The Accord fell a while ago, but like ripples of water, it takes time for the effects to reach the more distant parts of its former territory.

  Even as the Compact’s influence reaches outward, some pces just march on, caught in their own inertia. Take New Lafayette, a small colony at the edge of what used to be Accord space. Capitalism marches on there even in the year 2556, two years after the Accord’s fall, as the oligarchs and CEOs try to extract every bit of value and wealth from the popuce before the Compact arrives. They honestly believe they can take it with them, that they can get away before the Affini show up and make all their wealth both worthless and meaningless.

  They care little for those they grind into the dirt along the way.

  One such person sits on the roof of the building containing her meager apartment. Her bleached hair flies behind her in the meager wind as she takes a drag from her vape as she contemptes her life, her hazel eyes staring ahead at the soulless world beneath her. She completed a backbreaking twelve hour shift just two hours ago, and she starts another one soon after the sun rises. The twenty-hour days on this pnet don’t help matters any. She spends those days frying meat for the upper crust that she’ll never be able to afford herself. After rent and medicine, she can barely afford synthcubes.

  She looks down at the streets below. It would be so easy. It would always be so easy to just scoot forward and let gravity do the rest. She shakes her head. If it were so easy she would have done it already. But she’s clinging to a small amount of hope.

  She’s heard the reports, despite attempts from the remnants of the Accord to stifle them. The Affini have been broadcasting their own counterpropaganda to counter the nationalistic, capitalist message of the Accord. She’s listened. She’s receptive.

  What has the current system done for her and people like her other than drive them into the ground and lead them to early graves? At 43 Terran years, she’s already far beyond the estimated life expectancy of a worker of her wage level, not even considering the other complicating factors of her life. The fact that she’s still alive is a major miracle, a testament to her will to survive at all costs.

  But she’s grown tired beyond her years. Her pce is a disaster. She hasn’t bothered keeping up with it. She’s only gotten a little bit of her medication over the st few months, mostly spending that money on crude Terran stimunts to keep herself going after her job – and even the little bit of her medication that she has, she forgets to take for weeks at a time.

  She finishes her vape and she is about to get up when she sees a glow in the distance. It’s like a ship entering the atmosphere… if the ship were the size of a rge town.

  She sheds a tear. They’ve finally come. Stars, they’ve finally come.

  At least she’ll be sleeping good tonight. The chances that she has a job by the time the sun rises just diminished significantly.

  ? ? ?

  The next day, she awakens te for work, but no call ever came to scold her or threaten her with the loss of her job.

  She rubs her eyes as she gets out of bed and steps over a discarded work uniform from a few nights ago. She heads to the kitchen, or what passes for it in this glorified sardine can of an apartment. It’s the equivalent of a hot pte and a minifridge, neither of which see use, plus a couple of small cabinets for storage of both food and cookware.

  The total sum amount of food in her apartment consists of one (1) solitary unfvored synthcube. “Fuck,” she says. That’ll just barely get her through the first part of her day. She’ll have to risk a trip to the city center and hope that something is still open – or that the Affini have started giving out food somewhere that she can get to. She pulls out a fresh cartridge for her vape and rummages through the drawers underneath her bed for something clean and preferably not utterly degendering like her work uniform.

  She’ll have to settle for one as she pulls out a pink skirt with white stripes that looks clean but isn’t really. She complements that with a white shirt with what look like random purple paintbrush strokes that is ill-fitting and old… but at least it’s clean. She sighs softly as she passes a mirror. She looks like crap.

  She grabs her phone and her purse and leaves the apartment, locking up behind her… not like there’s anything worth stealing there, but with her luck, her ndlord would bme her for a break-in.

  As she leaves the building, an image pops into her mind of her ndlord modeling a floret dress for a particurly depraved Affini. She ughs softly. It’d serve the bastard right.

  The city is surprisingly quiet today. It takes her an hour on foot to reach her workpce… which is predictably closed. Well, there goes that idea.

  Her stomach starts to growl. She considers going deeper into the city, near where the Affini ship is at, but she decides against it. In her current condition, one of them might decide to domesticate her on the spot. She’s seen some of the Accord propaganda, of course, everyone has. So even though she’s receptive to what the Affini offer, she’s also somewhat worried. In war, no side tells the whole truth.

  As she walks back toward her apartment, she spots an Affini at a distance. ...Shit, they’re scary, she thinks as she gives the rge alien pnt a wide berth to do whatever it is that they’re doing.

  She gets home after a while. She still needs to eat, so she takes the synthcube with her as she heads to the roof. As she gets to her spot, she sits and starts to chew at the fvorless source of sustenance.

  It takes her about five minutes to get through the synthcube – she’s starving, but it’s just that unappetizing – and another couple of minutes are spent vaping. At this point she’s mildly dependent on the stimunts in the vape to keep herself going through the day, even during a non-workday like this one. She sighs softly after a while and gets up, letting herself back into the building as she takes the stairs back down to the third floor where her apartment is.

  As she exits the stairwell and turns down the hallway to head to her apartment, she sees a mass of vines and other assorted pnt matter between her and her door. It doesn’t look anything even resembling human at first, but eventually it starts gathering together into a shape of some kind, eventually approaching a bipedal humanoid shape – albeit a tall one, hunching over as it approaches the four-meter mark.

  “Ah, cutie,” a feminine voice says, emanating from the mass of vegetation, along with the sound of her door shutting. “Would you happen to be Alithea Stone?”

  Alithea faints.

  ? ? ?

  Alithea wakes up in a small bed in an expansive room, hooked to what look like medical devices.

  No, no, no, there’s no way she can afford this! She tries to get up, but she’s stopped by a vine.

  “Easy there, cutie, you’re okay, you’re safe…” the same feminine voice from earlier says. She steps into Alithea’s field of view. She’s in a much more humanoid-appearing shape now, looking as though she is mostly made up of pnts from the swamps the colonists here called home in ancient times. Dried moss delicately hangs from her limbs. “I was trying to check on you earlier at your hab and you fainted and hit your head. I brought you to our scout ship to make sure there was no sting damage.”

