Chapter 12: New Friends
“Ding Dong!” The hab’s voice said “You have a visitor, cuties!” Tori and Emma looked at each other and then hopped off the couch together and went to the door. It slid open siletly as they approached. Standing on the other side was Rachel and Willow.
“Hi!” Emma said, excitedly.
“Hi!” Tori said. “What brings you two by?”
“Well,” Rachel said, smiling.
“We want to know if you two want to go with us to the park…” Willow finished.
“Uh,” Tori said. “We need to ask Lavi if we can…” Emma was already pulling her datapad out and starting to type. “Why don’t you come in?” Willow and Rachel walked into the hab unit and sat at the human sized counter in the kitchen.
“We were thinking we could go to the park and maybe the library. Lilium said you both like to read.” Rachel said.
“Wait…” Emma said. “You’re telling me that this ship has a library and a park?” She looked around the hab unit. “How big is this ship…”
“Mistress said she was five kilometers long and just as wide…” Tori said, glancing at Emma. “Remember?”
“Oh…” Emma said quietly. “It happened again didn’t it?”
“It did…” Tori said. “It’s ok.” Emma’s datapad dinged and she looked at it.
“Lavi said we can go, as long as we check in and we stay with Rachel and Willow.” Tori said, reading the screen on the datapad. “She also said she might come try to find us once she gets done with work…”
The four of them wandered into the structure that was the library on the Scorpiris. “I found the ebook library on my tablet…” Tori said. “But I’ve not really found anything to read yet…”
“Too many choices, huh?” Willow asked, her tail swishing.
“Yeah,” Tori said. “Not to mention that it’s been a while since I’ve read anything because we didn’t have anything on the station…”
“Do you prefer printed books or electronic?” Willow asked.
“What I did have was electronic and I need to rebuild my library because I think it got lost when the station was destroyed.” Tori said. Willow looked at her and tipped her head to the side.
“What station?” She asked, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer.
“Emma and I were stationed on Proxima 20…” Tori said quietly; it would have not been noticeable, but she was anxious about talking about her history with the OCNI.
“TCN or OCNI?” Willow’s voice was quiet. There was no one around, but she was still trying not to be overheard.
“OCNI…” Tori looked around, and as she did, she felt a warmth spread through her. Her implant must have given her something to clam the anxiety. “Initially, we were just keeping track of communications way out on the edge, but as the war ended and the treaty had been signed, we started to provide intelligence to rebel vessels. I’m pretty sure that all of our records are being used to try to track down those vessels now…”
“I was OCNI on Europa… I chose to be domesticated after we were relieved of duty by the Affini.” Willow said. “Best decision I ever made.”
“I don’t know what you heard about me, but the only choice I got or was going to get was if I surrendered the easy way or the hard way.” Tori said. “I managed to save my girlfriend and keep her with me.” Tori gazed across the aisle to where Emma and Rachel were looking at some books. “When I woke up in Lavandula’s hab unit, I didn’t even really care what happened to me, I wanted to make sure that she,” Tori tipped her head toward where Emma stood. “Was ok. I inadvertently led to all of us getting picked up and subsequently domesticated. Emma was the only one that was nice to me… I don’t care what happens to the rest of the group that was at Proxima 20…”
“Well,” Willow said. “I can guarantee that you two, because you came willingly are going to be treated properly for that.” She smiled, and her tail flicked. “I’ve heard that it’s much worse for those who put up a fight…”
“I’m glad I gave in when I did then…” Tori said, her eyes showing a hint of sadness. “I had always told myself that I wouldn’t let myself get domesticated. Let’s just say the firebreak that got deployed when the attack on the station started, I wouldn’t be here…”
”I didn’t get a choice either…” Willow said softly. “Well, I guess the choice was much like yours, the easy way or the hard way. I chose the easy way and fell in love with Lilium the check of my initial mental status…” The girl with the cat ears smiled and looked at Tori. “I wasn’t Willow then, I was still coming to terms with who I was. I had always been…” Her voice trailed off as she looked into the distance. “Different. I just didn’t realize exactly how different I was until I was given permission to experiment. That was just a little over two years ago. I had asked Lilium if we could tell my parents about my transition, and she was the one that told them that I had been captured, domesticated, and that I was now Willow. My parents were just glad to be rid of me, said that I was now the plant’s problem, and that it served me right for being a pervert…” She reached up and wiped a tear away. “Lilium held me tight that night. I slept curled up in her vines, crying at the treatment that my family had just given me…” A sad smile crossed Willow’s face. “In the end they ended up domesticated, and not by choice… They were helping the rebellion on Io and that was enough for them to not get a choice and I’ve not spoken to them sense. I know Lilium has inquired as to how they are doing.”
