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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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- 93
Ember shakily walks its xeno guest to the exit. Technically they’re only leaving one room and entering another, but it feels like escape. It’d really rather not look at him any more, which it acknowledges is a terrible thing to feel, but it’s true regardless. Meanwhile, he seems perfectly content, if a bit airy. He holds Ember’s hand as they pass through the door, one wide enough to easily accommodate them both, though his touch on its skin is close to too much sensory input for the Terran to handle.
The two affini who witness their arrival exchange a knowing smile that makes Ember feel slightly ill. It’s not its fault that they’re concluding things that may not be connected to reality. All it wanted was… it doesn’t even know. The swish of vines covers half of the room’s floor and Ember hugs itself with those belonging to it, trying to look away from any greenery. It feels faint.
“It’s getting close to our usual dinner time. Would the two of you like to join us?” asks Verda.
An excited look crosses Evlen’s face as Ember’s breath catches in its throat.
“What do you think, Evlen?” Cia Endiwai says.
“I’m tired. I’m ready to go home, Mistress. It’s been a long afternoon.”
“Really?” The shock on the affinis’ faces can’t be missed as their probing vines freeze in place.
“Really.”
“If you’re sure. Ember, you must’ve really tired him out. I’ll remember to check in on you the next time my adorable floret has too much energy.” She and Verda laugh, but Ember doesn’t think that’s very funny. Its head is spinning Tump synk ka-tink.
“Goodbye, Evlen and Cia Endiwai,” the pilot mutters, trying to sort through a lot of thoughts.
“Goodbye, Ember. It was nice to see you today, and Verda.”
“Thank you for coming, both of you, we were delighted to have you as guests.” Verda’s smile feels even more artificial than usual.
“Goodbye, Miss Ember and Miss Verda.” Evlen waves to them as he walks to the door, looking much more tired than he had.
After the pair depart, Verda returns to her usual seat where she looks quizzically at her prisoner. She gestures to it to sit, which it does since it doesn’t feel up to standing right now anyway. Before Verda even asks, it can tell she thinks that something is wrong. There’s no point in pretending otherwise, especially today, after the memory module incident. Tump synk ka-tink. Ember’s throbbing head won’t permit it to come up with a sufficiently complex lie to escape the situation. It just wants to…
“Well, Ember? Did you two have fun?”
“I- n… I don’t…” It shudders.
“He can’t have been that bad. And, by the way, we could tell. Neither of your species are particularly chemically discrete. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I… No.”
“There wasn’t any doubt from the instant you opened the door to our bedroom, Ember,” the plant of many vines says gently. Ember reminds itself that the bedroom is hers, not theirs. “If he makes you happy, then he has my approval fully. Is there some other issue?”
“... h- I…” Ember shivers, staring directly ahead.
“Hmmm I suppose…”
Verda gets up with her usual stealth and disappears, only to return a moment later with a cup of black tea and a blanket, which she carefully drapes over her charge. She sits down again, waiting patiently for Ember to explain its issue. It picks up the tea and holds onto it, soaking up the warmth, occasionally still shivering or shaking and failing to speak.
“Verda, I… f-” It forces itself to make eye contact, refreshing its memory of the rainbows in the middle of Verda’s face. “I did something awful. I…”
Mimicking the simple gesture, a simple flick of the wrist, Ember repeatedly demonstrates its crime. Such a trivial motion, but truly reprehensible. The shame it feels is well deserved.
“I don’t understand, Ember. Could you tell me? I don’t believe you’ve done anything as bad as you think you have.”
“No, I… hurt- I made…” It shudders and tears start to fill its eyes.
“I promise you won’t be punished if you tell me, Ember. Telling somebody will make you feel better about the situation. I’m listening whenever you’re ready to speak. Until then, I’ll simply keep you company.”
Verda relaxes into the chair in a movement that Ember can easily tell is carefully choreographed and practiced.
“I…” It keeps flicking its wrist downward with a blank expression. “He… I told him to.. and he did.”
“What makes that a problem, darling? I would think you would be excited that he was willing to meet your desires.”
“No! I… he… I made him. He was just… And he did it. It was so easy…”
“Again, a willing partner is not ‘awful’ and you already know that.”
“But… I- He didn’t!”
“Take your time. There’s no hurry, Ember. He didn’t hurt you somehow, did he?”