  “...So I won’t owe anything for this?” Alithea asks. She wants to panic… like she really wants to panic, but she can’t. “Why am I so calm?”

  “Those would be the Css-Es, petal,” the Affini says. “We gave you a very small dose of them as a precaution since your history suggests you’re very prone to anxiety attacks.”

  “My history?” Alithea asks.

  The Affini nods. “Yes. We’ve been checking up on all of you cuties since we nded and started transitioning the colony to our way of doing things.”

  It makes sense. New Lafayette is a smaller colony, with only about 30,000 people on it, mostly descendants of those dispced from what used to be the Acadiana region of southern Louisiana before climate change devastated that entire area, long before the Accord was formed. But wait… “...You said this was a scout ship?” Alithea asks.

  “Yes. It’s one of the smaller ships in our fleet,” the Affini says. “I’ve been rude. I know so much about you, but you don’t even know my name. Aletris Daphne, Seventh Bloom, she/her.”

  “...Alithea Stone, she/they… it,” Alithea says softly.

  “I see…” Aletris doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but in her admittedly limited experience with Terrans, most that she has run into that use it/its pronouns see themselves as… less than living beings somehow. It’s not a hard and fast rule, just a point of concern for her, especially with Alithea’s hesitation to reveal her third pronoun. “That’s a unique name, petal,” the Affini continues.

  “I… ah… picked it myself,” Alithea responds.

  “Ah, so our little patient is awake?” another Affini asks as they enter the room. Where Aletris is at least attempting to appear as something somewhat retable to a Terran, this new Affini looks like they have nothing in common with the other, save for being a pnt being. Her body is more reminiscent of evergreen trees, and her shape is loosely based on that of a centaur with four “lower” limbs and two arms, and some draconic features in her face and her cwed hands. “Laelia Elstar, Thirteenth Bloom, she/her. I’m one of the xenoveterinarians aboard the Magnolia Star. You… you, young dy, have been neglecting your basic medical care for a long time, haven’t you?”

  “I… hey, I’m not that young,” Alithea protests, though in a way that makes Aletris believe there’s an “I wish I was, though,” omitted from that statement. “I just… I haven’t been able to afford it. Everything’s been going toward rent.”

  “That’s sadly a very common refrain from people on this world, if not throughout the entirety of the former Accord worlds.” Aletris says, softly, almost sadly. “The Terrans formerly in power here seemed to be obsessed with milking every bit of material wealth from you all that none of you had anything left to go past mere survival.”

  “That sounds like the bastards,” Alithea says. “Please tell me you got here before they could escape.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that,” Laelia says with… something approximating a smile. It’s really hard to tell with her.

  “The expedition leader already has three new florets who are slowly getting used to their new lives,” Aletris says with a smirk. “Sorry, Miss Elstar, I figured it might help with our petal’s morale. She needs all of the morale boosting she can get right now.”

  “I want pictures,” Alithea says with a slight ugh. “Sorry. Normally I wouldn’t wish harm on a fly, but I want to see the architects of this joke of a society get everything that’s coming to them.”

  “Let’s worry more about you at the moment, Miss Stone,” Laelia says. “While you were under, we did a full check on your physical condition. We managed to wean you off of the crude stimunts and other addictive additives that have been in your vape pens, and you should be able to function at closer to a normal level. We also got rid of several malignant microtumors in your lungs.”

  “…You did all that in a couple of hours?” Alithea asks.

  “Petal, you’ve been unconscious for four of your days,” Aletris says.

  “Huh…” Alithea says.

  “You’re also in terrible condition from a nourishment standpoint,” Laelia adds. “How long have you been getting by on one synthcube per day?”

  “…Too long,” Alithea says softly.

  “You’ve also been neglecting your psychiatric medicines, your hormone treatments, your pain medication…” Laelia continues.

  “…I get it, I’ve had a lot of problems keeping up with me,” Alithea says, looking down at her hands. “I’ve just been trying to keep myself going long enough to see this day.”

  “Is she in stable enough condition for me to take to my hab?” Aletris asks the vet.

  “I just have a couple more questions,” Laelia says. “I won’t keep you two longer than I have to.”

  Alithea leans back and sighs deeply. “Okay…” she says.

  “First off, cutie, if you had to describe your current pain level from 1-10, with 1 being a minor ouchie and 10 being extreme pain, where would you say your pain is at right now?” Laelia asks.

  “My baseline is a 3, so probably a 5,” Alithea says.

  Laelia looks a little disappointed at that answer. “That’s sad,” she says. “A healthy Terran shouldn’t have a baseline pain level. Have you ever known what it is like to have no pain?”

  Alithea shakes her head. “Even when I’m on painkillers, the best they do is to dull it, not eliminate it.”

  “Poor thing, Terran medications are so inadequate to the task sometimes,” Aletris says.

  “They really are,” Laelia says. “One other question. How long have you been on your hormone repcement regimen?”

  “22 years,” Alithea says. “Though… it didn’t get me as far as I’d hoped. I’m still extremely dysphoric.” A look at her face alone would give the impression that she passes, but her body shape is very masculine and sadly gets her clocked every time.

  “You didn’t give her a Css-D, did you?” Aletris asks.

  “No,” Laelia responds.

  “I just don’t see a point in lying,” Alithea says. “Why would I deceive my st hope? I’ve heard the messages being transmitted into the system. You’re here to save us.”

  “Well, I can put together a dietary pn to help your body get back to healthy levels of certain necessary nutrients and get you on a regimen of proper Css-Gs to get you closer to where you were hoping to be in your transition,” Laelia says to Alithea. “We can also discuss ways to reduce your pain level, be that via xenodrugs or body modifications.” She turns to Aletris. “You can take her to your hab whenever you’re ready,” she adds.

  “I…” Alithea starts to say. “I can walk...”

  “Are you sure, petal? My hab is quite a walk from here,” Aletris says.

  Alithea tries to take in the sheer scale of all of this. “...This is a scout ship.”