“I worry about my parents when they find out about me.” Tori said. “Before I enlisted, they tried to obtain guardianship of me, claimed that I was unfit to live on my own. Had me in a psych ward and were basically trying to ruin what parts of my life that I didn’t ruin on my own…” She glanced at Willow. “I was surprised that I was given security clearance, to be honest…”
“Maybe you can have Lavandula do all the talking for you when you contact them, unless you don’t want them to know that you’re still alive.” Willow pulled a random book off the shelf and looked at it. “Unless you don’t want to…”
“I kinda want to, I want to see their faces when they see me, looking healthy, collared, and being a proper pet.” Tori said. “It would serve them right for the way they treated me. I know that the XBWC has been asking about me, I have friends on Mars that would tell me, but I never gave enough information as to where I was to let them lead anyone to me. I’ve talked to them since and the next time that we are near Mars, we are going to all meet up and see each other for the first time in six years.” Tori didn’t mention that Lavandula had said that they would be near Mars in the next few weeks as she considered that to be OPSec type information and she wasn’t sure how much of that was shared with people that didn’t need to know. “Lavandula said something about putting in notices of intent to domesticate on Marissa and Allison so that if they end up volunteering or it comes to light that they can’t take care of themselves so that we all stay together…” Tori realized that she was rambling. “Sorry, I’m rambling…”
“It’s alright…” Willow glanced at Rachel and Emma on the other side of the library now, both with a stack of books now. “Rachel does that too, I’m a woman of a few words…” Willow chuckled. “But I understand what Lavi is doing there. It’s actually to protect them. It takes the uncertainty out of it going forward; Lavi knows what will happen if they decide to become florets or it’s it’s determined that they should be for their own well being… They will be with someone that two people known to them know and trust, that helps a bit…” She paused and moved her ears. “I knew Rachel before… She was a classmate when we were both going through college, but we never lost touch with each other. She chose to be domesticated, it got her out of a pretty rough life on Xenia… I ended up with her and Lilium because I was asking all sorts of questions about it and then they invited me to join them on board. Once I was up here, Lilium took care of me and I decided that I wanted to be a floret and here we are. I don’t know that I would have made it if it weren't for Lilium filing the notice of intent when she met me. Once my past came to light, it was game over; the only choice at that point was the easy way or the hard way. Once I realized that, the easy way is what I chose…”
“Lavandula had been searching for me for a few years. She didn’t quit until she found me. She knew that I needed to be taken care of and she made it happen…” Tori pulled a book off the shelf. “You know, I’ve not read a printed book in… years…”
“Yeah?” Willow giggled. “I prefer to have Lilium read to me, but if I’m doing it myself, I prefer ebooks… There is a massive library of ebooks that you can access on your datapad…”
“I think the last thing that I read that was a printed book was the training manual for some communications equipment when I was with the OCNI and in training…” Tori giggled.
“I prefer ebooks because they are easier to carry and I am able to spend a lot of time reading.” Willow said.
“How does that work with you working in the cafe?” Tori asked, her head tipping to the side.
“Oh, I only work in the cafe for one week a month. So the rest of the month, I’m free to do whatever. I spend a lot of time reading.” Willow said. “I like to read about early 20th century human civilization… Things were so different back then. I’m glad I live now and not then…” She glanced around, just seeing who was in earshot. “I would have probably been put to death or something. That was a rough time for people like me…”
Tori glanced at Willow and understood. She had done some research on the past and how rights had changed since then. “I’m glad I live now and not then as well, although with the way my parents are, my life really hasn’t been that much different than our brothers and sisters of old…” She gave a sad smile. My younger sister was treated so much differently than I was.. it’s kinda sickening, really…”
“I’m sorry that you were treated the way you were when you came out…” Willow paused and looked at Tori. “May I give you a hug?”
Tori opened her arms up wide and the girls embraced. “I hope that no one that I know ever has to feel that kind of rejection from people that they consider family.” She glanced across at Emma. “I think it’s safe to say that I have a family now and that they aren’t going to disown me or toss me aside or anything.”
“If that were to happen for some reason, come find our hab unit. Lilium would take you in, at least temporarily.” Willow said. Rachel and Emma walked up, both with a stack of books.
“I thought we came here to get books?” Emma said, glancing at the empty hands of Tori and Willow.
“I have all of my books right here…” Tori replied, pulling her datapad out. Willow chuckled.
“I mean, I prefer electronic books too…” Willow said. “Should we go to the park?”
