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I walked through the double-doors of the Xenosophont Veterinary Services building, sitting down on one of the waiting room chairs. I arrived perfectly on-time: 02:25pm for a 02:30pm appointment. I was thankful for not having to check in- Affini just sorta knew when you were supposed to be there. It made the wait all the more dread-inducing. I kept telling myself that therapy is not a punishment but it sure FELT like it. I wasn’t even sure what set off the Wellness Check that got pulled on me, but I was in the middle of cleaning my Hab when the Affini assigned to me barged in without even knocking, looked at me reorganizing my bookshelf, and immediately flagged me for a Wardship. It was completely unfair. I played by all the rules and yet I still got punished. “ Therapy is not a punishment ”, my ass . Everyone I’ve ever met, Affini included (and my friends even if they adamantly refuse to admit it), expects perfection from me, but when I screw up, well, “““screw up””” once , it’s like the world ended and I’m at fault. But if I tell an Affini that, they’ll be all “Oh, Petal, it’s definitely your fault” and then rip away what little privacy I have left. Nobody listens to me. Nobody ever has.
“Carson Connors?”
I stood up and walked over to the strange-looking floret who called my name. They had a datapad in their arms and were dressed like a… well, there’s no friendly term for this, they were dressed like a porn nurse. Stockings, heels, skirt that revealed too much, shirt that showed as much skin as possible, tidy pink hair, white gloves, glasses, and one of those weird hat things with the red plus sign on it. It was extremely skimpy-looking. The jet black, shiny leather collar was the least odd thing about it.
“Yeah, that’s me. You okay?”
The floret was shivering . Made sense, that outfit showed a lot of skin, and it just so happened to be wintertime, so everything else was some degree of chilly.
“Perfectly fine ~! Mistress loves it when I shiver ~.”
That line alone made me silent as the nurse lead me down hallway after hallway. They kept shivering. They obviously didn’t intend to, but they only served as an intensifier for my fear of being just… domesticated. Forced against my will to dress like that in cold weather. Terrans would call that cruel and unusual punishment, and if us Terrans have the moral high ground over alien plant people who see us as pets to be taken utmost care of, then there’s probably something wrong here. I couldn’t care less if the floret shivering in front of me “asked for it” or “gave consent”, this is torture . The Affini saw all our carefully-laid rules and smashed them down with a sledgehammer.
The shivering nurse eventually led me to a rather modest-looking therapist’s office. It looked exactly like ones you would see in movies: polished wood walls, built-in bookshelves, patterned carpeted flooring, a funny-looking long couch-chair thing, lamps and potted plants. The only differences were that it was Affini-scaled, so everything was significantly taller, and the books in the bookshelf were all Affini scrawl- no Plain Terran books to be found. There was a convenient small set of stairs that led to the patient’s couch-chair thing, so I walked myself up them, sat down on the chair, and gave a polite goodbye to the nurse.
“Your own- er - Therapist will be right in~.”
I slammed my head back into the couch-chair. I walked into a trap set up by my warden, because of course I did. I glanced around the room, helplessly trying to find something to look at to distract me. I finally landed my gaze on something I definitely didn’t see at first: a huge pile of plushies. Emphasis on huge . It was at least as tall as the chair the therapist would most certainly use. I could recognize a few of their shapes- a few tigers, a few birds, I saw a Rinan near the top, a large snake near the bottom, there was even a large… oh, what’s the word… unicorn ? near the middle. At the top, though, rested something I couldn’t look away from. It was a whale, but that wasn’t all. It had a magnificent-looking horn, and the entire body was covered with stars, which glittered. It was… strangely entrancing. I wondered what kind of things this Star-Whale would do in the wild. Was it even real? It would be a bit strange for a living creature to survive in the cold vacuum of space. Wait. Maybe it was the stars itself? Were all the stars we see in the distance just Star-Whales just going on their merry way? Did they talk to each other? Do they have their own culture? Do they like being pet by small things called Terrans?
“I see the Starwhal has grabbed your attention.”
I jumped in my seat.
“Oh, dear, I apologize for startling you.”
The Affini that walked in took a seat in the therapist’s chair. I mentally fist-bumped myself for guessing her chair correctly.
“So, uh.” I said, “Are you the therapist?”
“Mm-hm! I am Dendrostyla Archaefructus, Twenty-Second Bloom, She/Her and They/Them.”
