June, 2558

<Be good for Karyon, alright, sweetie?> I had Judy wrapped up in my vines, scruffling her and squeezing her and dumping every erg of love I could into her tiny little Terran body.

<I will!> She laughed and squirmed and gave me puppykiss after puppykiss right up until I handed her off to Karyon.

<As if Judy could be anything but a perfect little good puppy,> Karyon said, picking up exactly where I'd left off. Judy happily burrowed into her and began giving her puppykisses, too. <I think we'll go for a walk in the park, and then maybe find a nice cafe to relax in for a while so Judy can get her practice time in. Wouldn't want our little speedrunner getting rusty!>

<Oh, certainly not, not with 41:50 on the horizon!> I leaned in and gave Judy one last kiss, and whispered to Karyon, "Dirt, but I'm so frosting nervous."

"You'll do fine," she reassured me, her vines teasing mine gently. "You endured the Accord; this lot are a dozen Blooms too early to reckon with you when it comes to argument, my love."

"One hopes," I replied. I'd been preparing for this moment for years, now, constructing argument upon argument in a flowchart that, with any luck, anticipated every potential counterargument. I had evidence, expert testimony, character witnesses — I had it all. I'd never worked on a case this complex or this far-reaching, and I'd certainly never worked on one that could have such important consequences.

If I frosted this up, Judy's one and only chance for an implant would slip through my vines. I couldn't let that happen. I absolutely could not allow that to happen. So I crammed my feelings down deep into my core, watched Karyon carry Judy off, and centered myself before walking into the main offices of the Terran Protectorate Medical Board. I found the meeting room without too much difficulty — it was the one with all the elder blooms clustered around it, enmeshed in conversation.

That none of them noticed me when I walked up gave me no small amount of hope. I gave a soft frisson of biorhythm to call attention to myself, a clearing of a throat I no longer had. "Pardon the interruption," I said, "but I'm Tamara Slaine, and I believe I'm the cause of all this bother?"

The club was loud, much louder than was really safe for little Terran ears, but they didn't seem to mind — they danced, and cavorted, and found partners to grind on and take into shadowy corners for a bit of illicitly erotic playtime, lubricated on rather more alcohol than was healthy. Case in point; the little cutie who came stumbling up to the bar next to me, already very drunk, and said, <Hey, barkeep, I want a Screaming Orgasm!>

<Oh, I can take care of that for you,> I said, smiling down at her. She was a young woman — I could read that easily enough though it seemed she hadn't been on those Terran Class-G equivalents for very long. Poor thing needed much better medication than that.

She turned to look at my waist, then slowly craned her neck upwards. <Whoa... you're big,> she said.

<And you're drunk,> I replied, winking.

<I am not!> she insisted, brushing a bit of her hair out of her eyes — it wasn't quite long enough to tie back yet. <I'm sober enough to use the Screaming Orgasm line and have it work!> She snickered gave me a gentle slug on the arm. <...oh dang you're strong too,> she said when I didn't so much as move an inch. <Heyyy... are you a Martian?>

<Mmmhmmm. Bloomed in Valles Marineris.>

<Neaaaat. Never met a Martian before. Thought you couldn't come down h-> The bartender placed a Screaming Orgasm in front of the woman, and her thought process derailed immediately. <Oh. Shit. I did order that, didn't I?>

<You did,> I said, laughing and coiling a few vines protectively around her. <So drink up, cutie, and then maybe I'll take you home.>

"Well, you've certainly crafted an interesting argument, if nothing else." Clavor Sideroxylon, Fifteenth Bloom, the veterinary specialist who was chairing the committee, had at least done me the courtesy of listening quietly. Now, alas, I had to do the same, vines twisting around my core in lieu of showing my anxiety outwardly. "Your veterinarian's notes are quite exhaustive, too. A fascinating process, on a purely medical level, but we're not really here to discuss the medical ethics of what you've done, now are we?"

"I don't suppose we are," I said as evenly as I could. "I understand the issue with my request, but ultimately I believe this is very resolvable. Very little of me at this point is even remotely Terran, and quite frankly even those parts that did originate in a Terran body could scarcely be called Terran-like."

"Yes, I've seen the scans of your brain tissue," Clavor said. "And I've talked to several veterinary neurology specialists, including Perityle here," he added, indicating the tall, thin Affini to his left. "They're all of the opinion that, frankly, given what we know about human cognition, your brain shouldn't be working given the shape it's been contorted into."

