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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
- 68
- 69
- 70
“Darlings, what are you up to?” The large pile of vines asks casually, as though she didn’t catch them in the middle of something shameful. The door was open the whole time! That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it. They should’ve thought to close it.
“We’re…” Her floret begins to stutter something about how she can’t stop them.
“What do you say, Ember?” Dahlia’s mistress suddenly looks less nonchalant.
“Not much. Do you think you could explain a movie plot for us? We can’t agree on what it’s supposed to be about.”
Verda appears from somewhere or other with her arms somewhat disheveled. She doesn’t look pleased. Her vines edge toward Janice’s floor space as she starts what Song can only assume will be another of her rants.
“I’d like to hear, too. Maybe we could join you.” Stars, please! Not that!
Dahlia giggles, drawing everyone’s attention to her.
“Petal, what were you doing before I came in?”
“N-nothing.” Stars, WHY? Why does she have to be so transparent?
“Tell me, dear,” Janice coaxes.
“Nothing, Uteh…”
She giggles more in a very suspicious way. Song doubts that even a xeno would have trouble interpreting that. Janice sighs and brings out her tablet. She pushes a few buttons and her property’s expression fades into a bland smile.
“Once again, Dahlia. What were you and Ember doing?”
“I was changing into a Terran Rebellion uniform. Ember wanted to see how I looked.” Oh fuck WHY? She does her best to hide the blunt hopelessness overtaking her.
“Because I’m a feralist now. Ember showed me that I like freedom.”
“She ‘showed’ you that you like freedom? Why do you believe that?” Verda interjects.
“Because she made a lot of sense… Her words are pretty and I wanted to hear more of them.”
“So you were discussing Free Terranism?”
“Yes, Uteh. You don’t give me what I want to eat and you can’t. Only Ember can.” No no no no no no no no no no no no… Solution! Now! Think, Song!
“And you’re a feralist because of something Ember offered you? You know I don’t want you to be a feralist, right, pet?”
“Yeah…”
“You know it would make me sad, don’t you?”
Dahlia limply nods while not looking at anyone.
“Are you going to continue?”
“I want Ember-”
“Everbloom,” Janice whispers loudly enough for Song to hear, shaking her head.
“What do you have to say, tdaiyn?” Verda’s expression isn’t hautily benevolent for a change. If not for context, the ship might’ve called it inquisitive. This day keeps getting worse. “Did you encourage Dahlia to become a feralist?”
“I… I don’t care.” Song’s voice drops almost to a murmur. “We… were just going to have sex.” There are a lot of things that one could tell an affini that are more objectionable than that. Song’s limbs lock into place. It knows this isn’t going to turn out well for it, but maybe they won’t be the worst possible if it stays calm.
“Oh. It was some kind of roleplay?”
“Sort o-”
“No, Uteh.” What the fuck, Dahlia! “We were trying on uniforms because they’re cool. I like uniforms.”
“So we weren’t…?” It could’ve sworn…
“If I liked how you looked. You agreed to that.”
“I thought that was…” Song has no idea whether the weeds can tell how mortified it is. She hopes not but also really hopes they know she isn’t lying.
Verda looks disappointed and Janice looks amused. They consult in Affini for a few minutes before “turning” back to the Terrans. They don’t actually turn since they don’t have fixed vision, but somehow Song can tell their focus turned. A soft thump beside her makes her look. Dahlia is lying on the bed where she fell. The freakish xenos killed her. That doesn’t make sense. The xeno knocked her out? That’s dreadful but not unexpected. The larger weed audibly sighs.
“You have been fed Terran food, dressed in Terran clothes, encouraged to make terran friends and humored in your phobia of medications that I know for a fact would improve your life, and I have even allowed you to fly a Terran starship that uses barbaric technologies that increase your suffering simply to make your smile. Tdaiyn, you have chosen to reject all that I have done for you to make you comfortable. Instead of thanking me or even tolerating me, you address me and others who have done you no wrong at all with slurs and promote radical ideologies as soon as I turn the undersides of my leaves. This is not acceptable. My lenience has ended. You will conduct yourself in a manner that befits my chkcha and you willtreat others with respect. Now, pet, since I’m certain you understand what I’ve just said, do you promise not to spread Free Terranism or continue to attempt to radicalize Dahlia Marigold, first floret? If what you’ve said just now is true, that shouldn’t be a problem to agree to.”