  “Yes,” Aletris says. “It’s two and a half of your kilometers long by one kilometer wide.”

  “You have a hab on a scout ship,” Alithea says, still trying to process it all.

  “It’s small, but yes,” Aletris says. “Don’t worry, there’s room for extra sophonts.”

  Alithea is inwardly both relieved and disappointed. On the one hand, Aletris doesn’t appear to be the type to see a sophont and have her immediate first thought be to domesticate it. But a tiny part of her was almost hoping for it. She’s so tired, and this particur Affini seems nice. She was worried about being domesticated on sight, but with Aletris… she wouldn’t mind it so much, she thinks. “...Fine, you win, you can carry me…” she says as she gives the universal sign for ‘uppies.’

  Aletris has no trouble picking Alithea up and cradling her like an infant. “Will this do?” she asks.

  “It’s fine, Miss Daphne,” Alithea says, before deciding to take a quick little nap.

  Aletris holds Alithea carefully as she starts to make the trek to her hab. She thinks a bit about how the Terran girl’s been acting. She’s being deferential and polite, a far cry from a lot of Terrans, even some in simir situations. Though, she reminds herself, few have lived through what the girl in her arms has, and even fewer have the mental fortitude to not only have survived it, but to have clung to the barest shreds of functionality as she did. Most who have endured what she has would be so damaged and broken that they’d have to be put on Css-Os.

  ? ? ?

  Alithea awakens to the smell of food. It’s an aroma she hasn’t smelled in the longest time, possibly since childhood. She’s in a rge room, though with many of the amenities scaled down to Terran size. It’s decorated mostly in soft pastels, and the décor is more fitting for someone less than a quarter of her age – or acting the part.

  She turns to sit up and immediately feels a sharp pain in her back. She yelps.

  “Petal, are you okay?” Aletris asks as she practically runs into the spare room, pushing what looks like an old wheelchair, but made of wood and other pnt tech. “I heard you yell…”

  “I just twisted too fast when I was sitting up, Miss Daphne,” Alithea says. “Part of getting old…”

  Aletris ughs. “You’re not that old,” she says. “By Terran standards, you’re barely even middle-aged. Compared to me, well… I’m over 1,600 in Terran years.”

  “Stars, no way…” Alithea says. “You don’t look a day over a millennium,” she says with a weak ugh.

  “And Terrans call us flirty!” Aletris says, smiling. “Come on. I made you something a bit more substantial than a synthcube for dinner, and after that we have a bit more to talk about.”

  “That’s why you brought the chair?” Alithea asks, looking at it.

  “Yes, petal, I don’t want you pushing yourself too hard,” Aletris says.

  Alithea nods and wordlessly gives the uppies sign again so she can be pced into the chair, which she is. She honestly wouldn’t object to being carried again, though. “Is this a power chair?”

  “Indeed, petal,” Aletris says as she opens the doorway into the main area.

  Alithea rolls along in the power chair. Despite the rustic appearance, it’s more advanced than any simir Terran tech, and capable of adapting to many differing surface conditions. She’d never need to walk again if she didn’t want to at this rate.

  As she reaches the main room, the aroma becomes even stronger. “What is that?”

  “It’s something I found on the pnetary internet when we nded, from one of the culinary databases, though I understand such a thing has been priced out of your range since childhood,” Aletris says as she grabs something from the table and lowers it down into Alithea’s reach. “The records called it a ‘roast beef po’boy.’

  What is given to her is a pte with a sandwich on it, about 15 centimeters in length. Sliced, slow-cooked roast beef soaked in gravy sits nestled in part of a loaf of French bread, dressed liberally with mayonnaise, shredded lettuce, Creole tomatoes, and sweet pickles. It looks like there’s no way to eat it without making a mess. “...How?” she asks. “How’d you…” She sniffs at the food. It smells authentic. “You… was this compiled?”

  “The raw ingredients were. I slow-cooked the roast beef in gravy just like the old recipes call for,” Aletris says. “Hang on to that, petal,” she says as she lifts Alithea out of her power chair and into one of the higher seats at the table.

  “I almost don’t want to eat it, it’s like a work of art,” Alithea says as tears start to fall from her eyes and run down her cheeks. She finally folds the po’boy closed and takes a bite. She ends up wearing a lot of the gravy. “Stars, it tastes like the ones my mom used to get me when I was small…”

  “I looked through your history, as I said earlier,” Alestria says. “You were born on this colony in 2513, several years before it got taken over by the corporations belonging to the former owners of this pnet, and the standard of living went to dirt. You were an exceptional student not just by Terran standards, but for any species of sophont we’ve encountered up until now. What happened?”

  Alithea looks up from her sandwich. “I never stood a chance once the new bosses took over the colony,” she says. “I was also born neurodivergent, poor, and trans. I could have been the child of well-to-do genius nepo babies, and any one of those three factors would have still destroyed any chance I had at a decent life. All three, though? Honestly? With all I had to do to survive just one more day, over and over again, I don’t know how I’m still alive.”

  Aletris picks up a tablet and taps it a few times. “You definitely tried everything you could before you finally gave in to getting a soul-crushing day job.”

  “Yeah…” Alithea says softly as she sets down the sandwich. It’s good, probably the best thing she’s eaten in twenty years, but her stomach just can’t handle anymore. “I tried leveraging my creative talent as an artist and a writer, but it doesn’t help when some megacorporation out there owns nearly every idea a Terran could conceivably come up with. I sold my body, even though… I’ll be honest here, I mostly disassociated through that part of my life with the help of drugs. I have no interest in that sort of thing, which honestly scares me if I were to be domesticated…”

  “Oh?” Aletris asks.

  “I’ve seen bits and pieces of floret life on the transmissions that would get out here,” Alithea says. “Being blissed out of one’s mind, the cuddle piles, which by themselves are okay… until some floret decides to turn it into a sex party… I had enough of that with the sex work.”