"Well, I suppose I should say thank you for helping me make my argument," I said, smiling. "My phytocortex — mind you, this is my own lay understanding as told to me by Camassia, of course — is responsible for a lot of my cognition at this point, but the old greymatter still contributes."

"This phytocortex of Camassia's" Perityle said, her white, plumage-like foliage shifting as she spoke, "how certain are we that it'll continue to support active cognition given the state you've placed your brain tissue into? You're on a very unusual xenodrug regimen — I don't believe I've ever seen something like this applied, and certainly not to a Terran."

"Well, you've only had Terrans to study for about ten years," I said, riffling my vines in a shrug. "So far, it hasn't posed a problem. Camassia tells me that the cognitive changes I've experienced are, more or less, in line with the Affini standard. I don't see that as a negative."

This was true, or at least, true enough. I was maintaining several active lines of thought purely a a way to ground myself during the most tense and critical argument I would ever make in my entire life. Thinking of Judy, of how I'd met her, of how I'd domesticated her, of how I'd improved her life even before the Compact had arrived, was a balm for any injury as far as I was concerned. Yet, a little disquiet came with that too — those were memories of a very different Tam, after all. I recalled them without too much difficulty, and I couldn't point to the line between that Tam and the Tam I now was if you asked me to, but I could no longer envision myself in the tiny shell of a Terran body.

When had that slipped away from me?

The little Terran asleep in my vines had stayed lucid just long enough to give me directions to her apartment, but the more I followed them and the closer I got to the destination, the more I realized that this poor girl lived in one of the most cramped, underserved parts of Vancouver-Victoria. It was no shock when I found her apartment entirely unsatisfactory, a single-room studio that had a basin but not a toilet and a bed that was little more than a single, thin pallet laid in a hole in the wall. I had to hunch way over just to fit through the door, and then the ceiling was low enough that I couldn't really straighten up again.

Such a sweet little creature didn't deserve to live like this — but the rest of the Compact wouldn't arrive for years to come, so there was precious little I could do for her besides make her as comfortable as I could. <We're back, sweetie,> I whispered, jogging her gently as I sat her down on the edge of her bed.

<Nnnnf. Five more min'ts,> she grumbled, trying to brush my vines away.

<Shhh. You can sleep all you want in just a moment,> I said. If I'd had the proper grafts, I could have rebalanced her electrolytes in an instant, but alas, all I could do was ensure she was properly hydrated after all the alcohol she'd consumed. I reached across to the basin and filled a glass with some water — it looked less than pure, but after tasting it I decided it was drinkable enough. <Drink this,> I said, closing her fingers around the glass and guiding it up to her mouth.

<Nnnnn. No more.>

<If you don't drink this, you're going to have the mother of all hangovers tomorrow, petal,> I told her. <Now drink.> Sweet little thing that she was, her face warmed and she obeyed, drinking the whole glass. I didn't even have to entrance her. <Good girl,> I said, taking it from her. <Now get some sleep, okay?> She nodded, flopped over, and promptly passed out. I watched as all the worries and all the stress fell away from her face, watched the sweet, gentle girl underneath show herself at last. I bundled up her blankets to make sure she didn't roll off her side in her sleep, then took one of my business cards from my pocket. I wrote, <Hope you feel better, cutie. Call me!> on the back, added a heart to make my intentions clear, and left it on her little fold-out table. Then I squeezed my way out of her tiny, miserable little apartment, making sure to set the door to lock behind me.

"I still think the real issue here is her age." Tritica Diplotaxis, Eleventh Bloom, was the committee's xenopsychology representative, and fae had been laser-focused on the topic from the beginning. "Regardless of her biology, her neurology, or any of that, the fact remains that she simply lacks the experience necessary to domesticate a xenosophont. The rest of the argument is purely academic!"

"Alright," Clavor sighed, "let's address that now, then. Tam, I take it your position is that you are, in fact, experienced enough to domesticate Judy?"

"It would be rather foolish of me to try to argue that I possess a broad range of experience to a room full of Affini who all have ten or more Blooms on me," I said, leaning back against the broad, stiff leaf that served as the back of my chair. "I am an absolute sprout, I've never denied that, and I'm not surprised that Tritica finds fault with me there. I am doing everything I can to ameliorate that lack of experience, of course, I'm actively pursuing education in Terran care and the necessary skills to go with it."

"There's more to domestication than a set of skills, though," Tritica insisted.

"Of course," I agreed. "It's the single most important thing one can do — of course it's not as simple as that. But the fact remains that, prior to contact, prior to even knowing about the Affini, I domesticated Judy, to the point where other Affini recognized that she was functionally domesticated. I have numerous pieces of evidence to support that, including a domestication contract signed almost a decade prior to the Compact's arrival on Terra."