The prisoner stares silently, processing what has been said. No. She can’t give in. She can’t give up. For Ginger. For Alice. For Dahlia! For Evlen, too. She can’t stop fighting. Nobody else is going to protect these innocent people from the weed menace. Nobody but Song… Everything Verda has done has been part of a plot or against her will. She’s lying. She’s trying to subvert Terra! It’s all xeno machinations.
None of that matters, does it? None of it ever did. The cause was lost from the beginning. No matter how hard she fought or how just her cause, she was never going to change everything. Now she just made her “mistress” hate her and want to kill her. Was this a one in a quadrillion event, an unspeakable horror inflicted on the Compact as a whole? No. Her biological continuity is secure, for anything that’s worth. Other than that, this is the end, isn’t it? All because she couldn’t keep her instincts under control. That was probably Verda’s fault as well. It shouldn’t have been so easy. Dahlia was tricking her. She was lying. It was a trap. Dahlia was a trap in the archaic sense of the word, not that Song cares so much for the usual sense. Or she wouldn’t… if not for Verda.
Since it was all planned from the beginning as a way to incriminate her, why should Song cooperate? They’ll do the same thing again later. Then Verda will have her excuse. But who is she trying to fool? Song knows better. Verda knows better. Nobody else cares whether a “floret” is depersonized by xenodrugs. So… who’s the audience of this plot? Just… why? Stars, why?
In spite of her training and her inherent Terran courage, Song starts to shake. This isn’t good at all. She has to be strong or it was all for nothing. Everyone who died in the war, everyone who was taken prisoner, everyone whose life was destroyed, every couple broken up by the weeds, all for nothing? Unacceptable. The rhythmic beating of Verda’s vines jolts Song from her confusion. She notices that they’ve become harmonious with Janice’s. Or… vice versa? While that merits intensive research, there’s no time for that. The xenos are angry and anxious, and want an answer to Verda’s question.
“I…”
“Pet?”
“Why?”
“That has been explained to you in great detail. Don’t delay. Are you willing to promise to behave, or not?”
At one point, the Song of Destruction would have sworn by anything and everything never to be taken alive. It would have sworn never to give a weed succor, in passing or by design, even as subterfuge. At the start of the Terran Defence War, Song… No, that was Olivia Donnoly. Olivia never would have given in, would she. Maybe. Maybe not. Song wouldn’t have, but it was more pragmatic, far older and far wiser. You can’t always have what you want, when you want it. If the weeds’ patience has ended, that just shows they do have spines, which it can respect.
This is it, isn’t it? This is the day Song dies too. It’s been nice existing at times. The past hour or so was nice too, in ways that it can’t explain even to itself. A flatness was missing that it remembers from Ginger. There’s no time for that. Focus! This is Ember’s life, now. Ember the collaborator… It tried, for everyone. It’s too late now. Think! This isn’t actually the end. That’s stupid. This is just the beginning of another phase, another life, another bloom. Song will persist in some form. The only thing it must still do is not antagonize the weed too much. It can do this.
“It was her idea…”
“That doesn’t matter, tdaiyn. The very first thing you said when we arrived dripped with feralism. I know you had every intention of speaking the same way outside of my hearing. Promise not to spread feralism any more.”
Verda’s tone is hard but something in how she says it is pleading. She’s begging her slave to make the “right” choice. She doesn’t want to do this either. How can it just betray everyone? It can’t stoop that low. The Song of Destruction is a dead Terran walking, walking on legs that make no sense to have. Nothing it can say will change its fate. Just as Verda said, now that it’s proven to be a threat to the Compact, its existence cannot be tolerated. At least she didn’t say she was disappointed, that counts for something… right? And anyway, it’s all a lie. It would be butchered as badly either way. It may as well go out defending its principles.
“I wasn’t trying to turn her into a Free Terran.” Doing and trying aren’t the same.
“Then it shouldn’t be a problem to promise not to in the future, my adorable pet.”
That’s the last opening, shut forever. Oh well. Goodbye, universe. “You might take my life or my hyperdrive, but you weeds will never take my freedom.” Suddenly it remembers why that’s a terrible reference to make. Even worse, it remembers that Verda knows what it’s talking about and that she’s explained why it’s not a good one. “Earth stands!”
The affini deflates in a literal sense, losing 10% of her volume. The other looks at her with pity, placing a sympathetic vine on her shoulder and whispering something in their horrible weed language. Verda replies and the other’s eyes widen. Maybe that means they’ve had second thoughts swayed by a show of courage and loyalty. Xeno scum wouldn’t know anything about that. They must be shocked to encounter a true and hearty Terran’s resolve in the face of adversity. Earth stands. Song has done its-
Thunk.
- 68
- 69
- 70
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Cellulose & Steel