“No! I- It’s my fault! i… didn’t even tell him! He…” It trails off, repeating the gesture with increasing energy. “He just… knew.”
“Then, you should be happy that the two of you-”
“I didn’t even want that! He just… And I knew I could somehow even though I shouldn’t have been able to and I shouldn’t have thought that that was- and I didn’t have a choice because- and it happened so easily, too. I didn’t want… Verda…” Something in the affini’s face tells Ember that she’s willing to give it a hug if wants one.
“What makes you think that something was abnormal?”
“He wasn’t even looking at my hand. I just… I’m terrible.”
“Evlen seemed happy enough, afterward.”
“I… did that. I didn’t mean to, it just… He was that way because- And he was tired.”
Verda’s passive movements slow nearly to a stop as she realizes what she’s being told. Her compassionate expression is replaced with a frown as she thinks through the implications. Ember knows that there will be consequences, but it’s willing to endure them as punishment for such a horrible crime. It’s as bad as a weed, maybe worse, since Verda doesn’t do that sort of thing. She uses xenodrugs, but somehow that doesn’t feel as wrong.
Verda’s passive movements slow nearly to a stop as she realizes what she’s being told. Her compassionate expression is replaced with a frown as she thinks through the implications. Ember knows that there will be consequences, but it’s willing to endure them as punishment for such a horrible crime. It’s as bad as a weed, maybe worse, since Verda doesn’t do that sort of thing. She uses xenodrugs, but somehow that doesn’t feel as wrong.
Minutes pass as the affini says nothing to the one she claimed as a companion. Occasionally her core’s foliage rustles softly as she sits deep in thought. Her face loses anything that could be considered an expression as she probably thinks about what torture is sufficient for such a horrible act. While affini are allowed to mistreat their slaves, it’s surely far different for a lesser creature to do the same. Ember hates to think that this of all things is what ended its chance at rebellion, but the idea of having hurt an innocent person out of a desire for novelty, and worse, that it hurt Evlen, is intolerable. It wishes he hadn’t come, so that it would never have had a chance to harm him. He deserves better.
“Ember,” Verda begins slowly. “I understand your feelings of guilt, but I don’t believe Evlen has been hurt or mistreated. If you think otherwise, you could easily ask him.”
She’s correct, Ember realizes.
“Beyond that, you had no way of knowing that-”
“No. I did. I knew and I did it anyway.”
“Why?”
“I- Because I could. There was no reason, just… I could, so I did. And I hate…”
“The fault is mine, not yours.-”
“I wanted to,” Ember gasps, disgust permeating its entire being.
“No, darling. I failed to adequately prepare you for what could happen. Of course, there was no evidence of such a phenomenon being genuinely possible, and someone else’s floret…” Her face tenses in realization of something. “An unimplanted floret would still… No, darling. You have done no wrong here.”
“But I…”
“As your rapchik, it is my place to ensure that you don’t inadvertently harm anyone. That’s just as important as any other part of the Compact’s purpose.”
“But I was the one-”
“If the possibility of such a thing as you believe yourself to have done is frightening to you, I can administer the antidote any time you wish, removing the risk permanently. Otherwise, you must simply accept the possibility of error alongside what else comes with it. Choice is consequence. Since you’ve chosen…” Verda gestures with one of her imitation arms. “There are so few Terran expressions for the concept that don’t relate to age. You’ve chosen to be a responsible party in your quest to talk a trans person through accepting themself. That gives you power over her, and power can be used positively and negatively, and that is the obligation and the burden of it. I don’t know how else to say what I mean. Am I clear?”
“There’s… ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ Is that it?”
“That’s precisely what I wanted to express, thank you. When you were surprised by what you were capable of, you made what you consider now to be a mistake, one whose effects may contrarily be positive for all you now know. The fact that you feel remorse proves to me the purity of your intentions. While that doesn’t efface the consequences of what happened, it shows me that you were doing the best you could, and I don’t believe that that’s wrong.”
“Really? But what if it happens again, and I hurt him again?”
“But would you, Ember? Correcting yourself is entirely sufficient, and it means that nobody needs to correct you. Making mistakes isn’t feralism, only persevering in them is.”
“How can you affini cope with doing that to people all the time? And… you just assume you’re doing what’s right, and you’re not hurting anyone?”
“What do you mean?”