"The contract is very sweet," Clavor admitted. "But not yet legally binding."

"Not yet," I agreed. "That's why I've come all this way, after all."

<Uuuuugh!> Judy flopped down on the battered old sofa, dropping a duffle bag at her feet. <Sorry I'm late. I hate my boss. I hate my life. I hate everything,> she moaned.

<What'd the shithead do now?> Rio said, pushing a disposable cup of probably-lukewarm-by-now coffee across the table at her. The coffee shop wasn't too active at this time of day, but the mid-afternoon rush wasn't far off. I had my vines trailing in a cup of tea, myself.

<Docked my pay. Again. And then kept me after for unpaid stocking to make up for forgetting I was working today. I hate him so much.>

I felt as if I were having a spike driven into my core, seeing her like this. She was such a sweet girl, and she didn't deserve to have to live this way. <So, let me make certain I understand here,> I said. <You were late, for which he docked your pay... for the time you missed?>

<No, I'm on half-wage for the rest of the month,> she mumbled.

<And then made you work unpaid on top of that.>

<That's gotta be illegal, right?> Rio said.

<The one or the other, no,> I said, <but both in tandem...well, there might be a case there, but I don't think you'd win it. Anyway, civil law isn't my specialty.> Both, of course, had been spectacularly illegal once upon a time, but that was before the Work & Time Theft Act had been passed early in the Accord's centralization. <More importantly, are you going to be alright?>

<I don't know,> Judy said. <I don't know how the fuck I'm going to make rent.>

<You could come work for me, you know,> I said. <Rio helps me out on occasion, but I could use a full-time paralegal.> My public defender caseload had started to pick up once I'd secured a line of funding from a convenient trillionaire. It wasn't enough, not nearly, but it was something I could do to help these poor creatures.

<Noooo,> she whimpered. <I can't do paperwork.>

<It's not hard,> Rio said. <It's just looking stuff up and filling out forms and shit.>

<No, I mean, I literally can't,> she said. <You put a form in front of me and I'll just lock up. I can barely even handle scheduling doctor appointments for hormones, it stresses me out so much.... ah fuck, I forgot again!> she added with a whimper.

<To take your meds?>

<No, to go do the refill thing.> She leaned back in the couch, looked away, and mumbled, <I ran out a month ago.>

<Stars, Jude-> Rio began, but Judy cut him off.

<Don't call me that, it sounds like you're calling me by a guy's name!>

<Fuck, sorry,> he said, his regret obvious on his face. <You know that wasn't what I meant though, right?>

<Y-yeah, just...> She let out a long, frustrated sigh. <I know I shouldn't care, it doesn't sound anything like my deadname, and I even kinda like it as a nickname, but I just can't shake that feeling, y'know?>

<Judy...> I draped a few vines around her shoulder and pulled her in for a hug. <We're here for you. I'm here for you. Is there anything we can do to help?>

<I dunno,> she said, leaning into me. She was so small, and so soft despite the weak Class-G equivalents that apparently she hadn't even been able to take for a month.

She needs someone to take care of her, I thought. My gaze focused on the bag she'd brought with her. <What's in the bag?>

Her face turned red. <Just... things.>

<Judy.> I lifted her chin and made her look right into my eyes, enthralling her just a little. <What's in the bag?>

<...okay, okay, I got kicked out of my apartment,> she admitted, looking away. <I had late fees because I spaced out on paying last month and I didn't pay those on time and...yeah.> Her eyes fell shut, and I saw the will to fight just drop right out of her.

<So you have nowhere to stay?> She shook her head. <Wrong. Come home with me. I have plenty of room, and you know how comfortable my couch is.>

She shook her head again, more forcefully. <No, I don't want to be a burden.>

<Judy, you are my friend, and I care about you.> Friend might have been selling it short; we had been dancing around one another for several months, the flirting rolling in and out like the tide; we'd simply never made anything official. This was a big step, maybe too big a step, but I wasn't about to let this poor Terran get picked up for vagrancy when I could stop it. <Come stay at my place. Absolutely no strings attached. Okay?>

<....okay.>

<Aaaand Super-Mom strikes again,> Rio said, snickering and pounding the rest of his coffee.

"I'm not entirely certain I'm convinced," Clavor said, paging through supplementary details on his tablet.