  “Well, I’ll be honest with you,” Aletris says. “If you were to pursue life as an independent in the Compact, you’d actually have a fairly good shot at it. A lot of the things that some would hold against you are easily expined by your history and your disabilities. It’s hard to take care of yourself when you’re not given the means or the help needed to be able to do so. But even if you did decide on domestication, or if by some tragedy it were forced upon you, you wouldn’t be forced into that kind of situation if you truly couldn’t handle it. There are a lot of Affini/floret, and even floret/floret retionships out there that aren’t sexual at all.”

  Alithea crosses her arms as if hugging herself. “I don’t know if I want to be independent. I’ve lived alone my entire adult life and… I’m tired, Miss Daphne. I can’t keep going like this. I don’t know how I hadn’t decided one of those days while I was vaping to just take that extra step off the edge…”

  A couple of vines reach over and wrap Alithea in a comforting embrace. “We all just want what’s best for you, whatever that is. All you have to do is tell us what you need.”

  “I…” Alithea hugs herself tighter. “I’m scared to…”

  Aletris looks on with some concern. The poor girl is breaking, but… not in the way potential florets tend to break. Despite everything, it appears Alithea is almost willing to be domesticated, when her entire profile seems to indicate she would fight tooth and nail to be independent, even more so than many feralists. She’s missing something, something the girl is scared even to admit to herself. She holds up another vine, tipped with a flower. “Petal? It sounds like there’s something you need to let out before it causes you any more hurt. This flower here has a dose of a Css-D in it. It will prevent you from holding back what you really want to say and are unwilling to admit to yourself. Do you think you can handle that?”

  Alithea looks at Aletris with almost pleading eyes. Something wants to see the light of day, something she’s had to hold back her entire life in order to keep her safe in a cruel world. She nods in a very small manner. “D-do it…”

  The flower opens and releases a pollen into Alithea’s face, which she inhales deeply. There’s absolutely no turning back from any of this now.

  “Okay,” Aletris says. “How do you feel, petal?”

  “M’okay…” Alithea says softly. Her entire demeanor and personality have shifted as if she’s started to regress. Css-Ds aren’t supposed to do that… unless…

  …Unless she was masking. Unless she was lying to herself so thoroughly that she constructed her entire outward facing being around that lie.

  “Can you tell me what you need now?” Aletris asks, a little bit concerned at the effect the Css-D is having.

  “...I don’t wanna be growed up anymore,” Alithea says, in a much smaller voice. “I like what I am, except for the adulting part…”

  Aletris looks a little bit surprised at this. “How long have you felt like this?”

  “As long as I been an adult,” Alithea says softly. She can’t stop herself from revealing the truth, but she can’t stop herself from feeling ashamed of it either. “Adult me is a disaster that can barely keep going anymores…”

  “Little you was so full of promise…” Aletris observes.

  “Uh-huhs,” Alithea says. “But also overloaded with pressures. I hadda grow up too fast cuz I was so smart an’ cuz my folks weren’t the best. Daddy was in an’ outta Accord prisons, an’ Mommy was too disabled to prop… pro… take care’a me right so I hadda keep up with a lotta stuffs.”

  “It sounds like you were parentified at a very young age,” Aletris points out. While this is happening, Aletris is on her tablet, on the shipboard intranet, typing “HELP HELP HELP” in Affini to Laelia.

  “What did you do?!” Laelia sends back.

  “Just come here ASAP,” Aletris replies.

  “I guess I was…” Alithea says, hiding behind her hands. She’s embarrassed beyond belief. “...I couldn’t ever show this part’a myself… ‘specially as a little girl...”

  Aletris’s vines reach over and carefully hug Alithea. “Poor thing… as rough as this world is, I completely understand…”

  Overwhelmed by being forced to reveal her true nature by the Css-D, Alithea sobs into Aletris’s vines. This continues for several moments until Laelia makes her way to the hab.

  “What’s wrong?” Laelia asks as the hab lets her in.

  Alithea sniffles as she’s still being hugged. “Miss Daphne gived me a Css-D an’ then I couldn’t adult no mores…”

  “Are you sure it was a Css-D and not something like a Css-Y?” Laelia asks.

  “I’m sure, I’ve used this formution plenty of times before, and this has never happened,” Aletris says, worried.

  “I’m not a therapist,” Laelia says. “But if a Css-D did this, then it means that this is her true self. It means it would be cruel to force her back into the persona she was hiding everything behind. And if she’s a little one…”

  “That’s just it,” Aletris says. “She’s not like typical little ones. She’s intelligent and extremely creative, and she’s able to advocate clearly for her needs. She said she doesn’t want to be independent, but she probably could be even like…”

  Alithea clings to Aletris’s vines even tighter and sobs louder. “Dun wanna be ‘pendent…”

  Laelia gives a meaningful gnce at Aletris. “I think you have your answer there. She seems pretty attached to you already.”

  Alithea looks up and smiles at Aletris. “There’s an’ old Terran saying… you broked it, you buyed it…”

  “I guess you have me there…” Aletris says as she gets up. She picks Alithea up and carries her back to bed. “Would you like a little Css-Z to help you take a nap while I work on a domestication contract?”

  “You’re not gonna make me act like all those other littles, are you?” Alithea asks.

  “Cross my core and hope to rebloom,” Aletris says as she raises another flower-tipped vine to Alithea’s face. “I’m going to make sure you’re treated every bit like the specialest little one that you are.”

  ? ? ?

  Alithea awakens the next morning, curled up with a rge plushie Affini that’s nearly as big as she is. She’s been dressed in a companion dress, though one with a far less mature style to it. It’d be obvious to anyone that she’s a little floret. The Css-D has worn off, but she remembers everything that she said under its influence. She yawns loudly. She rolls to the edge of the bed. Her chair is waiting down on the floor, but she’s way too high up to get to it. “Hab?”

  “Yes, little cutie?” the Hab AI responds.

  “I… I realize this is a stretch, but… can the bed be lowered so I can get to my chair?” Alithea asks, quietly.

