see you all in a few hours. Don’t miss me too much!”Paradise waved their hand-like vines to their friend. “See you soon Mabby.”Vivian waved with significantly more enthusiasm, looking more like hailing down a ship than a wave goodbye. “Byeeeeeee, have fun Miss Stellata!”SeaGlass beeped online to say her goodbyes, “Farewell Miss Stellata!”“Goodbye Stellata.” Ranni kept her goodbye simple. Her farewell stood out in the room as she was the only one who did not wave to the affini leaving the front door. The morning light shined in through the door in the quick moment of Stellata walking out the door before it closed behind her.Paradise bounced the floret in their vines, something Vivian seemed to enjoy very much. “Well darlings, you got your hour. I hope you enjoy yourself cuties. Please let me know if you need anything during your time.” Their deep voice sounded as smooth as butter as they spoke.Vivian added their voice to the discussion, “Make sure you compile lube and toys! Tell me about it when y’all are dooooone girlies~!” Her voice was playful as she accused Ranni. “I can recommend some good florn for you!”Ranni’s heard jumped out of her chest at the sudden assumption of her intentions in isolation. “Wuh… WE’RE NOT GOING TO DO THAT!” Why would they even think that! Even if she was, there was no way she was telling anybody. “We just wanted some space. We haven’t had any time by ourselves since we got here. We like time to ourselves from time to time.” She tried explaining to the floret, who had been laughing wildly at her reaction.Paradise cut off their floret’s laughter with a pet to her head. “Of course darling, I completely understand. Set up where ever you like and we’ll be waiting in case you need anything. Tata now, see you in an hour.” Luckily this affini was a lot more respectful of Ranni’s wishes for privacy. Ranni looked around at the large house she found herself in, she did not know her way around this place. She could go in her room again, but she hasn’t seen much of the house. It would be nice to get a better lay of the land. And she was curious about the garden opposite of her rooms door. Being around nature would be good for her, even if technically she’s been around a lot of plants lately anyways. At least the ones growing in a garden wouldn’t have anything to say back to her… she hoped. She left for the hallway, walking past the restroom door and up to the transparent obscure glass door. While most doors slid open, this one had actual hinges on it. Some kind of strange floral hinges. She heard the door open behind her as she made the turn to the two opposite doors. Her door had opened, but no one was there. She looked into her room for a moment before coming to the conclusion it must of have motion sensitive opening mechanic. She turned around from the automated door and to the obscure glass door. She started pushing it, nothing. It wouldn’t budge an inch.“Would you like me to open the door to the gardens Starlight?” SeaGlass said from nowhere, catching Ranni off guard.Ranni jumped. Right, SeaGlass can just do that. She keeps forgetting the AI was everywhere in this house. “Yes please SeaGlass.” Ranni politely told SeaGlass. The doors began to swing open to reveal the expansive greenhouse garden beyond them. The sight enamored her to the point she had forgotten to thank SeaGlass for getting the door. There were full trees growing and many plots of myriad of different flowers both familiar and not growing all across the open aired garden. Hatched wooden structures with many different vines and ivies grew on the fence walls of the garden with more flowers hanging off of them. Opposite the entrance of the garden at the end of the fence was a gazebo with a large table with many seats across it and an entire pool sized pond next to it. The center of the garden was a large fountain with a statue of a collared naked human enshrouded in blankets of flowers. To call this extravagant would be underselling this garden, anything short of sheer opulence would be an insult to this greenhouse eden. Starlight eyed the pond, there were sun chairs lined up by the waters with towels on them. Sun chairs would be perfect to lay on while she did her research on her pad, especially considering they were low enough to the ground where climbing on them would be far easier than any of the other large seating options.She walked forward, hearing her footfalls hit the ground below her. She realized she wasn’t quiet walking. She didn’t really need to in this situation, but it wouldn’t hurt to maintain the practice. She stepped forward keeping the inner sides of her feet lifted before laying them gently flat on the ground. It was quieter, but not completely silent. It was a bit of a walk to the other end of the giant garden, more than she’d expect for a normal garden but affini were anything but normal. Even for an affini this felt excessive in size. Why did she even need this much space? There was even more garden she couldn’t see without walking down different paths. Each of the three paths open went up and down different elevations with different types of plants in each. The fourth one was locked behind a giant wooden gate with ivies growing over the wooden barricade. Why did Stellada need a garden like this? She lives here on her own and Ranni was pretty sure SeaGlass mentioned her working somewhere. Doesn’t she run a pet store? Or rather a pet supply store, that distinction is probably important. Given the context they knew of the Affini’s society it’s easy to understand that the pets in question were probably human. There was something horrifying about all of this still, even if it looked like Vivian was happy about it. The fact they so casually kept people as pets like this was concerning at best and bone chilling at worst. She’d have an hour to learn more about the specifics of the Affini and their pet owning culture.Starlight made it to the sun chair, accompanied with its own side table and umbrella like this was some kind of beach or pool instead of a giant pond. Upon lifting herself up onto the low long chair, she laid herself in a comfortable position and turned on her pad. It had no start up time and immediately opened to the main menu, a true blessing of technology of the future. She immediately noticed that there was a notification in the chatroom. Opening the notification showed that she was friends with someone named “Collars4Cuties”. There was one message with it.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Collars4Cuties] Hey cuties! (This is Stellata by the way). You can message me from here if you need anything okay? Enjoy your pad time petals!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yeah, of course it was Stellata. She had made herself their friend on this program, which wasn’t really a problem. They did live with her after all. She was the closest thing they had to a friend in their current situation. Despite everything, she was still kind to them. That would not go unnoticed and unappreciated, even if it is for weird affini reasons. Starlight had also noticed the icon for the Pluribus Profile program on the corner. Tapping on it opened a small window that had a few selectable profiles on it. “Madeline, Aria, Ranni, Tempest” This was them. Right now it said it was Ranni, which was correct. There was also an “add new profile” option. She clicked on it and quickly added a profile for Callie, given the amount of worry they’ve been having she’s probably going to come up sooner or later. They would add a profile for Princess as well, however they worried that with a name like that Stellata would end up making a big deal about it and possibly ask to meet her.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Most of Starlight felt bad about having to hide Princess like this, but it was for their systems safety. She would jump on the affini’s lap and beg to turn them all into pets, pleasure seeking pup she is. Ranni and Madeline would have to make it up to her when this was all done, maybe when this whole wardship business is over Princess can be her sometimes floret of the system? Assuming the affini would accept that kind of deal in the first place. Madeline suddenly felt the sensation of Aria’s hand patting the worrying imps back. She didn’t say anything, maybe because she didn’t feel good about suppressing one of her own headmates. But it’s necessary, they didn’t survive this long just to belong to someone else. They survived their family, they survived the Panoptics, they survived Texas, they can survive the affini.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ranni closed the message app and move to searching the internet… or overnet as its apparently called now, for information. First thing was first. What are the Affini? She needed to learn what they could do, what are their limits, what is up with their obsession with pets, and anything else she could learn. She found what was basically a wiki page on the affini. There was some differences between this page and the wiki pages of her time but it was familiar enough to Ranni.She scrolled through the page, she learned some things she already knew about them. The shape shifting had made itself clear to her at this point. The xenodrugs they produced was something she already knew, although the term graft seemed to be a bit more than she realized. It wasn’t just making their body able to produce the stuff, they could put any flora into their being. Not only that she learned they have a core inside them that is like a mix of their heart and maybe brain. It’s hard to assign such animal terms to the anatomy of walking plant people. The core was the affini and the vines were their body, good to know. They also had something called a “biorhythm”, which was some kind of sound and movement that sophonts apparently found very appealing and “hypnotic” according to the site. Ranni was uncertain about that. There was a hum in Stellata’s chest that they heard when they hugged and it was comforting, but a soft hum in general was a nice sound. It felt “hypnotic” in the same way the sound of rain outside the window was, well for her it was at least. Ranni looked up at the artificial sky behind the transparent roof of the giant greenhouse. This was the sky of a space station, she wondered if it even rained on this ship. It’s sky was vast enough where she could see a natural rain cycle being possible, the clouds looked real. Perhaps that was something the station controlled. In fact, looking up the Aquifolium at some point wouldn’t be a half bad idea either. Something for after her research of these plant people from… the Triangulum Galaxy? They’re not even from the Milky Way? That was a huge surprise, the Affini had an intergalactic civilization. Just how big were they? A quick click on the link to the Affini Compact would give her the answer she seeked.Ranni’s eyes opened wide as she exclaimed loudly. “SIXTEEN GALAXIES!?” How the fuck was that possible? Surely that amount of space would be impossible to govern, how did they manage that?