"That my phytotech body isn't meaningfully different from your own?" The arguments had been going on for hours — I'd been carefully constructing each pillar of the argument, one by one, ensuring that each had a strong foundation, that they could collectively serve as the foundation for what was to come next.

"Not so much that as generally," he went on. "Individually, your arguments are all well-constructed, and I can see why they carry such weight with you, and with some younger Affini. It's the synthesis of these arguments where I'm finding difficulty accepting the whole. All these little things can be true without you necessarily being an Affini."

"But we're not arguing about that," I replied. Here it was — the moment when I pivoted away from every single argument I'd been making, when the weight of it all came down squarely on the one issue that really, truly mattered. "We're not here to determine that. That's incidental at best. What we're here to determine is will you allow me to make Judy a proper floret? What you see as an argument over whether or not I'm an Affini is really an argument over whether you can trust me with her. That's all."

"You're attempting to create a distinction without a difference," Tritica countered. "To keep a floret is to be an Affini. You're trying to... what's the Terran phrase?" <Have your lake and drink it too?>

"That's immaterial to the question at the heart of this committee meeting," I said firmly. "To be perfectly honest, it doesn't matter to me whether or not you consider me an Affini, because I know that I am, for all intents and purposes, an Affini. I don't see the point in arguing about it. It doesn't matter. What matters is Judy, and what she wants, and what she wants is to be my floret, to carry my haustoric implant."

"Something that even Camassia isn't certain she can do," Clavor added.

"It remains to be seen whether it's possible or not, yes. Answering that question will have to wait — but it relies on you, collectively, trusting me enough to allow the attempt to even happen. I believe that I've presented sufficient evidence for that, but please listen very carefully to what I'm about to say: Judy is already my floret, in every way that matters but one. You cannot stop that, and you cannot take that away from us." I looked slowly around the room, actively using my eyes to stare at each and every one of the oldblooms around me as I spoke. "All you can do is deny Judy something she deserves. Do you believe that Judy should be punished because I'm not quite the typical Affini? Because I matured a little sooner than might otherwise be expected? Because I found her and claimed her long before you had the chance?"

There was silence in the room.

Had I pushed it too far? I tried to listen to their biorhythms, to get a sense of how they might be leaning in the wake of that, but I'd done my job too well — they were all caught by the same hushed withdrawal, too shocked to let their feelings be known.

I let the silence hang for a moment, hoping I hadn't done the wrong thing, then added, "You don't have to decide whether I'm an Affini or not. All you have to do decide is, 'am I close enough?'"

The little Terran in my arms squirmed and leaned back against me, my vines coiling around her arms and legs and holding her in place as my fingers trailed along the smooth, pale skin of her bare thighs. In front of us, the vidscreen was randomly shuffling through a curated playlist of pornography, and Judy's half-lidded eyes were locked on it as I teased her. <How are you feeling?>

<Good,> she whispered. <Still stressed though...>

<Poor Judy...> She'd so valiantly gone out and tried to get a new job after the first two weeks of getting her life back in order, and had spent the next month coming home more and more dejected each day. Each and every day, I reassured her that she wasn't a burden, and fed her a nutritious (if awkward — I wasn't exactly much of a cook) meal before settling down with her to relax. I might not have had any xenodrugs grafted, but the Terrans had some passable drugs of their own, and I'd picked up a small stash of cannabis to help Judy calm herself down. She was pleasantly buzzed now, I could tell, riding the high from a small edible. <Is there anything I can do to distract you?>

<I'm never gonna find a job...> She sniffled. <I'm sorry, maybe not tonight?>

<You are never obligated,> I told her, my hand leaving her thigh at once and turning her sideways, cradling her as if in a wedding carry. I held her tightly and let her cry against my chest, and Everbloom I wish I could have done more for the little creature. <You are never, ever obligated.> Besides, it wasn't as if sexual pleasure was my goal; she'd asked me for it, and I'd been very clear that we would only go there if it wasn't some kind of implicit payback for me offering her shelter. <You are welcome to my body whenever you want it, and you are never obligated when you don't.>

<But I'm taking up so much time and you're spending so much on me and you're giving me a place to live->

<And you deserve all those things, and more besides,> I said firmly. <You deserve everything you want for yourself, and it does me no harm to see those needs and wants fulfilled.> True, I had to work under the absurdity of a budget, but I had more than enough to absorb whatever demands Judy's needs represented on it.

<No I don't,> she muttered, burying her face in the side of my neck. <I'm garbage.>

<You are not garbage,> I said, stroking her hair gently, <and you absolutely do deserve it.>

<Mmmf.> After a moment of accepting affection, she glanced up, her eyes catching a glimpse of the screen. <Oh wow,> she murmured.