The Affini rose from her seat and did a small curtsy. She looked like she had on a rather small (for Affini, anyway) skirt made of vines that went down to the tops of her knees. Her feet had small heels on them. She didn’t seem to have any clothing-shaped vine patterns on her upper half, but her torso was shaped in a way that accentuated her massive, uh, breasts, and her arms flowed smoothly, the occasional flower blooming on them. Her hair looked like vines being braided into twin ponytails, resting parallel to each other near her neck. Her face almost looked normal. Her eyes were fine, but everything else was missing- it looked like a hockey mask you saw in horror movies, but made of wood and the only holes were for the eyes. It was… unusual.
“…petal?”
“Hm? I’m sorry?”
“What’s your name and pronouns?”
“Oh, uh, I thought my file told you. Uhh, Carson Conners. He/Him. Nice to meet you.”
Miss Dendrostyla sat back down, pulling a datapad out of her torso. She tapped it a few times, as if to wake it up, before finally stopping and staring at the screen for a few seconds. Her eyes flashed a great many colors. It was like looking into an oil slick. By the time she looked up at me, her eyes were a bold yellow. I didn’t know what that color meant. I knew red meant mad and green meant happy , but I didn’t know about that color.
“So, petal, would you mind telling me why you’re here?” She sounded… far too happy for a therapist.
“Uhh, didn’t my warden tell you?”
“Your warden sent me a summarized retelling. I prefer to get my information from my patients directly. I find how patients retell events reveals a lot about themselves.”
“…Okay. Makes sense.”
“Would you like some Xenodrugs to help?”
“That would be perfect. I wasn’t gonna lie to begin with, but now I know that with something that won’t let me lie in my system, my story is all the more believable.” I held out my arm. A vine quickly poked me in the forearm before retracting back into Miss Dendrostyla’s hair.
“You may begin.”
“Okay, so, it’s Spring, right? And my hab was looking rather messy. So I decided to clean. And I made pretty great progress! My kitchen was perfectly up to standard, my floors didn’t have a speck of dust or garbage on it, and my bedroom was even organized. When I got to my living room, though, I realized that my bookshelf was a bit too dirty for a simple wipe. So, I took all the books off and cleaned it top to bottom. And it looked spectacular! But then, I thought why not reorder my books? They were in a random order before, and it wasn’t very neat. So, I started sorting them by last name. I placed the A’s in their own pile, the B’s in their own pile… and so on and so on. JUST as I had all the piles ready for further sorting and organizing, though, an Affini barged into my Hab, looked at my handiwork and immediately filed me for a Wardship and then made me go here.”
“Hm, interesting. Are you mad at your warden for this?”
“Uh, yes ?! I was doing everything right! I was putting things away and being neat and tidy like everyone tells me! Why did I get punished for it anyway??”
“Therapy is no punishment, little one.”
“Yeah, well it feels like it to me. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“So, then, why did your warden send you here to see me?”
“I assume she got bored and went hey, I haven’t bothered enough innocents today, I should change that ! And I was the first nobody she found.”
“Nobody?”
“Well, yeah, what else would I be? I do everything the way people- Sophonts, sorry- tell me to do it. I’ve never committed a crime, my grades for college were average. I’m FINE.”
“But she still sent you here.”
“Yes.”
“It must have been for a good reason, petal.”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“I am, petal, I am.”
“No, no you’re not. Nobody does. I tell the truth and do things correctly, but everyone- everysophont?- always talks over me. Like they don’t care. Like they already made up their minds before they even saw me. I know for a fact you already made up your mind, too.”
“Well, that’s simply not true.”
“Yeah? If it wasn’t, you’d be taking my side here.”
“I was listening, petal. Your way of sorting this is… interesting.”
“You aren’t listening to me!”
“Fine. I’ll prove it. Let’s play a game; I call it Icebreakers .”
“You ask questions about me to get to know me? I know this game, we did it in elementary school constantly.”
“Good, you’re familiar. Can we start?”
“If this’ll get me out, sure.”
She suddenly leaned forward a little, her eyes glowing a soft pink. “What’s your name?”
I blinked. “I already told you. My FILE already told you.”
“What’s your name, petal?”
“Wh- eh- Carson Connors?”
“What’s your age?”
“24.”
“What’s your gender?”
“…male?”
She giggled. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Uh… teal? Colors like that. They’re soothing.”
“What kind of books do you like?”
“I read whatever’s interesting, but I lean towards sci-fi, romance, and horror.”
“Do you like books?”
“…yes? I wouldn’t have a bookshelf of them if I didn’t.”
“Do you like comic books?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“What’s your favorite superhero?”
“Don’t have one, I love them all equally.”
She shifted again.
“What do you do on a Friday night?”