”Can we stop at a coffee shop or something?” Rachel asked, a smile in her voice. ”I really want a cup of coffee…”
“Sure…” Willow said. “Emma, you don’t even have to do anything to check the books out, it just knows that you have them and there is no due date, but if you have it and someone else wants it, they can send you a message and come get the book from you if you’re done with it.”
“Wow…” Emma said quietly. “This is so much better than the way that things were on the station…”
“I know where there is a coffee shop that we can go to that’s nearby…” Willow said. “And then, we can go to the park.”
“Sounds good…” Emma said.
“I wonder when we will be near Cassius again…” Willow said. The four of them had found a quiet, secluded area that was surrounded by hedges. They could hear other Affini and florets playing in the large park.
“What’s Cassius?” Emma asked before Tori could, mainly because of the mouthful of coffee that her pinnate had in her mouth.
“Cassius is home to the Flower Festival,” Rachel said, a smile of remembrance crossing her face. “Last time we docked with the Vervarium, Lilium took us down to the surface for the festival… It was so lovely, and if Lavandula is still assigned to the Scorpiris, you should see if she will take you down the next time that we are there…”
Tori and Emma shared a glance. “Sounds like a good outing for the family… We should talk to Mistress about it. Maybe we can do it when Marissa and Allison are up with us.”
“I don’t know how they would feel about traveling out of the Sol System on their first outing to an Affini vessel…” Tori said. “They are already nervous enough about Mistress putting in a notice of intent to domesticate for them; Maybe something for a future time for them, but I’d like to see the festival regardless.”
“Who are Marissa and Allison?” Rachel asked, having not heard the part of the conversation that Willow and Tori had.
“Friends of mine that live on Mars,” Tori said. “They are the ones that the XBWC kept asking about me and they couldn’t tell them anything because I never gave enough information to actually find me. I would obfuscate the data path to get messages to them so that they couldn’t tell anyone where I was. We also never did video so that they couldn’t see how bad I really was.” Tori paused and looked at her arms, some of her scars still visible. “I am only still here because people like Emma, Allison and Marissa never gave up on me… so many others did though…” Emma gave Tori a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“That’s because you are worth not giving up on.” Emma said. “I’ve known you for years and I have learned things about you that I never knew… I don’t think you were intentionally hiding things, but it was that you didn’t feel safe enough to tell me.” She paused and rubbed Tori’s back a bit. “I want you to know that you can tell me anything, regardless of what it is. I would marry you, but I don’t know how that works now…”
“It wouldn’t be the first wedding that we’ve been to…” Willow said with a giggle. “Weddings work like they always have. It’s just going to depend on who you want to officiate and be in the wedding party…”
“Well, other than a handful of Affini, and the two of you,” Emma said. “We don’t really know anyone…”
“Hmm…” Rachel said. “What about Marissa and Allison? Maybe try to do it when they are aboard?”
“Tori, we should talk to Mistress about it…” Emma said. “I’ve been in love with you ever since we went underground on Proxima 20. You opened my eyes to love after years of neglect.”
Rachel and Willow smiled as Tori and Emma’s hands joined. “Let’s talk to Mistress about it.”
“Talk to me about what?” Lavandula’s sing song voice came from behind where the four florets sat. Lilium stood next to Lavandula and had a pleased expression on her simulated face.
“Eeep!” Tori and Emma both shrieked as they turned to face their owner.
“Hi, Mistress!” Emma said. “I was talking to Tori about wanting to marry her, but I have no idea what to do or how to do it, not to mention it wouldn’t mean a whole lot as we don’t even having voting rights in the Compact as we are pets…”
“But it is still a symbol of your love for each other and it is something that I think we should explore.” Lavandula said, a pair of vines reaching out to stroke the back of her florets. “I think it is something that would be fun to do and would let us have a party.” She turned toward Lilium and said “and there will be some paperwork for us to do…”
“There’s going to be paperwork?” Tori asked. “Why would there be paperwork?”
“Why wouldn't there be paperwork?” Lavandula chuckled, her vines flowing in all different directions. “We love paperwork; I’m surprised that we don’t have paperwork to allow you to breathe…”
Rachel leaned over and whispered in Tori’s ear. “Do you have any idea how much paperwork there is just to domesticate someone?” Tori shook her head, she’d not seen all of the paperwork that had been filed for her and Emma. “It’s twelve boxes… That are about two feet long and a foot wide… I would say that there is probably six thousand pages, and that’s in triplicate and for a person who volunteers…”
“We’ve…” Lilium said. “Developed a love for paperwork, and we are suited to filling out multiple forms at once…” She wrapped a vine over Lavandula’s shoulders. “Lavi, shall we continue our outing?”
