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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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“Song!”
A cry erupts from somewhere near the back of the tram, invisible behind however many Terrans and affini and other species are sitting there. The vessel looks as carefully as it can to see who called, but it isn’t clear. Walking toward the back, it checks for empty seats along the way. There aren’t any. Somewhere a few rows from the very back, ashy spikes point to the ceiling, coming nowhere near because the vehicle is designed to accommodate affini as well as their captives.
“Evlen?”
The puffy xeno is wearing a green floret outfit that matches the shade of the affini beside him, with white trim around the collar and frilly stuff coming out of the sleeves. He smiles widely and waves as Song pulls up next to him. The affini, most likely his “owner,” is smiling too, though her gaze only lingers for a moment before shifting to Verda, who is a couple of steps forward.
“I didn’t think you would be here, Song. Sit with us!”
Evlen looks to both the affini for agreement. They both nod, and Verda and Ember take the aisle seats next to the pair. Cia (Ember assumes) shifts Evlen inward from the window seat, allowing him to sit next to the Terran. He still looks very happy to see her, even after being lifted without his consent. Verda sits on the inside, shielding them from… something, surely.
“Verda made me see a specialist again. We’re on our way back. Why are you all the way up here?”
“My mistress wanted to take me to this deck’s virtual reality plaza. She said that it’s extra well fitted.”
“We’ve gone there once. That’s where we played that sport.”
Tump synk ka-tink. Cia finally speaks, but not to Song. She addresses Verda instead, in Affini. Ember recognizes the word for floret, as well as scrappitch. To her credit, Verda’s reply is not in Affini.
“My adorable and commendable floret did very well. I think in time we may make the top ten thousand on the ship’s leaderboard. My happiness is sincere that we found something to do that we can both appreciate.”
Ember nods, remembering that the game was nowhere near as bad as other things she’d heard could happen to slaves in the Affini Compact. She’s not an adorable and commendable floret, though.
“Can we try, Mistress?” Evlen would enjoy that kind of thing, probably.
“Not today, dear. We already have the whole time there planned out today. Maybe another day.”
“Right.”
The way he addresses his “mistress” carries respect but not blind adoration, the way most “florets” seem to adore their rapchiks. Ember can’t help wondering if their relationship is less serious than usual. He did mention not having been implanted… She remembers to tuck away her peripherals in her lap so that she doesn’t smack anyone around her. The Terran with spherical hair in the seat in front of her surely appreciates not being smacked.
“I’m surprised we ran into you. This is still a big deck,” Evlen prompts.
They both look at Verda, who shrugs. “I didn’t plan this encounter, if that’s what you were wondering about.” She adds something in Affini, implicitly leaving the two prisoners to their conversation.
“I’m glad you did. It’s been a while,” the prisoner says.
“It has. You look…”
“I know I’m a bit tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Oh. I was going to say you look good. Better. You look better than when we said goodbye before.”
“Thanks. In that sense I’m a lot better. I’m starting to feel how I used to, I think.”
“Yay! But what’s…” He points toward Song’s chest.
“They’re not that different, are they?”
“You have vines growing out of your back. I think that’s different?” The chef looks terrified that he’d possibly somehow missed the fact that Song had vines when they met the first time. Tump synk ka-tink. She hides her smile with one of them because she doesn’t want him to feel embarrassed.
“That part is different, you’re right. Verda had somebody make these for me. I’m still not sure they’re a good thing, but they haven’t caused any issues so far.”
“And you…”
“I just wear them, and they’re ‘fully functional.’” She reaches out and taps Evlen’s hand to demonstrate. His eyes go wide and Cia’s interior foliage rustles in a contained way.
“Wow! That’s so cool! Can you… What do they do?”
“Not much, honestly. They’re supposed to be a proof of concept, and they are. Verda’s probably going to figure out what to do next. I’m not given choices.”
“Pet.” Ember processes but doesn’t externally react to the reminder.
“But it is helping. I feel more stable.”
“That’s good. I’m happy for you.” The tension in Evlen’s facial quills eases a little.
“What have you been up to, Evlen?”