“Huh? Uh, make a pizza, watch some TV?”
“What’s your favorite pizza?”
“Garlic crust, pepperoni and bacon with lots of cheese.”
“What’s your favorite movie?”
“I don’t really have one; I just like watching whatever movie looks interesting.”
“…do you have a favorite tv show , then?”
“I do, actually. Two of ‘em. Power Rangers and Kamen Rider.”
“Which one did you watch most recently?”
“Uhh… neither.”
“Oh? But you said you watched those every Friday, did you not? And you ate yummy pizza while doing so?”
“I, uh, stopped doing that. A while ago.”
“Define a while , little one.”
Shit. That Class-D was making me spill too much. I didn’t want to say it, but it was forced out regardless: “…a few months ago? After my independence hearing.”
“ Why did you stop?”
“Because it was childish. And I’m an adult.”
“…little one, why do you think being childish ,” she said with a sort of venom in her voice, “is so bad for you?”
“You grow up. We all do. We have to stop looking back at the past and simmering in it and look forward. Sophonts change. I change. You can’t be a kid forever. Nobody’s gonna treat you seriously.”
“And being taken seriously , do you view this as the correct way to live your life?”
“Yes, obviously.”
“Is living life correctly fun?”
“…no, b-but life isn’t supposed to be fun.”
“Who said that?”
“M-My parents, my bosses, my…”
“Well, I don’t see them here, do you?”
“N-No. This doesn’t seem like an icebreaker questionnaire anymore…”
“Oh, my, you’re quite right. Here, let me start over, and you just keep your cute little self comfy on that chair.”
I didn’t move. I was sitting on it like a normal chair, my legs dangling over the edge and my back not resting on anything. “Whenever you’re ready,” I nodded at her. She seemed to narrow her eyes, before she leaned back and giggled.
“I saw you looking at the Starwhal when I came in. Do you like it?”
“Do I- the plushie?”
“Mhm. Do you like it?”
“Yes, I do. It looks cute.”
“Would you like to hold it?”
“N-No. can’t. Not allowed. It’s for kids and other Florets. I’m neither.”
“Not a Floret? Hm, yes. Not a kid ? I don’t know, sweet thing. Are you sure you don’t want to hold the Starwhal~?”
“I-I said no… ”
“ Tell the truth, little one. ” Her voice seemed to intensify , like someone turned on a subwoofer for a home video system. Her words had punch and bite to them.
“Yes, yes I do- what just happened… ” the words left my mouth before I could even think . This couldn’t be the Class-D. I did my research, the D given to patients was mild. This was something else. Before I could contemplate further, however, something big and soft was placed into my arms. It was the…
“Do you like holding the Starwhal, little one?”
“Y-Yes. It’s very soft.” I hugged it to my chest without thinking.
“Would you like to keep the Starwhal?”
“K-Keep it? Don’t other patients need it?”
“If other patients needed it, I wouldn’t have given it to you. So, would you like to keep it?”
“Y-Yes. I would.”
“Then it is yours.”
I let out a quiet “yay,” before hugging it harder. I wouldn’t let it leave me. Not ever.
“Awww, your first plushie! So cute. What’s your plushie’s name?”
“H-Huh?”
“All stuffies have names, do they not? What’s the one in your hands’ name?”
I held the Starwhal at eye level, staring deep into its shiny, plastic eyes. I kept staring. There’s gotta be a good name in there somewhere. You gotta look deep inside plushies to find their name. And this one’s name was…
“You have to look deep inside, huh?”
“…you heard that?”
“Every word! It was very cute. So, what’s your plushie’s name?”
“…it’s… Centauri.”
“It’s a delightful name.”
“Oh, uh… thank you.”
“Did you have plushies when you were younger?”
“Yes. I had a bear named Corduroy.”
“Do you still have Corduroy?”
“No.”
“What happened to Corduroy?”
“My dad said he walked off into the forest , but I knew my dad just threw him out.”
“That’s very sad. When was this?”
“It was when I was… 6? 7? Can’t remember. I was young at the time, I remember that much.”
“Why did he throw little Corduroy out?” She had a tinge of anger to her voice. Her eyes flashed red.
“He said… he said I was too old and that I needed to grow up .”
“Were you upset by that?”
“At the time? Absolutely. I was young and didn’t know any better.”
“Being deprived of a cherished stuffie is knowing better ?”
“I didn’t say that… ”
“What if I took Centauri from you, right now, and threw him into the decompiler?”
“Her.”
“Her?”
“Centauri is a her. I decided.”
“You decided ?”