  “Unfortunately, the bed doesn’t have those functions built in, but I can call Miss Daphne to help you if you’d like that,” the Hab AI replies.

  “Yeah… please,” Alithea says, holding the plush tightly. She isn’t sure when it was given to her, but she’s appreciative of it all the same. As she waits, she thinks to herself. Did I really tell her all of that stuff? I mean… it was the truth, but… was I ready for it? Am I really ready to let go for good? Miss Daphne said I won’t ever want for anything again… I want to believe her, but I’ve been hurt so many times before.

  Aletris walks into the room a couple of moments ter, and she sees Alithea cuddling her plushie tightly but lost in thought. “Are you okay, little one? The Hab said you needed my help with something.”

  Alithea nods. “I wanna get down to my chair so I can get breakfast…” It’s hard for her to completely let go of the mask and just be her natural little self without the Css-D, but she’s trying. She gives the ‘uppies’ sign.

  Aletris picks Alithea up and puts her into her chair. “I’ll fix breakfast for you, petal,” she says as she leads the way back into the main room. “Besides, I have something for you to look over. It’s important that you know what you’re getting into here…”

  “Oh?” Alithea asks as she makes her way over to the dining table. As she gets there, Aletris lifts her up and puts her back into the tall chair. Sitting on the table in front of her is a contract.

  Above all else, you, Alithea, must obey your Guardian, Aletris Daphne, Seventh Bloom in all things. This is for your safety, well-being, and care. ?

  Your Guardian, Aletris Daphne, Seventh Bloom owns you. You are her property. You do not have political rights in the Affini Compact. ?

  You do have a guarantee of your wellbeing, as defined in Section 57 of the Human Domestication Treaty. ?

  This guarantee of wellbeing does not preclude your Guardian from disciplining you, as outlined in Section 61 of the Human Domestication Treaty. ?

  As the property of your Guardian, she may add, remove, or modify conditions of your wardship at any time for any reason within the limits established by the Human Domestication Treaty. ?

  Your full name is Alithea Daphne, First Floret from this moment forward. ?

  Below this line are additional terms that your Guardian, Aletris Daphne, Seventh Bloom, has stiputed. ?

  You will refer to your Guardian, Aletris Daphne, Seventh Bloom as “Mommy.” ?

  You will not hide your little side from your Mommy, or from anyone else in the future. Additionally, you will not force yourself to take on adult responsibilities or tasks that you are physically or mentally unable to handle. ?

  Your Mommy stiputes that she will not force you to undergo any xenodrug regimen or hypnotic procedure that will take away your intelligence or creativity, though she may still administer these procedures for other reasons reted to your well-being. ?

  You acknowledge that you are very special and, yes, very worth all the love and appreciation your Mommy and others will show to you. ?

  Sign here to acknowledge your understanding and acceptance of these terms.

  “You’re…” Alithea starts to cry again. “You’re gonna take me?”

  Aletris sets down a pte of fried pastries covered in powdered sugar in front of Alithea. “I am, little one. I can’t possibly see leaving you to another, especially with the needs you have. Quite frankly, I don’t want a typical floret, it’s why I haven’t taken one yet. I don’t just want a pet, though make no mistake, that is what you’re going to be. I want someone with me who can engage with me at the same time as I’m taking care of them. I want someone who is devoted enough that she would trust in everything I say, but intelligent enough to question it anyway. You are special and unique, and to leave you to try to navigate the Compact alone would be doing a disservice to us both. Do you understand, little one?”

  Alithea nods slowly as she looks for something to sign the contract with. “I understand… I understand, Mommy.” She sees no pen, pencil, or even a crayon, so she does what a little would do, dipping her index finger into the syrup and signing the contract with that, while giggling softly. She’s finally free. She may be owned, but she’s free.

  Aletris ughs a little bit at that. “Well, that’s one way to do it, little one. It’s perfectly valid that way, don’t worry,” she says as she kisses little Alithea on the forehead. “Now, we just need to figure out what type of xenodruggies would work best to bring out the best you. Would you like that?”

  Alithea giggles. She’s never been the type to pass up a drug if it’ll help her feel good. “Yeah,” she says. She’s not completely in littlespace without the Css-D, but she’s trying. “Um… Mommy?”

  “Yes, petal?” Aletris replies.

  “Can… um… can the bed in my room be made to where it can lower so I can get into my chair easier?” Alithea asks.

  “Sweetie, once we get you impnted, you won’t need the chair anymore, and I don’t mind helping you in and out of it and the bed,” Aletris says. “But you’re a good little girl for asking.”

  “Impnt?” Alithea asks. “Wuzzat?”

  “A haustoric impnt,” Aletris says. “See, it’ll have a little piece of Mommy inside of it, and we’ll put it in right about here…” she adds, raising a vine to the back of Alithea’s neck. “…Then it’ll grow around and into your nervous and endocrine systems and it’ll allow me greater control over your treatment regimen. It’ll also allow for more extensive modifications to your body, if you want them…”

  “Oh, okay,” Alithea says. A lot of florets, even those who volunteer, tend to be a little nervous about the impnt, but she seems to be taking it in stride. “I trust you,” she says. “I wanna trust you.”

  If Affini could blush like humans, Aletris would be as red as a stoplight.

  Alithea finishes her little powdered sugar pastries. She gives the uppies sign again.

  “Oh, did you want to go somewhere, little one?” Aletris asks.

  Alithea shakes her head. “Nah, I just wanna be held.”

  Aletris smiles and picks Alithea up, cuddling her like the smaller girl would cuddle a plush. “Is there anything you wanna do?”

  “Um… could we watch tv?” Alithea asks.

  ? ? ?

  Alithea sits on Aletris’s p as the two watch something from the old pre-Accord archives. It’s so old, there isn’t a floret cut yet, which means they’re watching it completely uncensored. “Yeah!” Alithea cries as one of the colorfully dressed men hits the other in the head, or so it appears, anyway, with a steel chair.

  “Petal, isn’t this a little too violent for a little one like you?” Aletris asks. “...Or any human, honestly?”