“Yup, Sixteen Galaxies all safely under the Affini Compact!” SeaGlass commented from the ground under the seat.Ranni looked down off the side of the sun chair, there was no sign of speakers or cameras anywhere. “What the hell? SeaGlass this is supposed to be our private time why are you here?” “Oh… I’m kind of everywhere. Do you want me to leave?” She sounded sad at the end there like she wanted to be around us. Ranni was uncertain of what this AI was actually capable of at this point.Aria took a position in the front for the moment. “Allow me Ranni. SeaGlass dear, we would like some privacy but it isn’t anything against you. We just have some anxieties over being looked over constantly and need our personal space. You can come back when the hour is done.” She spoke in a calm demeanor to the AI. Aria assumed the AI’s tone was genuine and wanted to make sure she wasn’t offended by being asked to leave. “Oh gosh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to cause you anxiety! Yeah I can go mute for a bit and leave you all be. Enjoy learning about the Compact Starlight!” Beep. She made an audible sound to signify her disappearance. Aria took it as the sign to put Ranni back to the front to continue her reading.Scrolling through the history of the Affini Compact proved mostly full of information she did not need to know all that much, the history of how they domesticated other sophonts was not a concern of hers at the moment. Additionally she didn’t need to know too much about what the Affini were doing in the other galaxies at this moment. What she did want to know, however, was the local space. The affini arrive in Terran controlled space only in 2549, seven years ago with the current year. The Terran Domestication Campaign, lasting between the terran years 2551 through 2554… Only a three year war? It was also only five years ago that this all happened. Meaning all the things in place right now and all the people they got have only been a part of their society for a very small amount of time relatively speaking. The Terran Domestication Treaty was negotiated and signed in April 2554, officially making the Terrans a part of the Affini Compact.Ranni wondered what humanity was doing before the Affini arrived. She learned enough about the Compact for now. She'd have plenty of time to get back to that, right now curiosity has her attention elsewhere. It time to learn what this “Terran Accord” was, and possibly what Earth is like nowadays while she was at it. Clicking on the article showed the Flag of the Terran Accord, a red flag with a golden wolf and bird holding a golden planet with green laurels behind them. At the bottom of the flag read, “Spiritus Invictus Terra Per Astra Lucebit Aeterna.” Her Latin was not that good but she could piece together that it was talking about the spirit, earth, and stars. This looked like a bad sign at a glance. The flag screamed fascism to Ranni, and looking at the rest of the article seemed to support her theory. Oligarchical fascist empire ran by the wealthiest companies, their rule held a radius of about five hundred light years around the Sol System. They conquered another species called the Rinans and subjugated with extreme prejudice, created forge worlds that ran as giant sweatshops, and the rich just lived in peace and comfort while strangling the lower class. Same as it fucking ever was. There was a rage in Ranni in learning how little had actually changed in humanity in the 500 years she had lost. They had only gotten worse, of course they only gotten worse. All the fighting for justice and equality squashed under the power of the mighty dollar. Ranni noticed one more thing on the article, a mention of Terra. How Earth was destroyed, undergone another great dying and left as a barely hospitable planet. Her home was nothing but a dead world now. Land turned to deserts and wastelands, the seas poisoned, and most life exterminated. Killed for the sake of profit, just as she had feared it would back in her time. Back than she had hope still, she believed that people were good and strong enough to possibly prevent this disaster. But from what she could see, humanity fell long before the Affini arrived. Humanity died so they could all become Terrans. Becoming nothing more than a work force and military for another fascist regime. Maybe it was a good thing they all became pets to some space plants than, at least than they won’t be killing themselves for the sake of lining some rich assholes pockets anymore. Ranni had to put the pad to the side, she couldn’t handle seeing any more. Her home was gone in every way possible. The people were dead, the planet was dead, humanity was dead. There was only her, a human among terrans and affini.Tears of righteous anger and painful grief flowed from Ranni’s eyes. She thought of everyone she used to know, everything they believed in and the shared hope for things to get better. All of it was squandered and they never saw it come to be. She felt alone in the universe, now more than ever. The forest she had hoped to see again one day was dead, the oceans she grew up with, the few friends she made were dead, it was all fucking dead. Dead dead dead dead dead! Ranni’s emotions were spiraling, tears poured from her eyes as she gritted her teeth trying to push it all away. Not again, not again not again.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“What’s wrong with me whats wrong with me! I used to be better at this, just make it stop!” Ranni cried out in the darkness of her thoughts. There was no response, just two burning eyes looking down at her. It was judging her, she was failing. She was failing! Her failures felt like daggers stabbing into her mind, the sting of her emotions manifesting as physical pain as if the mental pain wasn’t enough. Aria grabbed the hurting angel, her words felt difficult to hear behind the screaming in her mind.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Beep!Ranni grabbed at her beeping collar with blood red fury in her eyes. “Stupid collar!” She shouted in her thoughts, tugging at the loop around her neck as best she could. “Why can’t you just come off!” She knew what this meant, Paradise would show up soon and she will have no more time on her own. All because she couldn’t keep herself in control. There was still so much she wanted to learn to, she just had to lose control again. Stupid girl. She could see the tall affini walk through the giant obscured glass door. It was over.“Starlight are you alright?” They called out. Vivian followed as best she could behind as they sprinted from the door to the sun chairs. Each step they took launched their form off the ground, looking more like a gallop than a sprint.Ranni didn’t respond to their calls, she wanted them to go away. With Paradises large size it didn’t take them long to reach the chair. They took a knee and put their long hand-like vines on her shoulder. “What happen? What’s the matter darling?” They were clearly worried, even their eye color changed to a sky blue as they looked at her with their four glowing eyes. Ranni turned to looked away from them, she wasn’t sure if she just didn’t want to speak or couldn’t at this moment. It didn’t matter to her, she didn’t speak and that’s all what mattered to her. They picked up her pad, she had left it on the page about the Terran Accord carelessly. Paradise’s eyes widened and started gaining a red tint to them. “Why were you looking up the Terran Accord Ranni?” They asked. They sounded upset and concerned. Still Ranni did not respond, she just simply kept trying to hide her tears while keeping her face turned away from the giant affini.“Answer me Starlight.” Their command seeped into her thoughts, she wish they’d just go away. “Stellata entrusted me to take care of you and that will be difficult if I don’t know whats wrong. So please, answer me Ranni.”Ranni covered her ears, she didn’t want to talk or listening to them. But she had to, if only to get them to lay off of her. “I just wanted to know what happened to Earth okay!? I’m sorry! I just want to know what happened! That’s all, I didn’t mean to cause all of this… this…” Ranni couldn’t find the words for what she was experiencing. Instead she made a frustrated flailing gesture at herself and everyone around her. “THIS!” Ranni saw the Affini’s eyes shift from the red to white, to cyan, than back to their usual amber color. She did not know what this meant, but judging by their face they were probably thinking about something.“Do you really not remember anything?” Vivian cut in, she sounded genuinely worried. A wasted emotion on her, Starlight only paid attention to the fact Vivian still didn’t believe her.Ranni looked to the floret, her tear filled eyes mixed with rage at the terran for once again assuming her dishonesty. “It isn’t about remembering Vivian! Remembering would mean we had anything about it to fucking forget! We weren’t around for the past couple hundred years remember!?” Ranni had lost control of her volume as her temper rose. The more she spoke the more it went from shouting to yelling. “Not that you believe us! No one ever believes us! No matter how much we cry or hurt no one ever takes us seriously! All everyone ever sees in us is some fucking… GAH! JUST FUCK OFF!” She was screaming at this point, causing the terran to cower behind her owners vines. Paradises eyes once again becoming crimson red as they stared down the furious girls.“Don’t raise your voice at my Vivian!” Their voice boomed and echoed in Ranni’s thoughts. Paradise’s form seemed to have grown, vines with needle tipped flowers extending from their body. Ranni cowers at the intimidating form of the affini in front of her, she felt like she was looking at a proper monster now. She felt their size now more than ever, they towered over her as if she was a scared cat compared to them. Their vines grabbed at Starlight’s arm and pulled her up to her feet as more wrapped around her. They were wrapping themselves around her waist when she felt her legs couldn’t carry her in this creatures presence. She felt a prick in her skin where they grabbed, they didn’t pay much attention to the painless poke as all of her focus was on the bright four eyes of the affini. “Starlight, apologize to my floret now.” Ranni felt a pressure of absolute authority exude from the affinis words. She stared into their eyes, she couldn’t look away. She knows she’s done something wrong, she didn’t mean to raise her voice. She hates getting mad and now she’s hurt the people around her because she couldn’t keep it under control… again.She didn’t want to anger this affini anymore, they were scaring her. Besides just the sheer physical size difference, Ranni felt small next to them even in spirit. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Her voice was trembling as the rage turned to sorrow and fear. She felt weak, she felt if they were to let go she would collapse back onto the sun chair. “I’m scared…” She was scared? She wasn’t wrong there was definitely fear in her but it felt like it was melting away the longer they were held up by Paradise. It felt like a calming waterfall was washing away her fear and worries from her troubled minds.“You won’t be for long darling, we’re going to spend some time together until Mabryne gets back understand? I’m sorry to say, but your hour has ended a bit early.” Their eyes had returned to the usual amber coloring, “And I am sorry for scaring you, you must be going through a lot and I didn’t mean to make it any worse.” Their apology felt genuine. Their eyes hinted a bit of blue when they said they were sorry.“It’s okay Paradise, I was the one who yelled at her. That wa...”Paradise cut off Ranni before she could finish. “No, you were stressed and I did not recognize or respect that. That is on me.” They were right, Ranni was feeling overwhelmed by what she had learned. But still that didn’t excuse her inappropriate treatment of Vivian, she didn’t really understand why she had such a harsh reaction earlier either. All of it felt distant in only a few short moments. “And please, call me Mx Grandeur petals.” They told to the tear soaked girls. They reached their index finger vine to her eyes and gently wiped them down with soft tissue-like petals from their own body.“Yes Mx Grandeur.” Ranni didn’t have the energy to argue with the affini right now, she was exhausted. Everything felt like it was floating as she grew light headed. The affini gently laid them down back on the sun chair. They had a small thorn filled smile on their face that would have felt uneasy to the girl. But for reasons she did not understand, she did not feel uncomfortable. In fact, all of her anxieties seemed to melt away in the morning sun. She closed her eyes as she laid back on the seat. In her thoughts she heard Aria’s voice.All will be well.~-~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[TrueParadise] Stellata, I’m sorry I had to drug Ranni. Her monitor went off after only 26 minutes of her hour and I found her crying in your garden. She had looked up the Terran Accord and something she found had caused her great distress. [Collar4Cuties] Everbloom, is she okay? Do I need to come back?[TrueParadise] Mabryne, darling, I have it handled. She is fine now. I gave her some class-E and she’s seems to be calming down. However crying wasn’t the only thing she did. She yelled at Vivian and made her cower behind me. I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want me going too far with xenodrugs. She was being really dismissive and unresponsive with me and I needed her to apologize to Vivian.[Collars4Cuties] Ranni did that? But she was so gentle and polite yesterday. I’ll talk to her when I get back. After I hear her reasoning for her behavior I’ll decide what to do next. I’ll be back as soon as I can.[TrueParadise] I’ll keep her on class-E’s until you get back to prevent any further tantrums. After reviewing the evidence, I think she might have just been more stressed than she was letting on. I do have some plans of what to do with her while your gone, I heard what her hobbies were from Vivan so we’ll be busy with that until you get back.[Collars4Cuties] I see. I’ll get to the root of her stresses when I get back. I’m so sorry about Vivian. I feel bad, I thought she’d get comfortable with florets being around her. What Starlight did is my responsibility so I’m sorry.[TrueParadise] Mabby, you’ve only had her a day. Don’t blame yourself for what you couldn’t have prevented, especially while your not even here. I agreed to watch her so I have full responsibility over how she reacted. Vivian will be fine, Starlight isn’t the first seed she’s played with. She’s already getting over it. You enjoy your day and I’ll take care of everything else, okay?