<Hmm?> I looked up as well — I'd honestly forgotten about the pornography, but it had kept on playing and gotten to a new video. In this one, one woman was leading another, on all fours, around on a leash. The sub was gagged with a doggy-bone shaped gag, she had a buttplug tail wiggling around behind her, and she was wearing nothing but a chastity cage. Dirt, I thought, how did that sneak in there? It was very sweet, but probably not ideal for the mood I was trying to create — I thought I'd trimmed all the bondage-related media. <Should I turn that off?>

<...maybe not?> Judy said. She was absolutely fixated on the screen, and I could feel her heartbeat quickening as she watched the sub on the screen play at being a dog, rolling over and having her belly rubbed. Frost me, I thought, but that's adorable. <I, uhm... wow.> Her face had gone bright red, and she was chewing on her lip the way she did when she was really spun up.

<.... ah.> I smiled and squeezed Judy gently. <Does Judy like petplay, hmm? Is this something you'd like to explore?>

<M...maybe?>

I took her chin between thumb and forefinger and directed her gaze back up at me. <Judy, do you want to be my dog?> I said, then immediately thought better of it — she was far too small, too cute, to be a dog. <Do you want to be my sweet little puppy?>

Her eyes lit up suddenly, and her lip began to quiver. I could see the stress, the anxiety all bundled up inside her, and I could see her yearning to let it go. She was so ready to break. All she needed was permission.

<Do you want me to collar you, Judy?> I continued. <To put a leash on you to keep you by my side? Do you want me to train you? Will you sit? Will you roll over? Will you beg?>

<Please!> she whimpered, all but throwing herself against me. <I'm sorry I know it's weird but please, please, I need it, I'm so fucked up but I need it! I didn't know I needed it until right now but-> She started weeping into my chest again, and I stroked her back gently as I let her cry herself out. She needed catharsis, and I would give it to her before we went any further. She sobbed and shook in my arms, and I held her tightly, giving her gentle squeezes with my vines.

<There's nothing wrong with asking for something you need, or even something you want,> I told her. <It won't hurt you, will it?> She shook her head, still unable to look up at me. <Then I'm going to give it to you, with a great big smile on my face. Okay?> She sniffled and nodded, and I took that as permission to do what I did next — I leaned in and whispered, my biorhythms thrumming and my voice as throaty as I could make it, <Good puppy.>

The meeting room had been sunlit, but somehow the quality of the light was different as I stepped out into the broad park that adjoined the bureaucratic hub. The light of Nyrina's star tasted different than Sol's, but it was sunlight, fresh and pure and true. I swept my gaze across the open field and quickly found my favorite shade of violet. In no time at all I was settling in next to her. "Hello, my love," I said, my vines teasing at Karyon's.

"Hello, darling," she responded, her vines giving way and entwining with my own. "How did it go?"

"I am cautiously optimistic," I said. "We should have an answer within a few days, I think, but it went well."

"You think you convinced them?"

"I think I made a dent. We'll have to see. But I think they'll see the truth at the heart of it all." I located Judy, out on the field next to a tall cylindrical structure and a handful of Rinans and a single Affini. "It's all for her. What's she doing, anyway?"

"Oh, when we were at the cafe, she made friends with a bunch of Rinans from the local technical institute who are... well, as I understand it, they're trying to see how small a rocket they can make that can still loft a working, trackable satellite into a stable orbit, sort of an engineering competition."

"Rinan speedrunning," I said, my laugh trailing down my vines and right into Karyon's core. "Of course she'd find her way right to them. Dirt, but Rinans are adorable, aren't they?"

"They really are," Karyon agreed. "I almost adopted one, but I was worried I was a touch too young for such an energetic little floret. Judy's much more my speed — she's happy to just sit there and be adorable and absolutely deconstruct the experience of a video game. If I ever go looking for a floret of my own, they're going to be two peas in a pod."

"She is just about perfect, isn't she?" I said. My little pup, loyal and good and sweet and beautiful and happy, happy like she'd never been before. I had done that for her, even before I'd embarked on my own journey, and I was getting better at it by the day. I would make her better still. I would make her absolutely perfect. She deserved nothing less, and I would do anything to make it happen. That had always been true. It was still true, after everything I'd done to myself, after every change I'd wrought. I might not be able to recognize the Terran I'd once been inside myself any longer, but I recognized that.

Whoever you were, Tamara Slaine, Terran, we have that much in common, I thought.