Work Text:
Rosmira Solanum, 3rd Bloom, was frosting annoyed as she took her seat on the transfer shuttle in New Victoria, Terra. Her little feral she’d been hunting, one Thomas Sanchez, had eluded her for three whole weeks! Three weeks! By the Everbloom, it should have been impossible by this stage of the domestication campaign. Her most recent idea for leads had been to try and interview Thomas’s parents back on Terra, and while the two pinnates were root-rottingly cute little sprouts, they were not much use to her investigation. Rosmira had been pleased to see how far Terra had come though! Green abounded everywhere, even here at the transfer station, and she’d have to send a message to her comrades that had been working so hard restoring Terra’s destroyed biosphere. Now, she just had to get back to her hunt, Thomas shouldn’t be left out there all alone!
She’d just pulled out her tab and started filing updates and reports when she felt a tug on her lower vines. Slightly startled from the insistence of the pull Rosmira lowered her pad to see a terran looking up at her with a frankly surprising amount of resolve. The terran wore no collar and the terran’s clothes had no ultraviolet messages nor were there any hidden messages tattooed anywhere on the ample amounts of visible skin the cutie was showing off. The little one stood there and cleared her throat as if expecting something from her. Rosmira lowered a vine to the little one’s head for some pets as she introduced herself, “Hello there little one! Are you lost? I am Rosmira Solanum, 3rd Bloom, she and her pronouns if you please.” The cutie continued to hold Rosmira’s stare with her own adorable little chocolate eyes but didn’t melt or flinch to Rosmira’s ministrations as the reply came, “Eve Hoenwald, she/her. It’s your lucky day! You’re the only plant without a pet on this shuttle, the seats are too high for me to reach safely, and besides, if I’m going to get what I want I need an affini to hold me.”
A quick search on Rosmira’s tab told her everything she needed to know: Eve Hoenwald, independent, passed wardship 2 months ago, integrating well into Compact society, 32 NOIs on file, has never left Terra. “And what is it you want, little wildflower?” Rosmira crooned as more vines wrapped the little one up to hold her to Rosmira’s facsimile of a feminine terran face. “I want to see what Terra looks like as we take off. I want to see what it looks like now that the Compact has started to heal what my stupid fucking species decided to destroy in the name of capital and growth,” Eve spat, genuine venom dripping off her tongue with every word. Rosmira took a moment to get a sense of the little one’s biorhythm and got back strong waves of anger, resentment, existential pain, and something smaller as well…hope? Fear? Eve’s wardship notes did include this general disillusionment of Accord society as well as the traumas she’d face under it, but the anger was new. “Are you sure you’re up for that Eve? You seem a little agitated.”
Eve took a deep breath, held it for a beat of four, and released it slowly. She then repeated the process twice more, and the little cutie’s biorhythm and micro expressions hinted at greater self-control afterwards. “Once, long ago, before the Accord and space flight became commonplace, there was this group of techno-theists that launched the first space flights into our local region of space. They worshiped ancient gods called Apollo and Artemis and made expeditions to honor those gods. They said that there was something called ‘The Overview Vision’ that their deities rewarded those who first saw Terra as a pale, blue-green dot. This is the first time in centuries I might get the chance to see it as those ancient techno-theists did.” Again, there was the hope interlaced in Eve’s voice as she spoke as well as motifs of genuine reverence. Rosmarina wasn’t sure about the historical fidelity of the cutie’s story, but she wouldn’t complain about having something to hold during the short shuttle ride up. Rosmarina shifted Eve so that she had a perfect view out of the largest window in the shuttle, and continued her reporting as the shuttle’s smooth acceleration signaled their transfer to the Biscutella.
Since the spirited little wildflower was going to so steadfastly ignore Rosmarina’s petting and attempts at flirtation there was no harm in admiring the little thing as the shuttle made its steady climb through the troposphere. The little one certainly had her own style. Curly brown ringlets tumbling adorably over her shoulders, a patched denim jacket over nothing more than a black and grey sports bra, and tight black pants that were torn along the left side. Adorable! Even if Rosmarina thought a companion dress would be more suitable. Eve’s eyes glanced sideways for a moment as the shuttle passed through a particularly dense cloud layer and she let out an amused sound. “We really are irresistible to y’all huh? Your pad has been going off non-stop for the last 2 minutes while you were ogling me.” That brought Rosmarina out of her reverie as she noted that her pad did, indeed, have a few hundred messages on it. Most were from the owner of Thomas’s parents, pictures of the adorable little sprouts Rosmarina had requested no doubt, but a few were more important such as requests for clarification as to the status of her investigation from the reports she had yet to file due to being sidetracked by the feisty little wildflower in her vines at this very moment. “Yes, thank you Eve for reminding me, but you must forgive me; it would practically be an abdication of my duties as an affini if I did not take a few minutes to admire you~” with a gentle boop and particularly generous ruffle of the cutie’s hair. That finally got the little cutie to crack a touch as color flooded Eve’s cheeks, now too close to Rosmarina to ignore the adoration that had been pumped into the words. “Yeah well…um…just get back to it!” Eve retorted, a touch too quickly to really carry the same defiance with which she’d addressed Rosmarina earlier as Eve followed up with a mumbled, “the alerts are breaking my concentration on what I’m supposed to be doing.” Satisfied that her wildflower was safely in vine, Rosmarina returned to updating the Bureau of Xenosophont Wellness as to the process of her investigation.
As the shuttle left the exosphere, and the Biscutella was slowly growing from a small dot to the reconnaissance ship it actually was, the first thing Rosmarina noticed was the sudden wetness on one of the vines holding Eve, followed shortly by the sniffling. Rosmarina whipped her attention to the cutie she was holding just as Eve began to openly weep, great heaving sobs of regret and guilt flowing out of the precious little thing. Rosmarina realized with a start that the clever little thing had learned to control how much of her own biorhythm was detectable by passing affini inspection. Injectors flashed as Eve was dosed with class-E/D mix Rosmarina kept grafted for reticent feralists, and before there was the opportunity to start questioning what was wrong, Eve began to absolutely babble everything. How tired she was from the guilt of her own species, how she saw the collective sins of her people as her own sins, how she’d tried and tried to process and move beyond this guilt even during the wardship, how she thought that maybe she’d get the same divine revelation those ancient humans had and maybe how she’d learn to actually heed those supposed deities words, and finally, how tired she ultimately was. “Ms. Rosmarina, could I take a nap please? It was beautiful and you’re kinda super beautiful too and I trust you for some weird reason to take care of me and I’d prefer to just be unconscious for a while,” Eve concluded her lengthy and tear-soaked ramble. “Of course,” Rosmarina murmured as she gently pressed a pink blossom in a seal over Eve’s nose and mouth “Anything you desire, my little evening star.” Let’s see, Thomas’s case could be passed off to Asterales...no, too young. Thomas needs at least a 2nd bloom. Ah! Coriaria! It’s been in need of a floret for too long anyways. Now let’s see, how does one start the wardship documents again…