[Collars4Cuties] Okay, thank you Paradise.[TrueParadise] You’re welcome Mabby.

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The many winged angel curled up in her robotic overseers arms. Aria gently stroked her hair with her synthetic fingertips. Gliding her fingers through the long waves to the curling tips of her hair. She closed her eyes and let herself melt in her overseers arms. She needed this, Aria knew she did. Even if only for a quick moment while Paradise left to compile some things she would take away those stresses from her headmate and let her drift away until she wants to wake up again. “I messed it all up…” She whimpered.

Aria brought her finger to her headmates lips. “You did fine Ranni, I’m not going to blame you for anything that happened. You felt stressed and haven’t had a proper outlet since we got her, it’s completely understandable to snap after all that has happened. Just relax, I’m here for you my little angel.” Aria’s voice gave her comfort. Even if the touch within the mind did not feel the same as the touch of the body, Aria’s touch always managed to comfort her regardless. Aria had Ranni’s head lifted on her lap as the rest of her laid in the waters of the creek flow. Ranni felt herself flowing, floating, and calming down. “That’s it sweetheart, everything is okay. I’ll take over from now on okay? You just rest for me little angel. All will be well.”

All will be well. Ranni has heard Aria say these words before. Every time she felt scared she would hear those words. All will be well. She hasn’t been wrong so far. Even when everything felt like they were at their worst and the world was falling apart, those four words have always carried her forward. All will be well. They have before and they will now. It will be different, it will be scary, but it will all be okay. All will be well. Aria has always been there to make sure of it. They would pull through one miracle at a time, this would be no different. All will be well.

All will be well. Everything was safe. All will be well. Aria was here. All will be well.

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“All will be well...” Ranni lazily repeated out loud, quiet enough to be barely audible as her consciousness drifted away into dormancy. While Paradise had returned indoors to grab something unspecified only a few moments ago, leaving Vivian to watch over the girls for the quick moments they were away. She kicked her feet in the waters of the pond not far from the sun chair. Aria did not know what would happen next, but she doubted they were in any danger. The affini haven’t shown the slightest hint at wanting to harm them, and if they did they definitely would have at this point. Especially after Ranni shouted at Vivian like that. Aria had people in her life that she cared for like how Paradise cared for Vivian. Genuine love and compassion while having dominant control over them. Subs loved that kind of thing, dare to say once upon a time Aria could maybe have claimed to have had florets of her own. At least in some way with what capabilities she had in a long distance relationship. She also wasn’t a fourteen foot tall plant person with infinite resources to provide for everyone, but she did what she could. She took pride in providing what comforts she could to her friends in need.

She looked to the floret playing in the water. She was absolutely soaked. What started as her dipping her feet in the water turned far more adventurous as she went waist deep before stepping out with a mischievous smile on her face as if she had gotten away with some kind of crime. “Hey, Vivian?” Aria called out to her. She could see her ears perk up as she turned her head around to look at Starlight with her big golden eyes.

“Yuh wassup?”

“I’m sorry about Ranni yelling at you earlier, she’s been through a lot since we got here. She didn’t mean to scare you.” Aria apologized for her angelic headmate.

“Oh! No worries! I’m over it. And uhhhh, who are ya? New voice new person yea?” Vivian asked with a tilt of her head.

“Aria Starlight, I’m our systems overseer. Pleasure to meet you directly Vivian.” Aria moved to sit up, her balance was a bit off from the mental strain of the outburst earlier but she managed to get her legs to hang of the side of the giant sun chair. She felt a mild headache from how much activity has been happening in her system, but it was nothing she hadn’t felt before.

Aria felt a shift in the air. She could feel them before she could see them, Paradise had this presence to them you could feel in the air. That sub-audible hum that followed them wherever they went. That “biorhythm” as the wiki page called it. They were holding a handful of things in their vines. Aria could make out brushes and palettes. There was definitely more but it was covered by leaves and clothes. “Alright cuties, I know exactly what to do to pass the time!” They had a confident smile on their face, a lot of the fear and authority they commanded before seemed to have been gone and replaced with a playful body language. They spoke more like an enthusiastic teacher more than a dominant pet owner, but perhaps that was less obvious to their floret. She was wagging her tail excitedly like a puppy at her owner as they approached. “First things first!” Vines grew from their back that lifted up the excited raccoon girl. “Starlight would you like to walk to the gazebo? I can carry you there if you like!” They sounded all to happy to carry her as well.

Aria appreciated their energy, enthusiasm was a good trait in a caretaker. “I have it handled Mx Grandeur. Thank you.” She responded, picking up her pad from the seating of the chair. She let herself back on the ground gently, it was low enough where she didn’t have to worry about jumping down and injuring Ranni’s body. She hadn’t realize how poor her balance was, however she managed to stay on her feet. A wobbly landing was still a landing. She considered the walk ahead of her and the difficulties it could bring. She could do it, but at the same time she could use the affini. They offered to help after all. “Actually on second thought, if you could be a dear.” Aria held her hand forward for her helper. “Care to guide me to the gazebo Mx Grandeur?”

Paradise smiled at the sophont in front of them, pleasantly surprised by her demeanor, politeness, and willingness. The others had been so distant to the affini’s aid, but not this one it would seem. “It would be my pleasure Aria.” A vine grew from their back, almost like a tail that wrapped itself around Aria’s hand. They guided her along as they walked forward, keeping her balanced as she walked. One careful step at a time they guided her to the seat of the gazebo. Sitting themselves down and placing their wet floret on their lap as vines lay out the materials they were carrying onto the glass table. Laying out their clothes and placing paints and brushes over them. Next they laid down boxes filled with small plastic, or at least they looked like plastic, miniatures of many different fantasy characters. Knights, fairies, elves, ghosts, and other strange beings that were less defined in such simple identifiers. “Shall I carry you up as well darling?”

“If you would be so kind, it would be very appreciated.” Aria felt confident in her decision. Aria knew that these affini we the best resource she had right now. Her balance was off and climbing on her own would put her system at risk. Something she would not allow no matter what circumstance. The vine wrapped around her body and gently lifted her up onto the seat. Aria gave the kind plant a smile and “Thank you kindly.”

“You’re welcome darling. Do you know what this is cuties?” They laid out all the paints, palettes, and per-assembled and primed minis. They gestured their vines in an opening motion to show off the supplies on the table.

“Are we painting Ma’am?” Vivian asked her owner as she tilted her head. She wasn’t sure if this was something she’d enjoy. Nevertheless she was happy to try anything her owner offered her.

“Yes we are my little rogue! Very good!” They brought their vine to her head, petting their spiky hair making her nuzzle into her owners doting vines. “So from what I’ve come to learn, these models are from a game of sorts called ‘BattleAxe’. Everyone picks a faction and paints a whole group of them together to go against each other in a table top game. I didn’t know what faction you’d all like so I grabbed a little bit of all of them. As well as a recent one for myself!” They lifted up what was clearly an unpainted model of an affini of sorts. It didn’t look like it belongs in any faction in particular, perhaps the affini just added their own faction to be represented in the game. Paradise picked up one of the boxes, the Changeling Collectives, and put it in front of Vivian. “I already decided yours for you petal.” The Changeling Colletives were a faction of shapeshifters living among the cities of the human factions. A faction about stealing the enemies resources and general trickery and scheming. Most of them took the appearance of humanoids with animal like traits so it makes sense for them to pick that for Vivian. “And for you Aria? Shall I pick for you as well?” Paradise asked.

Vivian lifted one of her cheeks and tilted her head. “I’ve never done this kind of thing before but… sure what the heck!” Vivian grabbed at the many changlings presented in front of her. Picking out the werewolf changeling to begin with. “This one’s hot.”

Aria looked at the factions. There was two that caught her attention. One was a faction of angels made to convert the enemy to their side, The Elysium. The other was the Spirits of Sylvanwylds, made up of fairies and other fairy tale creatures trying to keep everyone out of their resources. She would make the decision for her system. She reached over and grabbed the Spirits of Sylvanwylds. “Fairy lovers! No wonder you and Stellata met.” Vivian proclaimed. Aria was curious what they meant by that, was there something she didn’t know?

“Excuse me?” Aria asked the raccoon terran.