“Well, okay, I didn’t decide. She just… has the vibe?”
“Did you figure out Corduroy’s name and gender that way as well? By looking them in the eyes and seeing what they give off?”
“Y- Yeah , actually. Wow, haven’t thought about that in ages…”
“And yet you did it on instinct. How does that make you feel?”
“…Strange? Like, I’ve had rules pounded into me all my life, but why did a random thing like that internalize in me?”
“It wasn’t random, you obviously loved and cared for your bear so you gave it what you felt was good and right to you.”
“…I guess so.”
“Did you play with any other toys as a child?”
“…No, we were poor. Corduroy was the only thing resembling a toy I had until he… until he- [SNIFFLE]- why am I… why am I crying over this? It happened ages ago. I grew up. I got over it.”
“Oh, sweetie, lemme see you…”
Miss Dendrostyla suddenly rose, shot over to me in an instant (which made me reflexively hold Centauri up as a shield, as if she would do anything), lifted me and Centauri up, sat down on the chair couch with her back against the cushions and her legs on it, and then rested me and Centauri down on her, my head resting comfortably on her bust. I hugged Centauri to my face even harder.
“M-Miss, I…”
“It’s okay, sweetie. You’re safe. Can I continue, or do you need a few more minutes? It’s perfectly fine if you need a few more minutes. A good cry can do wonders.”
“No, no, I’m fine. You can continue.”
“Very well. What do you think Centauri thinks about all of this?”
“…what Centauri thinks? She’s just a stuffie.”
“If Centauri is just a stuffie, how could you tell her name and gender, little one?”
“…She told me?”
“She told you, hm?”
“Yeah. S-Same with… same with…”
“Are you having trouble speaking, little one?”
“No, I’m… I’m trying not to… say anything like that…”
“Anything like what , my darling little one?”
“Anything… childish… ”
“Anything childish ? Well, I don’t know, little one, I’d say you don’t know what that means.”
“Huh?”
“From what you’ve explained to me, my darling little one, you never had a childhood. You grew up at so young an age, you never had the joy of being a child. Of having no worries to speak of. Of playing with toys. Of enjoying your tv shows with your pizza. Of loving your toys.”
“…”
“Speak up, little one?”
“…what you gave me wasn’t just Class-D, wasn’t it? I-I feel… strange… like all my words seem to slush around together…”
“What an observer you are! I gave you some xenodruggies, but I also gave you Centauri. She’s a special stuffie.”
“I-In what way?”
“Centauri is tuned to my biorhythm. You paid attention to her immediately, and that told me that you had to be mine. My little sweetie.”
“Wh-wha…”
“Would you like to know why your warden sent you to me?”
“Why…?”
“Because she looked at your file and your behaviors. You haven’t been having fun as an adult, have you?”
“L-Life…”
“… Isn’t supposed to be fun , I know. But I have news: life is supposed to be fun! You’re supposed to enjoy it with glee and wonder, but the glee and wonder was shoved out of your silly little head when you were just starting to discover it. Don’t worry, little one, Mommy’s here to help you.”
“I… I don’ wanna be a… a kid…”
“My dear little one, I know you may think you don’t, but everything about you positively screams the opposite. You were made to be a joyful little dollop.”
“How do… how do you know for sure?”
“Why, because you told me! You can find out a lot about silly little things like yourself just by asking questions. Here, watch this. Do you like being a man?”
“…”
“ You cannot ignore me forever, little one. Be honest with yourself. ”
“…nooooooo…”
“Little one. If you were given a button that would make you a beautiful girl if you pressed it, would you press it?”
“…yesss.”
“ Good girl. ”
“…m’not a good…”
“Oh? No, you are the goodest of them all . Doesn’t that sound lovely?”
“….m’yeah…”
“It wasn’t fun being an adult, was it? Being all serious all the time just to survive?”
“Nooooo….”
“Well, you don’t have to anymore! You can be my little one. You can play forever. You don’t have to worry anymore. You can be my happy little girl.”
“Mommyyy…”
“That’s right,” she suddenly hugged me, her arms pressing me into her chest and her chin resting on my head, “I’m your mommy now! And you can just take your time here. I can hear you getting sleepy. It’s okay, you can take a nap. Mommy will be here. When you wake up, you’ll be in your own new room with all the toys you could ever want. I’m making your favorite pizza tonight, doesn’t that sound good?”
“O…kay… Sounds good… ‘night, Mommy…”
“ Goodnight, Cassie Archaefructus, my wonderful 4th Floret. ”
I felt something snug wrap around my neck before I fell asleep, comfortable at last.