“Not so much. I’ve only been cooking dinner most of the time. Since my mistress is being a pain, I’ve just been making more exciting food to compensate. I’ve moved from one course to three.” He smiles deviously in the affini’s direction and she runs a vine briefly across his neck, pausing what she’s saying to smile back at him. There’s no ambiguity that she finds his plan adorable (which it kind of is).
“I’m sure that’s taking a lot of time. Do people appreciate your hard work, at least?”
“Some do, but a lot of the patients aren’t really in a place to understand, or they have special diets. I don’t mind. I’d still be enjoying myself if only my mistress and I were eating what I make.”
“Good.” Tump synk ka-tink.
Evlen interrupts before Song can figure out what to say next. “So are you doing much soon?”
“I’m probably going to be seeing even more medical people because it never ends.”
“I’m sure it will end eventually, if you’re getting better,” Evlen says, with a hopeful tint to his voice.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe then we could meet up somewhere that’s not one of these cars.”
“That would be good.”
“Evlen’s mistress and I have been talking just now, darling,” Verda interjects. “Would you liike to meet tomorrow?”
Evlen’s entire face brightens and the quills framing his face puff up. He starts to smile excitedly.
“That would be nice,” Ember responds.
“Really?” Evlen asks, turning to his caretaker.
“Really, my cute one. Miss Verda and I both have the entire afternoon free, so you should have time to make lunch for everyone at the hospital if you’d like to.”
“Yay!” He almost jumps out of his seat, and Song feels her vines contort into a weird shape that doesn’t extend far from her main body.
“Dirt, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Evlen’s mistress, Cia Endiwai Spelt, third bloom, as you most likely figured out already.” Her name is still strange and highly abnormal.
“It’s nice to meet you.” In actuality it is not, but Song knows how much trouble there will be if she admits that. The pride with which Verda radiates is tangible.
“Likewise, but while I would adore the opportunity to chat with you and your mistress more, this is our stop. Goodbye, Song and Verda.”
The light toned affini and her charge wave and stand up, meaning that their traveling companions have to as well. Verda gestures to sit back down, which Ember does as soon as Evlen is out of sight, stepping off the tram. She suddenly feels a bit depressed, remembering that he’s only leaving because his “mistress” told him to. It doesn’t feel right.
“What’s wrong, Ember?”
“Nothing.” She wouldn’t understand.
“You’re upset and I want to know why. Would you rather not see Evlen tomorrow?”
“I’m fine.” Tump synk ka-tink.
“Are you sure?”
The weed looks at her prisoner with wide and artificially compassionate eyes. She’s pretending to care for some reason. Ember doesn’t want to deal with that right now. “I’m sure.”
Verda sighs, looking past her captive and out the window. Following her gaze, Ember doesn’t see anything interesting. It’s more of the deck she’s been trapped on all this time. She sighs too, wondering about what might have been if things hadn’t happened as they did. Maybe the Affini would’ve found another galaxy to conquer. Maybe they wouldn’t have found Terra if not for some unimaginable coincidence that was an act of fortune.
Then she never would’ve met Evlen. Then she never would’ve been captured. Then she never would’ve developed sensor dysphoria. Then she never would’ve spent as long as she did in the Cosmic Navy. Then she… has no idea what she would’ve done. Maybe she would’ve been a pilot in some other vessel with a similar model of drive to hers, or maybe she could’ve been an engineer, designing drives that would jump better than anything the Affini could ever make. Who knows?
Not all of the possibilities are good, but the bad ones aren’t worth thinking about. Ember could’ve moved to some colony and enjoyed the plantlife. She suppresses a chuckle. Being the (slightly less valuable) equivalent of a housewife to somebody with a grossly inflated sense of self worth wasn’t on the list of possibilities. For the Accord, things might’ve turned out well. History may have continued leading to greater prosperity for everyone in the galaxy. The cosmos will never know, now that that has been prevented. Ugh, what might’ve been…
“Darling, we’re here.”