“Well like, normally when an affini and a terran start livin together it’s from one of three reasons. Ya got the affini finding ya struggling to live and they take ya in to take care of ya, your a danger to yourself and others, or the terran goes to a domestication center and willingly becomes a flort. But fate had some different plans with ya. Instead it put ya and her in the same space and having you two… er however many, exist in the same space. Assuming y’all actually just poofed!” She lifts her hand up and spreads out her fingers to signify the teleportation as she spoke. “Into her room. Or however else you got there.” She tried to dodge the accusation of Starlight lying about how she got there and her origins. Aria didn’t let the fact this floret didn’t believe her system bother her too much, she knew asking them to believe her was a big ask.

Aria lifted up a fairy from the model collection. It had two large butterfly wings and its skin grew plantlike growths to cover its body in a way that felts similar to the plant creatures she currently found herself with. “I don’t know about fate having anything to do with it. Honestly if it truly was some hand of fate that took us away from our friends and family than fate sounds like a cruel thing than, doesn’t it?” Aria retorted, she did not speak with any emotion in her tone. She sought only to satisfy the florets curiosity but did not desire to carry this conversation too far.

“I… ya know what, that’s true.” Vivian lined up her minis, roguish wolf was her first mini she grabbed. “I guess to me it was like, it didn’t sound like ya had a whole lot in your lives back than and now ya have your own affini and life to make here. Sounds like a pretty good outcome to me minus the sad stuff.” Vivian explained to the system.

Aria considered what she had said, she was kind of assuming some stuff about her future with Stellata but she was right about one thing. They didn’t have much going on back in her time. No real foreseeable future being as they were, especially knowing what humanity would become now. Things didn’t seem to have gotten better back than, and compared to her sister and friends they were the least equipped to survive the way the tides were changing. That didn’t make losing all of them any easier. But Aria promised Ranni to keep her safe and knowing how things were going to go perhaps getting sent to the future is the best way that could have been achieved, regardless of how circumstantial it was. Without capitalism in this post scarcity society she was free to do whatever her heart desired. A question found itself in Aria’s thoughts. “Do you really believe in fate?” Aria asked as she set up her palette and brushes.

Vivian opened her first pigment, a grayish color for the wolves hair no doubt. “Absolutely! Fate is what got me this far, plus it made it easier to cope with the Accord when I could blame some kind of nebulous force for it all. Gives ya something to curse out against that felt more realistically beatable than the old quadrillionaires.” That was a very understandable statement, cursing out God for all of human suffering was something Ranni used to do when she started breaking free from the Panopticon. Vivian had dipped her brush into the color and started directly globbing the paint onto the mini. It left thick blotches of paint over every part she dragged the brush, absolutely covering all detail work of the model.

Aria absolutely could not let this potential painting disaster continue. “Oh, Vivian… Let me show you something when it comes to painting minis.” Aria grabbed one of the fairies and a red base paint as Vivian turns her attention to the system. “You see, when painting minis you want to thin your paints. Over applying them is just going to cover up the details and make it look like a bit of a mess. See what you do is you take a bit of paint, put it on your palette, mix it with a bit of water.” Aria dipped the brush in the water and began mixing it with the drop of paint. “Than you test it on your hand.” She drew lines on her left hand with the red coloring. “And you will know it’s properly thinned enough when you can see the texture detail of my skin and the color together. It should feel really smooth to paint with.” The pattern on the back of her hand was visible behind the paint. Vivian watched Aria attentively, paying attention to everything she was saying. “Just like that. Now you apply it to your mini, you will be able to see the detail much better this way.” She applies the base red coat over the fairies chitin hide, giving it a nice base red shell on the clothing like plant chitin. “Be sure to adjust the position of the brush and mini to stay comfortable. I can show you more details like washes, highlighting, and dry brushing as it comes up. For now, give it a go yourself.”

Vivian picked up her mini, it was covered in blotches of paint. She looked over to Paradise with her big begging eyes and pleaded. “Ma’am can ya get the paint off for me please?” The affini picked up the mini, one of its vines pointing at the mini as it shot a pressurized stream of water into the paint, scrubbing it off with alchohol afterwards before it got dried on.

“There you go precious.” They placed the model down and scratched behind their pets ears, causing them to moan and lean in towards the attention. “And be sure to thank Aria for teaching you this new trick cutie.”

“Mmmfff thank yaaa Aria!” They spoke through pleasurable moans. You’d almost think she was getting off to having her ears rubbed, there was a non zero percent chance that was the case Aria realized. She didn’t know what Vivian had going on with her non human parts.

Aria was not bothered by the pets treatment, she simple giggled at the adorable display. “Of course dear. I’m sure you’re wolf will look much better now.” She returned to her fairy, working as she spoke. “Now, we were talking about the concept of fate yes?”

“Mhmm. Yea, fate is… Well it’s a lot of different things. You’re right when you say it can be cruel, but at the same time it did also bring me to Ma’am.” Vivian explained while spreading the gray based all over the fur of her wolf mini. “I guess for me it was a comfort to think there was something responsible for all this. The old suffering and the new joys. How about you? Do ya believe in anything like that? One of ya says “gods” from what I caught, y’all religious?” She was talking about Madeline.

Aria shook her head and grabbed an orange for the fairies wings, thinning it and applying it to the desired area. “No, grew up religious though. Madeline picked up that speech quirk from our sister. As far as any idea of divinity goes… I guess I see all of us as gods. What you would call sophonts I call divinity.” Aria left the model to sit for a moment as she gestured with the brush as she spoke. “As I see it, our ability to think the way we do, to choose what we choose, to decide our future, to be able to change not only ourselves but the world around us, and to create art.” Aria holds up her mini and gestures to it to demonstrate the act of creation. “That is divinity.” She decided this was a good time to let the paint dry now that most of the model had a layer of paint on it.

Vivian had stopped painting to listen to Aria, even Paradise seemed interested in what she was saying. “So ya see yourselves as masters of fate than? That being a sophont is the power to choose fate itself.” Vivian pondered the words. “I mean I don’t think I personally agree with that concept. Never had much control, nor do I really want it anymore. It’s overrated.” She spoke so confidently at the end there. She picked up a golden metallic paint, what for Aria did not know. But she wasn’t about to stop this girls creativity. “So Aria how do I make golden teeth and claws look cool on this thang?”
.
“Well first things first, you should finish some more of the surface area before going to smaller details.” She was exited to give them some gold. She still needed to handle the clothes of the wolf person. “You should also give it some time to dry, it can take a bit so we have some time to chat.” Aria turned her posture to face the floret. “Speaking of drying, you’re still soaked dear.”

Vivian peaked down on herself, “Oh yeaaaah.” How did she not notice? “Ma’am I think I need some new pants.”

The tall affini smirked at their floret. “Is that right Vivi? I must disagree little one.” Vines griped around her shorts, undoing them and removing them slowly. Vivian’s tail stiffened and puffed up as her face becomes flustered and bright red. In a moment, their careful slow motion gave way to a sudden ripping and tearing sound. Aria turned her ahead away as fast as she could keeping her hand between her gaze and the floret, in disbelief that they just tore off her pants right in front of them. “I think you’re perfect. Just. Like. This~.” Their voice purred as they spoke. Aria was not expecting them to undress their pet in front of her so suddenly. Aria understood full well the appeal of wanting to do that to someone, but she hadn’t even known them for a day. Only an hour or two at best. This kind of thing tends to happen at least after the first day of knowing someone.

“G-goodness you are very uhhh… ahem, open I see.” Aria cleared her throat mid sentence. The affini once again having surprises for Starlight around every corner. Looking up their biology did not properly prepare them for this.

Paradise savored this moment, they saw Aria’s confident demeanor break simply at their florets nudity. They did enjoy seeing what made her crack, Stellata was going to love this tidbit of information as well. Vivian kicked her feet playfully and giggled. “Well yuh, I mean have ya seen my pussy? This thing is great! It’s ‘pog’!” She proclaimed. Aria couldn’t help herself but laugh at the fact she just called it “pog”. She had only learned that word today and she’s already using it like a true 21st century human. “Did I use it right?”

Aria regained her composure, finishing up her laughs at the silly girl at her side. “Yes, yes you did. Better than I think you realize.” The initial shock of what had happened had worn off. The ice felt properly broken and Aria turned back to the duo. Vivian’s wet shorts and panties were torn apart and placed aside, she looked at her with a smug expression on her face. Clearly proud of herself for getting undressed like that. What a cute girl she was, this took her back. When she was a new formation in the Starlight system back in 2020. She would constantly tease Ranni and reveal her little secrets to her friends she was comfortable with. Before she took her responsibility as her overseer seriously and just wanted to tease her and play constantly. She smiled remembering that time before, as the most important memory played in her head. She couldn’t think about her formation without that moment they first talked about their existence together returning to her. She lined up the paint she would need, the minis were drying faster than she anticipated. Fast drying paint of some kind made by the affini. Her and the other floret sat together as paint dried and bodies were played with as Aria’s thoughts wandered into memory.

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Ranni laid her her bed, she did not understand what was happening to her. Yesterday she felt like a passenger in her own body and there was a voice in her head. One she couldn’t control, one with her own image that spoke to her. The pink haired girl, Aria she called herself. Something was happening, something she didn’t understand. Her sister said this was “plurality”. This wasn’t something she wanted in her life, it was another complication, another thing in the way of her chances of surviving in this world. She was already an autistic disabled trans girl trapped living with her parents in the middle of nowhere, her chances of getting anything were already slim enough without some dissociative identity disorder complicating things further. What did this mean for her? She didn’t know, she couldn’t know. How can anyone be ready for this kind of thing to just drop in on their life. She collapsed in her bed, her legs aching and itching from the bug bites dotted across them. She tried to keep herself from crying, the last thing she’d need is for her mom to hear her cry and question her about what was happening. She could lie, tell her it’s something other than her going crazy. Not that she’d believe her if she even told the truth. Hell if anything if she did believe her she’d see Aria as the perfect excuse to put all the blame on her transgender and gay stuff on. Some demon that corrupted her ‘son’ into one of the gays.