  “Nuh-uh, see, it’s all choreo… chori… it’s like dancing, only with punches and kicks and chairs! They’re actually tryin’ not to hurt each other, but to make it look like theys are,” Alithea expins. “They’re usin’ the illusion of violence to tell a story.”

  “Interesting…” Aletris says. She can already tell Alithea is going to be nothing like the manuals on little sprouts suggests. Most little ones couldn’t handle this level of violence, even if it’s carefully staged to look worse than it actually is. She’s a complex mix of mature and intelligent enough to realize it’s not real, yet little enough to still get excited at the wonder of the illusion the wrestlers were putting forth. “It’s too bad that something like this would be disallowed nowadays, or heavily censored.”

  “Yeahs…” Alithea says. “Even back when this was made, too many people took it way too serious. They didn’t realize it was a show.” She sniffles a little. “All a show…”

  Aletris looks at Alithea, curiously. “Are we still talking about the wrestling program, or are we talking about something else?”

  Alithea looks down. “I still can’t believe you actually wanted me enough to take me on as a floret.” She’s starting to get depressed, and as she does, she’s falling out of littlespace.

  “Petal, I haven’t had a single floret in my 1,600 years before you,” Aletris says. “I’ve been waiting for the most special one. That’s you.” She boops Alithea’s nose with the tip of a vine. “So, you don’t need to worry about that. It’s done, and it can’t be undone. You’re with me forever. The moment you signed that contract with your little syrupy finger, that was that. It was done.” She picks Alithea up and walks over to one of the compilers.

  “What’re we doing?” Alithea asks.

  “You’re going to just rex in my vines and keep being the cutest little sprout,” Aletris says as she pulls up yet another vine and starts typing into the compiler’s physical interface. “I’m compiling you some xenodrugs to help get rid of those nasty, depressing thoughts that keep knocking you out of littlespace.”

  “You’re not gonna just gimme another Css-D?” Alithea asks.

  “No, petal, those are for getting a sophont to tell the truth, but you’re doing that for me already, aren’t you?” Aletris says as she pulls three microinjector syringes from the compiler and sets them down nearby where Alithea can see them. “See, this one is the Css-G that Miss Elstar put together for you. It’ll work way better on you than those Terran hormone treatments, even with as long as you’ve been taking them. Once we get your little impnt in you and do the surgeries I know you’ve been wanting, then we can fine tune it even further to cause other changes you might want.”

  “Can it make me smaller?” Alithea asks, turning a little red. Her body has a fairly rge build to it from the male puberty she didn’t manage to block, especially in the upper body. “Cuz I wouldn’t mind having a little smaller of a build.”

  “Of course, sweetie,” Aletris says. She points to the second microinjector. “This one is a Css-Y. It’ll help put you into littlespace and keep you there, even when the mean big thoughts try to make you fall out.”

  “It won’t make me…” Alithea starts to say.

  “I promised in the contract that I wouldn’t take away your smarts or your creativity, didn’t I?” Aletris asks.

  “Yes, Mommy,” Alithea says.

  “You’re still gonna be every bit Mommy’s smart and creative little girl, it’ll just be like everything’s filtered through the perceptions of a little sprout,” Aletris says with a smile. “The st one is a Css-E, like you were on at the vet. It’ll make you less nervous and help you get more used to being able to be little all the time, in conjunction with the Css-Y. It might mess with your coordination a little bit, but honestly, I think it’ll be good for you for a little while.”

  Alithea gulps slightly. “Okay, Mommy, if you think so…” she says.

  Aletris ruffles Alithea’s hair a little bit with a vine. “Now, are you going to be a brave little girl while Mommy gives you your medicines?”

  Alithea nods and takes a deep breath.

  The first drug given is the Css-E, mainly so she won’t be as nervous for the next two shots. “That wasn’t so bad, was it, little one?” Aletris asks.

  “N-no…” Alithea says. It was a little scary, but it barely hurt at all. She can already start to feel it hit her system, as she eases up a little bit.

  “There’s my brave girl,” Aletris says as she injects Alithea with the second one. This one is the Css-G. “There’s your magical girl juice,” she says.

  “Okay…” Alithea says softly. That just leaves the Css-Y. One little shot to give her everything she’s wanted for decades.

  Aletris gives Alithea the final shot.

  This one hits in a more immediate fashion. She notices it, as it gets harder for her to resist the pull of littlespace. She can actually feel her thought process shift. It’s so much harder to worry about the adult stuff in her life. It’s much easier to let Mommy handle it, isn’t it? She feels even more rexed. Her coordination starts to diminish slightly, not to the levels of most littles who are helped there with xenodrugs, but to a comfortable level of an average elementary school-aged human. She can still feed herself and do certain other tasks, but not with the precision and skill of an adult who has had decades to practice. “Whoas…” she says, giggling a little. Mommy was right. It’s like she pulled a lens over her senses that’s allowing her to perceive everything like a little kid would. The world is filtered, much less harsh, more full of wonder. “Dis is a weird feelin’…” Her words are still there if she needs them, though like everything else, they’re working through that little filter. She leans over and curls up against Aletris – against her Mommy, and she feels a safety she’s never felt in her life before meeting the motherly Affini.

  Aletris wraps her little sprout up in her vines and pets her gently. “You’re safe now… it’s okay, just let the big go, you don’t need it anymore. You made it. Mommy’s here.”

  ? ? ?

  A few days pass as Alithea gets used to her new pce in life as Aletris’s floret and little girl. Aletris is carrying her as the two are making their way to a park after stopping in at the vet for a core sample to be taken for the little sprout’s impnt. She’s half asleep at the moment, simply content to be curled up and for Mommy to handle all the big decisions that were awaiting her.

  “Wake up, my little one, we’re here,” Aletris says, gently poking at her little one with a vine.

  “Huhs?” Alithea asks as her eyes fully flutter open. “I thought we was goin’ back to the hab.”