“...that. It’s… So what have I done wrong, if using biorhythms is natural and normal for an affini? I know why I think it’s bad. Why do you?”
Ember feels silly about having taken this long to notice that Verda shouldn’t think anything wrong had been done at all. Evlen is just a floret, property. Meddling with his free will shouldn’t be anything worse than what his mistress has done every single day. If it made him look happier, shouldn’t they consider it an act of benevolence? And legally speaking, can a floret even not consent, and if not, how is that any different from any other sort of surprise?
“You interfered with another’s floret. Did you hear what your little friend called you as he departed? What you did differs from floret theft in all but degree. Usually, an implant would prevent such accidents, but Evlen…”
Ember had already pieced that together, but this is proof, as far as it’s concerned.
“I don’t know… Floret theft? Seriously?”
“The offence committed by Artemis Pallas, darling. A horrible act. Do you want to have Evlen as not a lover but a floret?”
“Fuck you! Why would you say that?”
Despite wanting to dwell on the insult of that implication, Ember really doesn’t want to think about that idea. Keeping people as pets is wrong, it reminds itself.
“I thought so. A well behaved floret does not swear, but under the circumstances, I would say that that is justified. You’ll feel better if you have something to eat, to take your mind off of what happened today. What would you like?”
“Soup. Chicken soup.”
“With noodles?”
It nods.
“That should help your mood. If you don’t pick out the vegetables, you can have a hot fudge sundae for dessert.”
“But I don’t pick out vegetables in anything.”
“See? You’re already most of the way to your ice cream.”
Verda smiles and moves to the kitchen, where she prepares dinner. As evening deepens, she turns on the lights and sets down a hot bowl of soup at Ember’s place, along with a metal spoon. The pilot slowly walks over to it and sits down. Even if it asked for it, it’s not very hungry right now.
No matter how good Verda’s argument was, Ember can’t stop feeling guilty about what it did to the spiky boy (not because some idiot shrub could be upset about it, because of what happened to Evlen). He was there willingly and could probably have refused, but that isn’t the point. Somewhere in their interaction, Ember had blocked his ability to turn away, locking him into continuing. That wasn’t really its fault as Verda had acknowledged, but it still deserved the blame. He was so vulnerable, how could it have done that to him?
Verda said that the only real crime was a violation of an affini’s right to power over another person. That’s insane. Ember can’t accept that all it’d done wrong was to not ask permission before doing things with somebody else. Ember deserves to do as it pleases, provided other people involved agree. But Evlen couldn’t disagree whether or not he wanted to, and now… It’s all Ember’s fault. The poor thing is probably crying and traumatized after what was done to him. It’s not right. It’s what was done to Ginger.
The crime Artemis committed wasn’t rape, enslavement, or any of a number of war crimes and violations of what used to be called international law. Instead, her crime was theft. Because Ember is property. Property doesn’t have rights but its owner does. In a utopian communist space society. That’s so hard to process and completely alien to everything the Accord stood for. A transferable binding contract for one’s time years into the future isn’t the same at all as being owned. One is an expression of freedom, making agreements with one’s resources, the other… isn’t. With its new knowledge, Ember is far more equipped to understand the nature of Affini conquest over the weak minded. Ginger never stood a chance, did she? The person in those memories… No wonder she became a floret. How could anyone expect otherwise?
That must be how the affini see other races, Ember decides. A lesser being, corruptible with just a bit of exposure and gentle nudging. Such a thing is so easy and simple… As so precious. The most horrifying part is that Ember can’t tell them they’re so wrong, when it’s a simple reality of how they are. How could anyone see as an equal a being who could be completely subjugated with such ease? A flick of the wrist…
As Ember stabs its soup, it starts to wonder why it isn’t affected the way others seem to be. Even before, it didn’t lose its ability to think clearly easily. Without xenodrugs, it’s probably mostly itself. Unless it isn’t, and it’s been so thoroughly deluded that its grip on reality has entirely evaporated. That possibility mustn’t be ignored.
Only when Ember finishes eating does it notice that it has no idea how the soup tasted. It was too distracted to enjoy it, assuming it was something to be enjoyed. It probably wasn’t being filled with xenodrugs, but it can’t know that for sure. Since it’s now able to leave, it goes to message Evlen. After dessert, obviously. It could use the sugar.
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Cellulose & Steel