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Cellulose & Steel	By : Not-Taylor Category: Misc Books > FemmeSlash Views: 1028 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own HDG or its characters and I don't make money from this work.

Chapter List
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It’s not easy to have a floret, much less a feralist floret, still less a feral terran floret, and least of all a human feralist dedicated to being as stubborn as possible and going through several identity crises at once. How is Verda Edok to blame if things don’t go smoothly? Quite easily, since ensuring that they do is her formal duty as rapchik of just such an adorable little floret, as well as a perfusion of other delicate balancings of psychology and medicine.
How did she even make such a mess of this? It was supposed to be simple and straightforward. Everyone was talking about how easily terrans folded under a little pressure, how if you just gave them some xenodrugs and cuddled them for a few nights their hearts were yours. Looking through the various tutorials on dealing with terran florets published in her fleet since the formal end of Militarily Enhanced Domestication, that truly is the case. Pacification! That’s the proper term.
The worst and most aggressive cases begged for implantation by the end of the first week in their new homes. Not Verda’s floret. This floret always seems to be making progress. This floret’s will is broken again every time they speak. This floret knows for a fact that fighting is pointless and walks docilely on a leash and has no problems remembering the correct name to use in public. When Verda spins around, all of that is undone and she’s treated to a lecture on the virtues of feralism and terran stubbornness. How could this be?
Verda had thought there were several florets at once, at one point, but when they bled seamlessly into one another and when the memories and mannerisms weren’t matched, she had decided that wasn’t the case. The case is certainly interesting, but she isn’t in the mood for research into plurality and fake plurality.
The ship thing had thrown her, it’s true. How was she to know that the Terran Accord had invented a highly sophisticated torture device built on technology made for enhanced combat performance of crews? Saying it that way makes the explanation quite obvious. And Verda was to know by studying more thoroughly. The records must have existed somewhere, in some… place. Even if the Accord systematically failed to keep track of its own doings, Verda should have been able to find evidence related to the interface system. That single issue had been enough of a problem for her floret, but fixable in time.
The name thing was an obvious side effect. She regrets an insufficient caution in that regard, but medical best practice was and is clear. Her floret simply is not a ship and will be far healthier should her floret acknowledge that. Perhaps allowing a sojourn of several days in that foul substance hadn’t been well advised, but the alternative certainly wasn’t one a respectable affini could allow.
The gender thing? Let the Everbloom bear proof that there was simply no way to have predicted that. Her floret had already pondered that issue, probably better than any typical terran. With her floret’s mode of thought, surely that would prevent ambiguity. That was not so. The floret hid it well. The only signs were so easy to dismiss as simple sensor dysphoria and trauma. Verda had nearly missed it among the other issues.
Sensor dysphoria? Simple? Humanity had invented something even worse than gender dysphoria as the second thing they did after developing FtL. It was the second after attempted genocide, and not for lack of urgency. And that was after making their homeworld nearly uninhabitable. It’s almost enough to make Verda agree with everyone who thought the Accord should have been domesticated years ago.
Verda sighs and shakes her head. It’s a wonderfully illustrative gesture she had acquired from Terran media, one that leads effectively no ambiguity as to her feelings on a matter.
But truly, how is Verda to broach the subject of gender with her precious floret, who would no doubt take it as an insult? Her vines clench and unclench. It would have been so much easier had said floret simply been transphobic, like a concerningly large number seem to be. How, after so long of having somewhat effective treatments and mass awareness, are there so many humans eager to violently oppose such a minor thing?
That was not the worst. Verda’s optimism has betrayed her. The worst is the summation of all of that, with the fact her snarky little Free Terran has started to learn Affini through osmosis. Is that even possible? Neurological analysis from numerous test subjects prior to attempted domestication indicated that Affini would be extremely difficult for humans to master, even with years of study. “Teach me to be an even bigger security risk than I am, Verda-who-isn’t-my-Mistress!” Even were her floret fully domesticated and loyal, that would be problematic. Perhaps controlling and delaying the inevitable would be for the better.
Pain radiates from a certain point on the exterior of Verda’s core. Of course, that comes bound together with the worst. The decision to implant terran technology into herself had not been wise. She had known what she was doing, in part because that’s what her precious floret had done[reflexive]. Rapchiks need to be better examples, but it had seemed to be the right choice at the time. She should have the wound examined for infection if nothing else. Time will exist for that eventually, once the danger to her floret has passed. After last night, her floret simply can’t be left alone, even with the veterinarian’s medication. They’re untrustworthy and distracted.
The rest of the side effects of augmentation have been manageable. Verda’s vision only swims a little and every so often, and she only feels profoundly stupid once every Terran hour at most. It can be tolerated even if it’s painful.
She can’t decide whether it would hurt a human more or less to endure the same. Their bodies are fragile enough that it could cause a great deal of suffering, but they were the species for whom the device in question was built. It’s a purely academic question as no human has been subjected to this. Verda must hide her suffering to preserve her floret’s wellbeing. It wouldn’t do to cause trouble with all the floret’s enduring.
For allowing her floret’s kidnapping, she cannot forgive herself. That almost certainly contributed to the unified crisis of the present. Failure. Verda can’t call herself that quite yet. If her floret can believe in the possibility of restoring the Accord, surely Verda can believe in giving her floret a happy life. If that involves snippets of the Affini language or occasional use of a hyperdrive, so be it. The… “mulch munchers,” as her floret had so poetically made the phrase, are free to gripe in jealousy over how wonderful a floret is Verda’s. She takes a moment to imagine them cuddling together at home, willingly.
The floret in question is presently sleeping in an appropriately sized bed, far too small for the floret’s mistress to get into. She doesn’t doubt the intentionality of that decision. Otherwise, the florets who were truly ill would never have a chance to heal. The way her second breathes in and out peacefully… Resisting the impulse to squeeze a floret who so desperately needs it but willfully rejects it certainly is difficult. For all those difficulties, Verda wouldn’t want her second floret to be any other.
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Cellulose & Steel