  “Not right now, little one, you need to spend some time outside of the hab so I decided to bring you to the park,” Aletris says. “Don’t worry, I’m not expecting you to push yourself too hard trying to be too physically active.” She sets Alithea down, then pulls a Terran-sized sketchbook and a box of oil pastels out of a bag and lowers them to her little girl.

  Alithea ys on the ground on her belly as she starts looking around for things to draw. Her left hand is a little shaky as she grabs one of the pastels. It’s almost like a crayon, but more artsy. She settles on a very alien tree and starts to color. Life is everything she had ever hoped it’d be. She’s well taken care of, she no longer wants for anything, she doesn’t have to make any more decisions about anything, and she doesn’t have to push herself and make herself hurt anymore.

  But even though she has her Mommy now, she still feels a little bit empty. Something is still missing. She sighs softly.

  That doesn’t escape Aletris’s notice. “What is it, petal?” she asks, leaning down and looking at the start of the drawing.

  “I feel alone, Mommy,” Alithea says softly. “I mean… I know I have you, but… I need… I growed up an only child,” she expins. “I had no one… I never had no one…”

  Aletris feels torn at this. Honestly, she hadn’t even wanted one floret before she had met Alithea. How was she going to catch lightning in a bottle twice? “I’ll figure something out to help you,” she says. “It may take some time to find you a connivent, though. Remember that I only cimed you because you’re so special. The park is usually full of little ones, maybe one of them will happen over and want to py with you, okay?”

  “Ok…” Alithea says as she goes back to coloring. She works for a while until a ball comes into her field of vision. “Huhs?”

  Two young human women dressed like little girls run up a moment ter. One is dressed as if she were about eight years of age, while the other is dressed more like a toddler. “Um… Miss Lady, cans we have our ball back?” the one dressed like a toddler asks. She sounds like she’s in the headspace of a preschooler, roughly.

  “Yeah, we’re sowwies we inter… distu… bothered you,” the other says, seeming to be having trouble with her words, as if she recently went on a Css-Y, or maybe a Css-W. Despite that, she seems a little more mature than the other little.

  “Oh, yeahs, you can have your ball,” Alithea says, getting up and tapping the ball over with her foot. As she does, her drawing becomes visible to the other two littles.

  “Whoa!!!” the first other little says. “That’s coolies! Sis! Sis, you see it?!”

  “Uh-huhs!” the other says. “I didn’t know you could do that with cwayons!”

  “It’s…” Alithea is about to protest that they’re pastels, not crayons, but protesting about something like that would be the adult way to react, and she can’t. “Thanks…” She’s not used to being complemented.

  “How long it tooked you to draw?” the younger acting little asks.

  “I… I dunno, I lost track of time…” Alithea says softly. “Mommy?”

  “Yes, little sprout?” Aletris replies.

  “How long have I been drawing?” Alithea calls back.

  “About thirty minutes,” the Affini replies.

  “That’s your Mommy?” the older-acting little asks. “She’s pwetty… it is ‘she,’ right?”

  “It is, little one, you’re quite considerate for asking,” Aletris says as she walks over. “Might I ask the name of such considerate sophonts?”

  “Bryony Hebert, she/her,” says the older-acting of the two new littles. She points to the younger-acting one. “This’s my lil sis an’ pinnate, Senna Lavandin, she/it. I’m a independent, but Senna’s a flort cuz she can’t take care’a herself. Her ‘finni’s rebloomin’ so’s I’m takin’ care’a her.”

  “Down with bedtimes!” Senna shouts, before giggling uncontrolbly. “Up with plushies and choccy milk!”

  “I see… see, petal, I told you that a little could be independent,” Aletris says in a teasing tone to Alithea. “I’m Aletris Daphne, Seventh Bloom, she/her, and this is my floret, Alithea, she/her/it,” she says to the two other littles.

  “That’s a pwetty name…” Senna says to Alithea. “I never sawed you round, are you new here?”

  “I’m kinda new to everything,” Alithea says softly. “I’ve only been little for a little while…”

  “You just gotta not overthink it,” Bryony says. “It can be really fun if you let go an’ just let yourself be.”

  “You wanna py kick the ball with us?” Senna asks.

  “I can’t…” Alithea says. “I get in lotsa pain when I try walkies… Mommy has to carry me everywheres or I gotta use my chair.”

  “That’s sad,” Senna says.

  “Yeah, the meanies who runned my old home world tried to work me into the ground and I’m all hurty cuz of it,” Alithea says. “But now Mommy’s here so hopefully I’ll get better soon.”

  “Mommies make everything better,” Senna says, nodding in a sagely manner. “‘Cept when they give you bedtimes or punishments.”

  “That’s not entirely true, little one,” Aletris says with a ugh. “The bedtimes and punishments are often for your own good, so in a sense, it’s making you better.”

  “Semantics!” Senna cries.

  “That’s an awfully big word, lil sis…” Bryony teases.

  “I’s allowed!” Senna protests right back.

  “It was nice to meet you both,” Aletris says as she notices Alithea is starting to get a little overwhelmed. “Perhaps we might see you two ter on?”

  “Is she gonna be at daycare, Miss?” Senna asks.

  “Yeah, we both go to the daycare here, we might see you then,” Bryony says with a nod.

  “That’s a good idea, actually,” Aletris says as she looks down at her floret. “It’d give you a chance to socialize with others like you.”

  “I dunno…” Alithea says, curling up to try to get smaller. “If it’s anythin’ like school, it sounds scary…”

  “Oh, it’s nuffin like those mean old Terran schools,” Bryony says. “It’s nice and safe and comfy and fun!”

  “Yeahs, those old Terran schools was nothin’ more than indoc… um… indoctri…” Senna tries to say, but she can’t figure out the words.

  “Indoctrination centers?” Aletris offers.

  “Yeah, those!” Senna excims.

  “I guess I could try it…” Alithea says.

  “She’ll be there once she gets her impnt,” Aletris says, smiling. “It’ll be good for her.”

  ? ? ?