As the pilot is jolted from her meditations, they reach a station she recognizes as being close to Verda’s residence. They get off and walk a short distance, to find that the neighborhood is no different from how it was when they left. That’s to be expected, but the lack of robots shooting death lasers at one another is slightly disappointing.
Verda’s residence is untouched as well. With the removal of Ember’s leash, she’s once again free to flop on the couch. No messages on her tablet. She looks around and finds that Verda is tending to the compiler again. Ember looks at her second tablet to see if Lysander has anything new to say. The screen doesn’t work at first, but after jabbing it in four different places at once it does start to respond.
[membership_plan_11]> official: All right. I’ll probably be here when you get back. Maybe you can tell me what’s going on with the lights.
That’s a complete reach but something tells Ember it’ll work. All the colonies on hard worlds had issues with the lighting. She could never tell if it was the generators, the bulbs, or what, but they’d always flicker a few times every day. At least, on the ones Ember had visited. If that’s true where Lysander lives, great. If not, it’s something they can talk about. Maybe she’ll get a better feel for her quarry’s present satisfaction. That usually leads into a chat about how awful gender expectations are for men (when you’re not one, at least…)
The crystalline throbbing still hasn’t decreased that much. Ember emits a quiet tone in hopes of turning down the pain, but it doesn’t work. It usually works. This is probably different from most headaches since it’s xeno induced. Xenos are such a headache, she muses. Verda’s sitting at the table, typing into her computer as she so often does. Ember wonders if she’s reading her prisoner’s latest message, trying to find a way to use that to subvert Terra. The idea feels empty. What is there to subvert? What’s left to fight for when the whole planet has sworn fealty to monstrosities from the stars?
Lysander. She’s worth fighting for. Her fellow colonists. Everyone else who’s had the chance to stay free.
This egg can’t be too old. She’s probably younger than Ember, going by how she types. That… isn’t saying that much. The pilot frowns, displeased at the thought of her advancing age. She never got to have a youth or be young. Instead, she was trapped in a little jar for years, and the vast majority of her time out of that jar was with a traitor. A plantfucker, too worried about sniffing weed sounds to think about anything important. That’s the kind of person you shouldn’t let anywhere near you. She wasn’t even a real lesbian, was she?
A message from Lysander stops that line of thought. She’s going to need a new name, but not yet. She’ll come up with it when she’s ready and no sooner.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Not much to do but count the flashes? Lucky you, I just got back from a manual labour shift, and I’ve got a real shift tonight too!
[membership_plan_11]> official: Seriously? Fuck that.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: You don’t have to tell me twice. Nobody but the governor knows why we’re digging as far as I know. My arms’ve been sore all week.
[membership_plan_11]> official: You're digging?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: ya
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: A big hole. I joked we were going to fill it in when we were done and everyone went quiet.
[membership_plan_11]> official: So do they have the girls digging too or just the guys?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: The only girl I know is the governor’s bunk buddy so
[membership_plan_11]> official: Grim. I hope you find water or something useful.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Me too. What do you get up to?
[membership_plan_11]> official: Sitting around, mostly. I’m waiting to see if some parts can be salvaged. Nobody here seems to know the first thing about my drive, let alone how to repair anything.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: o rough. If the war is that bad, how’d you end up here? I’m serious
[membership_plan_11]> official: I told you, I lost some crew and we couldn’t fly as well any more, so here we all are.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: But why were you in the area?”
[membership_plan_11]> official: Long story.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Classified, eh? CN or what?
[membership_plan_11]> official: CN, PSC
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Damn, you’re fancy. haha
[membership_plan_11]> official: Really? Do you have a rank, or are you store brand?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: I wish. Kangaroo squad, light.
And now Ember knows why Lysander hasn’t questioned her gender yet. Kangaroos went extinct long ago, but they’re still known for two things: punching and sitting in pouches. Kangaroo squads were first created by the Cosmic Navy for boarding actions decades ago. They’re not the type you’d want to meet in a dark alley, between the training and the blatant toxic masculinity that nobody on the outside felt safe mentioning to their faces. Of course, since space is massive and pilots never feel like flying right up against an enemy ship’s gunports, they never saw much use. Flashier divisions saw more action too, but Ember would not want to agitate a kangaroo in person. That’s just natural selection. Even a light would probably take out anything but an affini 1v1. So, yes, Lysander is “fancy” too.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Humble. I respect it.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Ha
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: They dumped me here when they found out just how much lead those weeds can take. Should’ve known that hand to hand would be useless in space.