“Ranni? Can we talk?” She heard the pink haired girls voice again. Her minds eye manifesting her image as she spoke. She looked worried, worried about her.

“I… I guess we should.” Ranni spoke in her thoughts. This was not the first time she’s talked to her own head, she was used to having dialog with herself but this... This was different, this wasn’t herself. Even now Ranni tried to control what Aria would say next, anything to prove that this was all just some made up thing that she was faking. But it didn’t work.

“That isn’t going to work. I’m not you Ranni. I’m… someone else.” Aria didn’t feel confident in this either, struggling to believe her own existence just as much as Ranni. “Look, I want to help you.”

“You’re not even real, how can you help me? I didn’t want this. You’re not real. You’re not real…” Their body was crying, Ranni was scared. “What am I going to do. What am…”

Aria embraced her troubled headmate, “Shhh, it’s okay. I’m scared too. I know just as much as you do. But it’s going to be okay.” She laid down next to her, meeting her bright blue eyes with her brown eyes. “I’m not sure what happens next. But I promise you I’m here for you. I’m here to help you.” Ranni felt her eyes start to well up. She wasn’t about to start crying over her own thoughts comforting her was she? Was she truly this pathetic? “I told you, I’m not you. These aren’t your own thoughts. Those tears are more the proof that I am real and I am here with you Ranni.”

Ranni’s paranoia was turning to every worst outcome of all of this. “W-what if you replace me? What if I stop existing because of you.” Her fears manifested to tears in the real space around her. Aria was crying too, she didn’t know if that would happen or not either. But she needed to be confident, for Ranni’s sake and her own.

She looked at her headmates face, laying beside her as she put her hand on her imaginary head. A gesture real enough to feel a phantom touch on her body. “Ranni, I promise I won’t let that happen. I promise neither of us are going to disappear. I promise that I will do whatever I can to keep us safe okay? I’m here with you.” She brought her alter to an embrace. Ranni tried her best to be silent as she cried to prevent any interruptions from outside. “I love you Ranni. All will be well, I promise.”

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Aria smiled as she reminisced on the past. “Lets continue painting. I’ll teach you how to wash the colors on the clothes after you paint them and drybrush the fur to give it some nice detail. Than we can do those golden teeth and claws okay?” She told the bottomless floret.

“Oooh! Whatsa wash and drybrush mean?” There was excitement in her eyes, she was loving this. Her owner was gently petting the top of her head, rewarding her enthusiasm of learning new skills.

Aria chuckled at the curious floret. “Hehe, I’ll show you in due time dear. First lets finish painting your base colors.” Aria handed the girl a base brush and watched her mix the leather brown with the water to thin the paints. Drawing lines on her hand, testing the thickness of the paint. She was a quick learner. Both Aria and Paradise knew this, and both smiled at the clever pet.

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[TrueParadise] Everbloom I think I see what you love about Aria.

[Collars4Cuties] Oh Aria has fronted now! Isn’t she just precious? And so polite too!

[TrueParadise] Not only that, she’s very good with florets. I have them painting small models together and she’s been teaching Vivian how to do it. I think she may have given my floret a new hobby. Dirt she’s been teaching me some things about this too. She’s an intelligent cutie.

[Collars4Cuties] OHMYGOSH!!! They’re painting toys together! I’m so happy to hear she’s doing good!

[True Paradise] She’s also very confident, a trait unlike her headmates. She doesn’t shy away from aid, she asked for my vine to help her walk on the class-E’s! I think the only time I embarrassed her was stripping off Vivi’s pants. I’ll send you a video of it she was precious!

[Video file sent!] →

[Collars4Cuties] Paradise you’re going to make me cause a scene! You can’t be showing me cute videos while I’m at the fabrics shop!

[TrueParadise] Fabrics shop?

[Collars4Cuties] Don’t tell Starlight, I’m getting the blanket I found repaired for her. I want it to be a surprise! I think she’d like something familiar. And you know how terrans are with their bonding habits! I’m thinking of getting her a plushie while I’m out as well. Any suggestions?

[TrueParadise] Hmmm. Well I know Vivi has a fox, a beeple, two dogs, about two dozen different poppymon, a really big squirrel, eight raccoons, and eight more tanukis. If we knew more of her interests it’d be an easier pick. Did terrans have popular plushies in 2025?

[Collars4Cuties] That’s a good question! I’ll look it up really quick.

[Collars4Cuties] Okay so it seems shark plushies were a big deal back than! Especially with trans women. Just as an extra precaution could you ask her what her favorite animal is for me?

[TrueParadise] Can do!

[TrueParadise] She gave a few answers! According to Aria, Ranni likes pangolins and Madeline likes wolves.

[Collars4Cuties] And Aria? Did she say what she likes.

[TrueParadise] Just asked, she said “probably a rabbit”.

[Collars4Cuties] Alright! I’ll get them some plushies while I’m out than. They deserve something physical for their welcoming gift.

[TrueParadise] Cuuuute, I can’t wait to see their reaction when you get back!

[TrueParadise] By the way did you get the grafts yet?

[Collars4Cuties] Yes. I got B, F, D, C, G, H, J, N, and W. As well as some new types of A and Z’s to play with. And topped it off with some berries seeing how much they loved little treats.

[TrueParadise] Dirt darling, are you sure you got enough? I didn’t know who had so few xenodrugs on you befpre! How did you manage watching so many florets with only… what grafts did you even have before this?

[Collars4Cuties] Only A, Z, and E. Xenodrugs I knew florets would need.

[TrueParadise] Darling that’s so few. I guess you weren’t planning on a pet so soon huh.

[Collars4Cuties] Not really. I was planning on giving myself an extra bloom or two before adopting from the class-J cafe or maybe get a reccomendation from Cammint. But it seems Starlight had other plans and sped things along.

[Collars4Cuties] Speaking of Cammint I got myself a notice of intent for Starlight, I’m going to deliver it to the domestication center later. Oh Everbloom this is all real, I’m really doing this. Paradise I’m really really doing this aren’t I?

[TrueParadise] Yes you are darling. You’re cute when excited darling. Message me when you’re on your way back sunshine.

[Collars4Cuties] Will do! And thank you again for all of your help

[TrueParadise] The pleasures all mine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Stellata turned off her pad. Starlight was behaving better than expected considering Ranni’s episode, that was good. She sat in the fabric mistress’ shop lobby, Liliibel’s floret laying on her lap. The cutie moaned and nuzzled into her as her hand shaped vine rubbed the cat terrans soft pointy ears. She purred loudly, filling Stellata with glee and encouraging more pets for the precious kitty. Iresse’s pet was making it hard to focus however. In her other hand she held a piece of paper, the notice of intent for Starlight. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to sign it yet, was it right to try and claim Starlight so soon? Technically the notice wasn’t a domestication contract, it’s not like Starlight would be her floret for signing it. If anything it protected Starlight from other affini that may want her. Even if she does end up independent this would be a good thing for her. Yeah, this was a good idea on all fronts. Just a few pleasant signatures and it would be all done. Everbloom this was really happening, and so soon too! She thought it would be at least another bloom until she signed one of these, her core glowed and her injectors itched. This could be it, her first florets. She brought the pen to paper and signed away, the sound of papers flipping as she signed every page of it. And in a few moments it was done. The Notice of Intent over Starlight was signed.

“ Mmrrow…” The Iresse’s floret lazily meowed while yawning . Dirt she may have gotten a little loud signing the papers.

“Sorry if I woke you cutie.” She gave the floret a scratch under the chin, causing her to lift her head up high and softly moan into her vines.

“Mmmsssokay. Stella comfy…” She started falling asleep as she spoke. Her voice drifting off as her mind returned to dreamland. Stellata would have a floret soon, maybe even one like the cutie on her lap now. She just needed to learn what they liked now, and more importantly what they need . When she knew that she can establish the dynamic and see how that goes. If by than they still don’t want to be a floret… well she didn’t want to think about that yet . Instead she let her mind fill with all kinds of fantasies of different possibilities for every single one of them. Fantasies good enough to make her injectors leak inside her own body .