  Approximately a week passes, during which Alithea starts to become acquainted with some of the other little sprouts aboard the scout ship. They’re an eclectic mix, and the old saying holds true – once you’ve met one floret, you’ve met one floret. It holds especially true for little sprouts. They range in little age from infancy to middle school age, all with completely different tastes when it comes to all things.

  Today she’s being carried to the vet. The big day is here for her to get her Mommy’s impnt put into her body and additionally get some other body modifcations to help ease her dysphoria and make it easier for her to stay in littlespace. For a creative soul like her, she’s decided to keep things fairly basic otherwise – though she is getting her body edited additionally so that the hair on her head and her eyebrows grow in a vibrant copper color, and her eyes changed in color to gold, like some of the old attempts at androids in human history and old media depicting them. She’s also getting two small bck protrusions on her head, near her temples, which almost look like fttened antennas. They won’t do anything but look cool at first, but possibly, she could use them in the future with cybernetic body modifications. Her Css-Gs have also started to do some work. Her height has dropped from 1.7 meters to 1.57, and her upper body has started to reshape itself into more feminine proportions.

  Aletris walks into the office, up to the receptionist, a human girl who looks to be in her 20s.

  “Hello, Miss Daphne, here for your little sprout’s impnt surgery?” the girl asks. Her pupils are wide open to the point where the actual color of her eyes can’t be discerned. She may appear composed, but she’s way past blissed out on xenodrugs.

  “Yes, we are, Jess,” Aletris says. She shakes Alithea a little bit. “Wakey wakey, little one, we’re here, and you need to be awake to tell Miss Elstar exactly what you want, okay?”

  “Oki…” Alithea says as she yawns cutely.

  “Isn’t she precious…” the receptionist says. “How far down is she?”

  Aletris smiles as Alithea begins to count on her fingers. It takes both hands, but only barely. “This many!” she says proudly, holding up six fingers fully and a seventh finger bent halfway.

  “You seem smaller than that, are you sure?” the receptionist asks, before looking down at her desk. “Miss Elstar will be out in a couple of minutes; she’s finishing up with another patient.”

  Aletris nods as she goes to sit in one of the Affini-sized chairs, still holding her little sprout carefully. As she pys with Alithea for a little while, whining is heard from the back of the vet’s office.

  Alithea looks up as a very shapely catgirl whines like a small child as she walks out of the back. An Affini follows her, appearing as something that wouldn’t be out of pce on a pne of existence dedicated to horror tropes. “Now, dearie, you got exactly what you wanted,” it says. “Everyone’s going to love you when they see you. Sometimes even more than once!”

  The catgirl attempts to protest, but all that comes out is babylike crying and whining. The girl must be under the influence of a Css-W.

  Alithea giggles almost inaudibly as she looks on.

  Aletris hmms as she looks down at her floret. “What is it, little sprout?”

  Alithea snickers. “That was my ndlord,” she says softly. “Pretty much everyone’s ndlord in the city I used to live in. He was bad. I hope she has a better life.”

  “Oh, I assure you, she will,” the strange, almost eldritch Affini replies, smiling a toothy and very sharp smile at Aletris and Alithea. “She and her new connivents are getting used to their new lives and their new… appetites. It’s amazing what the soul craves once you take away the pursuit of profit.” It looks over at Alithea, who curls up a little tighter, before looking at Aletris. “I see you picked up a floret of your own, finally,” it says. “Who is this cutie, and is there any chance we’ll be seeing her at the monthly Captain’s Table parties?”

  Alithea is a little frightened to respond, so Aletris does so for her. “This is Alithea, my first floret, she/they/it. Unfortunately, she might not be at many of those parties. She has trauma surrounding carnal experiences.” She ruffles her floret’s hair a little bit. “Petal, this is Vorin Laburnum, it/its, the captain of the Magnolia Star.”

  “H-hello Captain…” Alithea replies, still a little bit scared.

  “Such a sweet little thing,” Vorin says. “Don’t worry, small one, you are always safe on my ship. Rest assured that the people that hurt you on your old pnet will never harm another soul as long as they live. They’ll be too busy making them feel good instead.” It pets its catgirl floret as it says this. “Isn’t that right, sweetling?”

  The catgirl just whimpers in reply.

  At that point, Laelia steps out of the back. “Aletris and Alithea, we’re ready for you,” she says.

  ? ? ?

  A little over a month has passed, and Alithea has started at daycare with the other little sprouts on board the Magnolia Star. It is, thankfully, catered more to the younger littles, filled with activities and attentive Affini caretakers and a couple of their more mature florets. That’s not to say there’s nothing for more mature littles like Alithea to do, however. She’s spent a lot of her time reading science books while watching little-safe floret cuts of old cartoons from the early 21st century. She doesn’t have any intention of ever turning any of her learning into a job or anything, she just loves to learn, for learning’s sake. It’s a pleasure that was robbed from her at an early age, now regained.

  As outside time comes, she starts pying a game of kick the ball with Senna and Bryony. Unfortunately, Alithea’s legs were too badly worn out by a lifetime of damage, plus having the misfortune for her joints to be degenerative from the start. Xenodrugs would have lessened the pain, but it would have taken far too long to regenerate and reverse the damage, and she would have had to be on them forever. She decided on prosthetics instead. They look almost like her old legs, but inside, they’re entirely technological. It’s advanced Affini tech, however, so she can feel things with them just like the original ones would.

  Between that and the Css-Gs, she’s now down to a much more comfortable 1.45 meters of height, and while it means that Aletris has to reach for more things for her, it makes her far less dysphoric. She’s also completely female now by every definition that counts to the Compact, and she even engaged in something slightly more intense than a floret cuddlepile at the previous night’s Captain’s Table meetup… if only for a little bit of time.

  Turns out her former ndlord and Vorin’s other two new florets really love to give now. Definitely an improvement over lifetimes spent taking.

  For the first time in Alithea’s life, she’s genuinely happy, she realizes as she runs to get to the ball after Bryony kicks it long. All the pressure is off, and she can just live her life. Her only concern is keeping Aletris engaged and making her happy, a job to which she is uniquely suited.