Well he isn’t wrong, but having a couple of scary grunts keeps the rank and file’s spirits up. Song didn’t get any because she was too small.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Then again you’re still you, right? They haven’t put their tendrils into your brainstem.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Thank fuck. None of us are compromised. We’d be slaves already if that weren’t true
[membership_plan_11]> official: Lucky I found you. I met one of their “florets,” BTW. Insane. She thought she was happy and called me a feralist.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: It’s worse than I thought?
[membership_plan_11]> official: Much. Xenodrugs are scary.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: I’d kill myself before I let them take me so keep away the satisfaction.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Same. Freedom or death, nothing in between.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Freedom or death, nothing in between.
Even though she’s said those words a thousand times, Ember doesn’t feel comforted by them. She’s not free. That isn’t up for debate. Even being allowed to use the word freedom without being drugged into a stupor is a courtesy extended by Verda Edok, fourth bloom. Xenos and their selfimportant names… Ember isn’t free but she still is a Terran. An unfree Terran. How is she not a floret, again? That isn’t healthy to think about. Tump synk ka-tink. Tump synk ka-tink. She has an egg to hatch and possibly more. She just has to make sure not to scare her away.
The cheat sheet says that if you institute voice chat as soon as possible the “seed” will become more attached. Statistically, that should be true here, but she really doesn’t want a babytrans orbiter. That never ends well. So now she should leave something to discuss later, so that she can end the conversation while the egg is still eager for human contact.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Have you read anything interesting lately? Anything new from anywhere? We had to go dark so we haven’t heard the end of the big drama series about floretated water.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: I haven’t heard of that one. I don’t watch or read much.
[membership_plan_11]> official: What do you do?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Not much.
[membership_plan_11]> official: OK.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: You?
[membership_plan_11]> official: I’m trying to reverse engineer some things I’ve seen in their transmissions. There’s got to be a way to beat them. Since you said you know a bit about communications, you might be able to give me some hints.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: You really think so?
[membership_plan_11]> official: I know it. Nobody’s perfect, especially not xenos.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: You’re right obviously they can’t win
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: but you said they kept winning?
[membership_plan_11]> official: I did, but that can change at any time. I’m sure that if you ever meet one, you’ll know that being afraid would be silly.
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: You're awful confident
[membership_plan_11]> official: Being scared never helped anyone, right?
[Dephinni_C]> ls_684co: Right. Thanks for making me feel better, Ember. I’m calling it a night though, got to wake up in a few for my shift.
[membership_plan_11]> official: Sleep well.
Apparently, if Ember wanted, the tablet could record Lysander’s sleeping data to generate a model of her traits that would help Ember better domesticate her. While that level of technology is fascinating and she wants nothing more than to smash the thing open to see how it works, it feels like a disgusting invasion of somebody’s privacy and she can’t bring herself to turn it on. Instead, she lets her egg sleep. She’ll be back later. Nobody’s that forthcoming who has real friends.
That feels a little exploitative too, as though she’s grooming somebody into being trans. But she’s not! Lysander’s going to be grateful as soon as she hatches! Anyone else would’ve been happy to be a man speaking to a woman, but not her… Why does Ember feel guilty?
Verda and Raven are both easy to access and have a ton of knowledge in case anything goes wrong. They surely wouldn’t let Ember hurt anyone, not when she’s trying her best not to. Would they really sacrifice the happiness of a pet in order to amuse another pet? That doesn’t sound very Affini. Ember exhales. Tump synk ka-tink. She has to stay strong, and maybe Free Terra can rise wherever Lysander is. That isn’t going to work very well if she has a bad hatching. Ember shudders at the thought of how that might turn out. She’s really put a lot of responsibility on herself, hasn’t she?
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Cellulose & Steel