“Mulch I need to get better at controlling that.” She thought to herself as she tried to contain all the phytotoxins into a single area inside of her.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Miss Stellata, the cuties blanket is ready!” Stellata heard the fabric mistress call out as they approached the affini and waiting room companion. “Let the pretty affini up now Kitten~.”The catgirl on Stellata’s lap moaned, groaned, and whined about getting up. An adorable sight that warmed both her and her owners core. “Comffyyyy…” The little cutie moaned as she tried nuzzling into faer body even more, holding on to her vines even tighter than before. The cuties owner chuckled from the other end of the room, deciding that they were better off walking to their patron.“Come on now little one, let the pretty affini up.” They rubbed their vines together next to her ears letting out a “pspsps” to get her attention. The adorable little floret lifted her head up towards her owners vines as they slowly move their vines further away as she approaches, making her stretch more and more off of Mabryne until she finally got up to follow her owner away from faer lap. When they successfully guided the precious pet off of her they scooped her up in their vines and became immediately rewarded with pets. They pulled the mysterious and freshly restored gray blanket from their vines and handed it to Stellata. “And for you Miss Stellata, a soft blanket for your new pets.” They spoke with a smile.Stellata gratefully took the blanket, “Thank you Iresse. Although she’s not my pets, just my wards for now.” She had to correct them, it still felt strange to speak so certainly about Starlight’s status as her future floret. Perhaps she was rushing it, she didn’t plan on being an owner during her first bloom. She was still not sure if she was ready for it.“Of course. And the notice of intent you signed was just for fun than wasn’t it~?” They spoke as they sway their hips at faer. Stellata felt flustered by the fabric mistress’ teasing. As fun as it was to sign the notice of intent, that was not the only reason she signed it. She couldn’t deny that. “Hehe, whatever you intend to do with them, I’m sure they’ll appreciate what you’re doing for them. Anything more I can do for you this fine day?”“Do you do plushies?” Stellata asked the fabric mistress.Iresse Lillibel’s eyes widened as excitement took over their thoughts. “Of course dear! I do far more that just repair blankets or make outfits I’ll have you know. Anything involving fabrics is my specialty! If I learned this craft without learning how to make terrans favorite stuffies I would consider myself a failure of a fabric mistress! Do you want a premade or do you have a custom order?” Their eyes glimmered under the light, a thorn-toothed smile peaking out through their red petaled lips.As much as she would love to spend the time getting a custom plushie today she knew she couldn’t today. “I’m on a bit of a schedule, I promised I’d be back by 16:00 so a premade will do for now.” Stellata explained to the fabric mistress as she tucked away the gray blanket. “Do you have any sharks?”Iresse put their vines on their hip. “‘Do you have any sharks’ she asks. Hehe, they are a rather common order I hope you know! In fact I think you’ll like this one! Give me just a second!” They walked over to their office, Stellata could see them put their floret down in a bed before they searched around. Kitten curled up in the be, nuzzling the little pillows and grabbing onto her beeple plushie with a little mewl. Iresse meanwhile was stretching their vines up onto their shelves trying to pick the perfect shark plush before they seemed to find it.“Ahah! This is perfect!” They pull down a sizable shark plushie, about half the size of Starlight it seemed. “Made this one with Chamille’s floret two terran years ago. A Precious lil bumble butt that one.” They handed over the shark to Stellata, who took the shark into her vines. She was realizing with all the stuff she was taking home she was going to either need to increase her size or get some boxes to take with her. She hadn’t even gotten the food supplies yet, let alone the furniture. At least the latter would be a delivery instead of something she had to carry all herself. It’d be hard to hide all of Starlight’s new supplies furniture if she was carrying it all with her. As for groceries, a few boxes never hurt any affini, she had more than enough vines for it.“Is Benny Buttons your apprentice? I don’t think I’ve seen you two talk too much.” Stellata said as she stored the soft shark plush into her body.“Actually the other way around. Benny Buttons has had a history in toy making long before I did.” Iresse idly brushes their florets hair as they speak, causing her to purr like the adorable kitten she is. “Back when my Kitten was still my ward I took her to Chamille for her therapy and I started talking to her floret. They showed me a thing or two, got myself a stuffing machine, and started with that beeple Kitten has in her paws right now. One thing led to another and I started working with the cutie on plushies on a more regular basis. I visit Chamille’s hab every Saturday. Seeing the cutie later today in fact! We’re working on an affini sized affini plushie for one of Chamilles patients.” Iresse spoke on about her plans later that day. “Oh but I shouldn’t keep you any longer from your own previous ones. I’ll see you on Monday for the New Month Monday celebration?”Dirt she forgot to tell Starlight she was hosting that. It being a Aquifolium holiday means she definitely doesn’t know of its existence. Be it because she was wild or she is really from the past, there was no way she could know of this joyous day. She knew she always hosted the holiday parties it’s just she’s been so distracted with Starlight that she had forgotten it was coming so soon. She was probably going to have to tell her about the social gatherings at her place. “Of course! I’m going to be getting the supplies for it right after this actually. Speaking of which I should really be going to by now. See you Monday!” With a wave goodbye from her vines she walked out the door and into the open air of the Aquifolium. Trees, hanging gardens, and multitudes of buildings greeting Stellata as she stepped out into the sunlight. Her next stop was the grocery supplier, she’d need supplies for cooking for Starlight as well as the other florets at the party. At least she knew most of the Affini and at least some florets would bring their own snacks and food items for the celebration. But the main course was her responsibility as host. Every NMM (New Month Monday) had a traditional meal associated with it. Or at the very least as traditional as it goes for a station set up neat the beginning of the Terran Domestication Campaign. An important holiday nonetheless, so many Terrans felt so poorly about Mondays that having a celebration of the day itself was absolutely necessary! Turning a day of sadness and frustration turned into one of reverence and celebration has proven quite fruitful for changing the cuties feelings on the beginning of a new week. Or were those Sundays? Stellata wasn’t sure, the historical recollection even within Terran culture was contradictory at best.She also needed to think about the furniture for her new room, she had an idea for aesthetics for her room at least. She had a very clear star pattern on those sheets of hers, so to theme her room with stars and constellations might not be a bad idea. As for what to make it out of… That was trickier. Did she even have a favored material? She could ask her, maybe hide her meaning behind a random other question. Like “What kind of trees do you like?” and get her furniture made of whatever she answers. But what if she doesn’t even like wood, or even know what different woods look like? No, that’d be ridiculous, every Terran is impressed by wooden furniture… at least Terrans from the Accord were. To them wood was a lot more of a luxury by nature of how rare it was due to the eradication of their home world’s biosphere. But Starlight might be an outlier in that if she’s from the past. She’d probably still like having furniture her size for her room but she won’t have the same excitement other Terrans do over seeing real, not synthetic, wooden furniture. She just had to accept the possibility she wouldn’t get that kind of reaction from her that she would from other wild Terrans. She booted up her pad and opened her messaging app, she was going to at least learn her favorite tree.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Collars4Cuties] How are you petals? Are you enjoying your time with Paradise?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Stellata waited for her to respond as she walked, there was an update to their Pluribus Profiles as well! A headmate of theirs fae hadn’t met yet was there now, a cutie named “Callie”. Stellata wondered who this was, this Callie might not be someone who fronts often compared to the others, if at all. She needs to ask Aria about it as soon as possible!The store was in sight, she knew she’d need a lot from there but most importantly was the Monday Meatloaf! Stars what to make her for dinner tonight though? Her first home cooked meal in her new home had to be special! What was that meal Paradise made for Vivians domestication anniversary again? Surfing Turf she believed they called it. A silly named dish with Lobster, Fillet Mingnon, and… dirt was the salad paradise made part of the dish or an addition they put with it? She’ll look it up as she gets the ingredients. She typed the recipes on her pad before she suddenly got notified with a new message.Bloop! It was from Starlight!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Starlight-Aria] Hello Stellata. We’ve been alright, just been painting with Vivian and Paradise. Currently on a lunch break with some gyros. Still can’t believe how incredible these compilers are. What have you been up to?[Collars4Cuties] Glad to hear you’ve been doing alright! I heard Ranni had a hard time earlier and I wanted to check on you. How’s the lunch taste cuties?[Starlight-Aria] They taste great! I don’t normally front when eating but given the circumstances I think it’s best if my headmates rest for a while. Vivian says hi btw.[Collars4Cuties] Tell Vivian I said hi back. Also while I have your attention can I ask you a question? Just a silly random question.[Starlight-Aria] Sure. Ask away dear.[Collars4Cuties] Well actually two questions. First one. Did you have a favorite tree from your time? I’ve been thinking of getting a miniature tree and thought I’d get your opinion.[Starlight-Aria] Redwoods. We grew up around them back in California so we have a found affinity towards them… Is your species name supposed to sound like affinity?[Collars4Cuties] That’s purely circumstance cuties. Thank you for your answer, I’ll get a redwood for you while I’m out today.[Collars4Cuties] 2nd question! Who’s Callie?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Stellata walked into the stores sliding doors as she was greeted by a multitude of shelves of different labeled food items written in Affini. The owner of the store, Scite Cilantri, First Bloom greeted Mabryne as she entered. “Hello Mabryne, here’s for the Meatloaf I assume sweetpea?” Scite responded in a flirty tone. He had always been fond of her, possibly because she was his most frequent patron.Bloop!Stellata didn’t let her notification distract her from the question she was just asked. “Among other things, I have a ward now and…” Scite looked almost disappointed to hear of her new ward. The reason why was something Stellata could not know. “Oh I see, well congrats on that sugarplum. It’s far sooner than I expected personally.” His tone hid meaning behind his words that Stellata did not understand. She’s never heard of another Affini getting disappointed or upset about hearing another affini getting a ward or floret before. What was his deal? “When did you get your ward? How’d you meet? Tell me all the details little blossom.” His flirtatious tone was back, if he was disappointed before it was gone and replaced with curiosity.Stellata continued into the store, maintaining conversation as she walked and collected the supplies she needed. She told Scite what she knew about Starlight, from how she seemingly just appeared in her bed to the gyros she’s having at this moment for lunch. Stellata filled boxes with many different ingredients, snacks, drinks, and anything she thought she could use. She was stockpiling not only for a party but for her ward. Vines crew out from her to carry the boxes she filled as she kept her arms open to practice her conversational gestures with the store owner. All the while splitting her focus to try and answer Aria while she was still available from within her body, it was a real test of focus for the first bloom. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Starlight-Aria] How do you know about Callie?[Collars4Cuties] Your profile mentions your entire system cuties ::>[Starlight-Aria] Right. So… Callie is going to be a bit to explain.[Starlight-Aria] Callie is the most recent formation in our system. We refer to her as the systems trauma holder.[Starlight-Aria] She’s a direct split from Ranni with a lot of problems with memory sharing. Very forgetful and very timid. If you meet her I ask that you be really gentle with her. Let her feel safe, she holds more hurt than any of us.[Starlight-Aria] The new environment is going to scare her, I’ll be there to comfort her to the best of my ability as well but a physical presence would be a greatly appreciated source of comfort for her.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A trauma holder? Everbloom the poor girl, exactly what trauma had they gone through? Stellata figured there was probably some in her beyond the recent loss of her loved ones but she wasn’t exactly sure what it could be yet. She knew Starlight had something making her push back against care from others and isolating her emotions at least given the limited interactions they had so far. She was already planning on giving her a xenotherapist but now she felt she couldn’t afford to wait too long to schedule her first appointment. Chamille’s sessions will be good for her, she knows it.Stellata’s focus was taken away by a terran that approached Stellata as she reached to grab some dairy products in stasis. “Wruffo?” The cutie said. The terran had the ears and tail of a dog with a red fur coat covering its body, wearing nothing but the fur on its body with a cage on around its adorable sheath.“Hello there cutie! Can I help you with anything?” Stellata looked at the blissed out pet looking up at her. It made the most precious needy whines as it pointed its fluffy paw at Stellata’s leg and tilted it head. The giggles of its owner, an affini she surprisingly hasn’t met before, and the admiration of the store owner were the only noises in the store. “Yes puppy? Something caught your attention?”“Arff...h-hump?” They clearly had trouble speaking, perhaps purposely so by their owner. This didn’t stop Stellata’s core from positively glowing at the cuties request, the silly puppy wanted to hump her leg!Stellata hated to say no to such an adorable display but, “I’m sorry cutie, I don’t have a lot of time to play with you right now.” She was worried the pup was going to be upset. The floret looked pathetically up at her and gave the biggest pleading eyes it could. Dirt it was getting harder just to let it for a while but she had to get going.Scite chimed in to save the day, “You want a leg to hump dog?” He snapped his vines as he extended his teal vined leg forward towards the floret. It looked up towards its owner who nodded her approval to her pet. The floret ran to hop on Scites exposed vines before he stopped her. “Ah ah~.” He denies, shaking his finger shaped vines back and forth. “A good pet knows to beg, tell me how much you want my leg dog~.” His tone was stern, speaking with a confident hungry smile at the pet. The floret immediately dropped to the floor, wagging its tail excitedly at the dominant affini above it. It barked, whined, and whimpered as they made themself small. Showing the utmost submission to the store owner in front of it like a well trained pup. “Good dog, now roll over.” Scite commanded, projecting his biorhythm into the command just for that extra bit of control over the floret. The obedient pet rolled over on its belly, its cock throbbing desperately behind the cage as it moaned pathetically at the attention. Scite leans down and brings vines down to tug on the cuties nipples. The floret yelped in the store at the sudden stimuli, Stellata could hear it echo across the many tall alise. Scite hungerly growled at the dog girl at his heels. “Good dog~.” Scites voice purred at their prey. “You may mount my leg now pup.”“Wruff!” The floret wagged its adorable little curly tail. They flipped over back on their arms and legs to climb up Scite’s leg and starting humping without a moments hesitation. An act frowned upon by the dominant affini.They snapped their vines, causing the floret to freeze up and listen. “I said mount, dog. I did not give you permission to hump. You can hang there a little while longer.” He told the pet before turning back to Stellata. “Weren’t you on a schedule sweetpea~?”Dirt! She had gotten caught up in the adorable display that she lost track of what she was doing. “Right! I’ll leave you all to that. Have fun Scite, you too cutie!” She told the pet in front of her. The floret did not reply, it instead just whimpered and hugged onto his leg like its life depended on it.“See you around Mabs~.” Scite waved his vines towards Stellata, queuing her to take her leave. She only had a few more things to grab, a few random food and drinks she thought Starlight might like. Or at least she hoped, she’d have to try a bit of everything to figure out what her favorite foods were. Well that’s the case for many wild terrans actually, Starlight asked for specific foods yesterday. Most terrans don’t have a lot of experience with diverse meal variety but Aria asked for two things last night fairly confidently. She might actually be able to have a clear answer for her if she were to ask for their favorite food. Favorite food could be a good test question for the class-D dosage, speaking the truth so openly and suddenly even for a simple question can be a surprising ordeal for inexperienced sophonts.Stellata had finished grabbing her supplies, she waved her goodbyes to the store owner while carrying three large boxes of many different foods and drinks in her vines. The floret was fully grinding into Scite’s leg at this point, its tongue was hanging out of its mouth as it panted and moaned desperately for release. Everbloom what an adorable display! It was a shame she couldn’t stay and watch them any longer, but she still had to turn in the Notice of Intent to the Domestication Center. It was on the way back to the hab anyways, it’d be nice to see Cammint again anyways. Last time since she talked to her she got another floret and she needed to get her gossip in with that. Plus she’d get to see Marnie’s new art on Hazel’s Diner again on the way there. She walked out the door, beginning her short walk to the nearby domestication center. She could see the clouds start to gather around the central pillar of the domestic districts, she might see a bit of rain later today. She hadn’t been keeping up with the weather, she prefers the weather to be a surprise. She hoped Starlight didn’t mind the rain, she could easily have her hab dampen the sound for her if it distresses her. It was always a roll of the dice is a cutie liked the sound of the rain, it’s relaxing for one and anxiety inducing for another. If it does rain later she will have her answer. Bloop! A message, almost certainly from Starlight.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Starlight-Aria] You there? We finished the gyros. You’ve kind of gone radio silent there is everything alright?[Collars4Cuties] Yes cuties, everything is alright. Just getting errands done and getting caught up in conversations with a friend is all.[Collars4Cuties] And I will remember what you said with Callie. I’ll be the soft as sheep with the cutie![Starlight-Aria] Soft as sheep. We haven’t heard that one before. I’ll have to remember that.[Collars4Cuties] It’s because sheep are soft![Starlight-Aria] I know Stellata, you don’t have to explain that sheep are soft. We know what a sheep is, dear.[Starlight-Aria] Why did you assume we didn’t? Did sheep go extinct in the extinction event on Earth?[Starlight-Aria] *Terra[Collars4Cuties] I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~She was aware of the history of Terra now. Paradise did say she was looking up the Terran Accord, she must have wondered what happened to her home planet and looked into it herself. She can only imagine what it must have been like to learn how poor a state Terra was with timelost idea of her home planet. Stellata didn’t know if sheep went extinct from this Extinction Event, but she did know sheep still existed today at the very least. They were a common part of petting zoos across the Terran Protectorate.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Collars4Cuties] There’s still sheep dear. As well as most other animals from Terra you’d know.[Starlight-Aria] Didn’t Terra have an extinction event though? Those tend to entail mass death of at least 70% of all species on the planet.[Collars4Cuties] Yes, but there was more than enough samples of the extinct life that we were able to restore and or recreate them. Most of them can be found anywhere where terrans and affini interact.[Starlight-Aria] You’re repairing a planet? That’s wonderful! How long is it going to take to restore Earth do you think?[Collars4Cuties] Well I’m no expect on the subject myself but I believe the average calculations are around 80ish years. Probably longer considering just how much it’s endured.[Starlight-Aria] I see… Guess it’ll be another 80ish years until I see my home planet again than huh? Assuming we survive even that long. We’d be 107 by than…[Collars4Cuties] Petals I promise you will live to be well past 107 under the Compact, we have more than enough resources to extend your life beyond the limits you know. And that’s 80 years for it to be fully repaired. There can be times we can visit and you can see the process of its healing if you would like![Starlight-Aria] Would it be possible to be part of that restoration effort? I’m not too sure of the specifics but I would love to help restore Earths nature if possible.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Stellata pondered that request. Being fully involved would mean moving her hab to a ship over Terra, which wouldn’t be impossible. It would mean her social life would have a drastic change, she was the one with the large hab for hosting parties after all. Terra wasn’t all that far away though, if she did move it would be a short flight away to visit her relatively speaking…She got an idea, visiting Terra once a month would be easy! It could let Starlight see the progress of its development! And if she is from the past, her personal experiences in a bygone era of Terran history could prove useful possibly. A memory scan to look at her personal experiences and compare them to recorded historical references of the local habitats could have an important role in the restoration project!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Collars4Cuties] That can be arranged! We can set up a plan for that when I get back. For now I think I’ll let you get back to painting your toys cutie. <3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Stellata walked past Hazels diner, there were a myriad of affini with their florets enjoying their lunches together filling a good amount of seats in the restaurant. One terran in there seemed to have been independent. There was no collar or affini accompanying them in the restaurant. They must be one of the more recent relocation efforts. Stars know far too many Terran living stations were far to dangerous to keep any sophonts on. For a new arrival to feel so comfortable so quickly around the affini was a refreshing sight. Most independents didn’t like going into this district, but they are far from unseen. Newly arrived independents especially were nervous around the affini the poor sophonts. It was nice seeing them so comfortable around affini, she so often worries for independents. She trusted the departments of Xenosophont Wellness to make sure every cutie is living their happiest lives. Many of them are just denying themselves the best life they could ever have, but there wasn’t too much Stellata could do about it. Her job was for cuties who have already begun their journey to happiness.Beyond the independent terran she could see the beautiful garden mural Cammint’s floret drew on all sides of the building. Waving vines with bright flowers matching the red and pink flowers of Hazel popped from the buildings wall. Behind the flowers there was a depiction of an affini and a terran sharing a meal together as they both sipped from two straws dipped in the same drink. It was a delightful sight as she walked to the Domestication Center right next to it.