“Sure,” Lavi replied, her flowers twirling. “Be good girls, be back in the hab by dark…”
“Rachel and Willow, you may return to Lavi’s hab and wait for me to arrive there later…” Lilium said. “Your collars will open her door, and their collars will open ours…”
“When did that happen?” Willow asked. She wasn’t used to having access to other hab units.
“We did it after you left Lavi’s hab…” Lilium said. “We were waiting on you to leave before we did it.”
“Be good, little ones,” Lavi said and she practically drug Lilium away from where the florets sat.
“What the heck was that?” Rachel asked.
“I have no idea…” Emma replied.
“Do you all want to go get some ice cream?” Willow asked.
“I’m game…” Tori said, standing and offering a hand to Emma to help her up.
“Wonder why we have unrestricted access to each other’s habs…” Emma wondered.
“Not sure… Especially given that our habs are in completely separate parts of the ship…” Rachel leaned into Willow’s side. Willow leaned against Tori and Tori leaned against Emma.
Lavandula and Lilium sat in Lilium’s hab unit and watched four datapads. “Wow…” Lilium said. “I hadn’t actually looked at the data when they have all been together.”
“I noticed it when everyone was over after Tori’s surgery… I did not, however notice how much it dropped on Rachel and Willows readings as well because I could not see their data…” Lilium and Lavandula looked at each other.
“Are we going to have to merge our hab units together?” Lilium asked.
“Maybe…” Lavandula replied, looking around. Both of their hab units were similar in size, with the exception of an extra room in Lilium’s hab for her home office. “We would need at least 2 bedrooms for the florets, a bedroom for us, our offices, the kitchen, living space and the bathroom…. Would probably need a bigger tub so we can bathe all four of the florets together.”
“I know that they are our florets, but do you think we should talk to them about this before we just merge everything?” Lilium asked,
“Oh, we will, but I predict that they will be all for it.” Lavandula said. “Thank you for sending the girls by today. My two need to get out and see the stuff on the ship”
“Agreed…” Lilium said. “What are your plans when we get to the Sphenophyllia?”
“I have to give a report to the intelligence department about the status of the Proxima stations that we have located and checked. The bigger problem there is that we don’t actually know how many there were or where they were all located. I’m hoping that they can provide info on that… Tori said there were 50, but we’ve only found 30.” Lavandula’s gaze was focused on her datapad. “I’m thinking that the Accord kept some secrets…”
“You said that non of them had knowledge of the location of the other stations, right?” Lilium asked. “And the stations were numbered, right?”
“Yes,” Lavi replied. “But just because they were numbered, it doesn’t mean that they were numbered sequentially. They could have skipped a grouping of numbers for one reason or another… There is evidence of them doing that for various other projects… I need to see if I can get access to the data the Accord kept to see if they maybe had better documentation for this program.”
“Can’t you access it from here?” Lilium stood and made her way into the kitchen, coming back with two bowls of a red liquid.
“No, we don’t have it on board and it’s something that isn’t readily available outside of a few work stations on the Sphenophyllia.” Lavi dipped a vine in one of the bowls of liquid that Lilium had placed on the table. “They won’t let it off because of security concerns. I still don’t know why we don’t have it, we are an intelligence vessel, after all…”
“If we don’t have it, there is a reason for it…” Lilium replied, sitting on the couch next to Lavi; two of their vines interweaving. “Have you tried asking Tori after giving her some Class D’s?”
“I’ve never used a Class D on Tori…” Lavi said, glancing at Lilium. “I would want her to know what was happening before I did. Emma might also have information and I’d need to do the same to her.”
“What did Emma do on the station?” Lilium asked.
“She was a communications tech, not sure what all her job entailed, but she would have the knowledge of how many stations if she was responsible for maintaining the communications networks…” Lavi said.
“It might be worth asking her…” Lilium said. “Let’s go pay our florets a visit. It is getting late after all…”
When Lavi and Lilium got to the other hab unit, they found all four of the florets asleep on the couch. “Must have been a tiring day for them…”
“Must have been.” Lilium responded. “I didn’t know a library trip, a trip to the park, and a stop for ice cream could wear them out like this… I might have to take them to run around more often…”
“Want to help me carry them to the bedroom and we can put them down for the night?” Lavi asked.
“Sure.” Lilium scooped her two up in her vines and carried them toward the bedroom that Tori and Emma shared. Lavandula picked up the remaining two and carried them into the bedroom, carefully placing them in the bed and pulling the blankets over the four humans. The pair of Affini turned the lights down and quietly exited the room, the door sliding shut behind them.