[This next segment contains scenes of CG/L and a sophont who has undergone permanent mental age regression. Skip to “Collar4Cuties” to skip if this is not your thing.]She stepped through the red tinted Compact logo mosaic glass doors into the flowery main lobby of the Domestication Center. She could see Cammint Allallius Third Bloom behind the front desk under a large framed picture of the Aquifolium behind her. Marnie was sitting next to her on her pad, if she had to guess she was playing a little video game for her winged connivent watching right behind her looming over Marnie’s shoulder. Cammint’s new floret was dressed in sticker covered shortalls with purple flower buttons and a cartoon beeple wearing a cape on the shirt behind it. It seems that Cammint got herself a little sprout since they last met up in the December Monthly Monday. Guess she knew what had her occupied for during Christmas now. Cammint greeted Stellata with the common terran gesture of lifting your hand up in a wave, “Well well well~! Is that Mabryne Stellata walking so soon through those door?” Her playful coy tone exemplified her joy and excitement of seeing her friend. “I was wondering when I’d see you walking through my doors! Does this mean what I think it means?”Mabryne reached into her body with a joyous tone emanating from her core. “If you think it means turning in a Notice of Intent, than yes it does!” Stellata pulled out the papers from her body and moved to place them on the table. Cammint wasted no time gathering and picking them up and looked over them.Cammit looked over the paperwork. “Lets see, you got yourself a pluribus collection of Sophonts collectively named Starlight. I see! They’re your wards already than! How delightful you must tell me how you found them!” Cammint moved the papers off to be filed under her desk. “Speaking of talking about cuties!” Cammint scooped up her new floret in her arms and tickled her nose, causing the angel to giggle and blush under her touch. “This here is my new precious baby! Can you use your words to introduce yourself to that pretty affini right there for mommy?” She requested from her floret with a playful tone.The little sprout looked at Stellata with her pretty green eyes and opened her mouth. “Hi!” She said quickly before hiding her blushy face and laughing to herself. By the Everbloom, what a precious little sprout! With a bit of support from her owner, she looked back at Mabryne with a big smile on her face. “I em Kelly Allall E Us! Segant Fowet!” The age regressed terran struggled to speak clearly, but was rewarded by pets on her head for her answer anyways.“And your pronouns sweetling?”“She!” The little sprout proudly proclaimed. Everbloom she is adorable.“Good girl! Such a smart little lady you are~!” Cammint gave her floret a kiss on the forehead that made Kelly vocalize wordlessly as she snuggled into Cammint’s body again. “Do you have time to tell my about your wards or do you need to get going? You are carrying quite a few boxes there I imagine you want to get home.”“That is true, but I also need to get some furniture ordered so I can do that and give you the quick version while I do that. And I apologize in advance for any questions this story may raise.” Stellata pulled out her pad and began her order for furniture while beginning her story of meeting Starlight. Starting with the miniature redwood tree she said she was getting. Well it was miniature for a redwood at least, it was still going to be the centerpiece of Starlight’s room. Self watering and room size appropriate redwood would be perfect! Her entire room would be themed around this tree and the flora found around old redwood forests under a night sky! Stellata would make the whole thing magical to her as well, keep her distracted while SeaGlass sets up her room with the many assistant drones in her hab. Her invisible agents to make magic real for her cuties! She continued to retell the story of how she met her wards as she selected her redwood themed furniture and customizing it with star patterns and glowing star shaped flowers across them. Starlight would love these, surely the system named Starlight would love little bits of stars on everything! The walls will have stars, the ceiling will have stars and a galaxy that can spiral for her! It will be perfect, Everbloom she can not wait to see her wards reaction to her new room! Stellata selected the final bit of furniture and set the order to be set up in a roof access above the guest bedroom. She’d have to get everyone out of the garden soon to make sure Starlight didn’t see them get delivered through the greenhouse roof. Stellata didn’t want to ruin the surprise or the magic for their wards. With a final confirmation she took her attention away from her pad to give her friend the final bits of details about Starlight. Explaining to her that Paradise and Vivian are currently watching the cuties over at her hab.Cammint looked surprised learning about Starlight, “A time traveler sophont huh? Well that’s certainly a new one. And believe me I’ve heard a lot of different stories in my three blooms here at the domestication center. Either you have yourself some miracle sophonts or some other incredible circumstance led her to you. Regardless, I know you’ll do great with them and I can’t wait to see them all on Monday. Are they good with little sprouts do you think?” Cammint asked, she was clearly interested in meeting Starlight in person.Stellata did the common terran motion of uncertainty with a shrug her shoulder shaped vines, “I have no clue, a lot of their minds still elude me. I only just got class-D’s today for a proper questioning.” Stellata explained to the affini cradling her winged floret in her arms. “Speaking of I need to start making my back to my hab, it was wonderful catching up after so long!” Stellata leaned down to pet Kelly on her blonde haired head. “And it was an absolute delight meeting you too cutie!” The little sprout giggled and blushed at Stellata’s praise.“Abwah!” She vocalized as a response, causing her owner to have no choice but snuggle the floret tightly in her vines. Stellata couldn’t stay much longer, she had to get back to her hab. She has her own cuties to tend to now! With a skip in her step Stellata waved goodbye one last time and stepped out the door.[The CG/L segment is over. The only important things you missed was Stellata getting a small redwood tree and furniture and a star themed room for Starlight as she turned in the notice of intent telling her friend Cammint Allallius about her new wards. We hope you enjoy the rest of the chapter <3]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Collars4Cuties] How’s everyone doing over there Paradise?[TrueParadise] Oh it’s going marvelously Mabby. I must say Vivian is taking up miniature painting very well! I’ll have to thank Aria properly for teaching Vivian about this new hobby of hers as well as some display cases for her finished models.[Collars4Cuties] Have you all been painting mini’s the whole time I’ve been gone?[TrueParadise] No dear, we had lunch and I’ve been playing with Vivian off and on over the course of the day. Mostly when she needs to wait for paint to dry. Aria has been putting on music for us on her pad since lunch. All from the 21st century as you’d expect.[Collars4Cuties] It is her era after all. By the way are you all still in the garden?[TrueParadise] Yes, why do you ask?[Collars4Cuties] I’m getting the stuff for her room delivered through a roof access that will be visible from the greenhouse. I want the change of her room to be a surprise. Something magical that changed while she wasn’t looking you know? So if you can I’d very much appriciate it if you could bring them inside.[TrueParadise] Awwwww, don’t worry I’ll get them inside for you![Collars4Cuties] Thank you Paradise![TrueParadise] It’s my pleasure!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[Collars4Cuties] SeaGlass prepare for roof delivery and access over Starlight’s room.[SeaGlass] Beep! Yes Miss Stellata![Collars4Cuties] I’ll send you the room configuration and assembly.[Collars4Cuties] -> Hab Schematic File Sent[SeaGlass] Beep! Gosh what a cute room! So much pretty stars on everything gosh! I’ll get it done immediately Miss Stellata![Collars4Cuties] Good girl[SeaGlass] BEEP!!! >w<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The reactions her hab is having to her praise, Stellata knew what this meant. She started complimenting her hab more when she noticed the earliest signs, and now they are getting more and more obvious. Although there has been no sign of a desire to express her form or created art, there’s clear signs of her hab AI becoming a sophont. And there was no way she could just not make SeaGlass her floret, but going from possibly the most complicated wards in existence possibly becoming her floret to the hab AI becoming her floret blooms before she originally intended to own a pet… Fae was doubting faerself. She remembered that Apican said she would do fine. That “No sophont has ever been unhappy under affini care”. But still, this was a lot all of the sudden to have put on her branches. She isn’t Paradise who can make anyone into a happy pet in little to no time, she was just Mabryne Stellata First Bloom. An affini who feels over her head and unworthy of such perfect sohponts like Starlight. But she’s their warden. Besides it’s a bit too late to turn back now, if she went in to revoke the notice of intent Iresse wouldn’t let her hear the end of it. Iresse has wanted her to look into owning a Floret since she got approved for being an owner on this station only a few terran years ago. Perhaps, if Starlight is to become her florets, Aria can assist her? She does seem quite attached to her caretaker role, who says a floret can’t also be a caretaker so long as that makes her happy? That is however assuming she’s enjoying that role and not taking it out of necessity. If she doesn’t want to be a caretaker than it would be cruel to make her continue that role. This would have to be another question for the class-D.Stellata continued her walk, she could see her not so humble hab in the distance. The furniture was being delivered as she approached, all being brought in by autonomous drones controlled by SeaGlass. It wouldn’t be long before the cuties room was all set up. She walked past her neighbors houses on her approach, Iresse’s was naturally unoccupied at the moment as her and her florets were all still at the Domestication Center. Anyone else seemed to be either in their habs or otherwise not visible from their front porches. By comparison to their habs, hers stood out like a sore tongue just by how massive it was. That was Paradise’s idea, they wanted her used to the attention. Suggesting that she host parties for the frequent holidays of the local Aquifolium culture. She’d be lying if she said it hadn’t helped her get used to the attention and getting to know the sophonts of her district. More importantly she loved the social environment her hab has become known for. Yet still, living by herself in such a large hab feels outlandish to her, even after all the years.She steps onto faer porch, hanging garden pots growing faer star shaped flowers hanging off of the outdoor balcony with seats and tables underneath. She stood in front of the door, “SeaGlass, let them know I’m back.”“Yes Miss Stellata!” The AI spoke with a cheery voice. The door opened and Stellata walked back into faer foyer. She could hear Aria’s music synth orchestral mixed music in the living room, accompanied by the sounds of gentle ocean waves. Her hab felt peaceful, relaxing, as it should. Stellata didn’t hide her steps as she walked past the foyer oak and into the living room. She saw all of them sitting next to the coffee table with their adorable little miniatures. What Stellata was most happy to see was her wards. As little Aria turned to see her enter, was that she had a soft smile on her face. After so long of seeing them hurt inside or trying to hide the hurt, seeing them smile was like the most radiant sunlight greeting her foliage. Starlight looked happier than she’s ever seen so far. They were absolutely adorable.