Cellulose & Steel

The rest of the afternoon is spent sitting quietly by the viewscreen, which provides a stabilized image of what’s outside the ship. The exterior camera used to generate the image can be swapped using a little remote, allowing for at least a little variety in the scenery. Olivia had been given it a bit earlier, but Verda took it away when the human wouldn’t stop pushing the buttons, constantly beeping through the screen without noticing the sounds herself.

By now the effects of the xenodrug enhanced shampoo had worn off enough for Olivia to have some idea of her surroundings. Looking directly ahead, she can see space, apparently the rear view of the shuttle, even if she can’t read what the text at the top of the viewscreen says. The galactic shaped blob in the middle diminished with each jump. If they were jumping every hour and the Milky Way was a hundred thousand light years across… The fuzziness and floaty feeling in her head blocked out how to do the math on that. She stares forward, unable to look at much else, and the disk of the galaxy stares back, an unblinking eye watching over her journey to who knows where.

Olivia’s joyful calm from before has given way to a cozy and peaceful feeling. She doesn’t feel much of a need to move, though she did force herself to lift a leg without Verda’s prompting, to prove she still could. At present, safety is the feeling at her mind’s forefront, but now she’s no longer content to sit silently, content with the occasional leg pat from one of Verda’s vines.

“Verda,” she starts.

“Mistress.”

“N-no. Verda,” is the most defiance she can muster against the giantess looking down from her seat by the window. She’s already tired from that amount of resistance.

Verda sighed and glanced back down at her computer.

“We’re so far from the Milky Way. I’ve never seen it from this far. It’s so pretty.”

“Yes darling it is. A pretty galaxy completely full of cute species to play with. If I’d known just how cute terrans were, we would have expanded here decades ago.” She looks right at her personal human, not needing to be reminded of what that specific galaxy looked like.

“I can’t tell where Terra is.” A distressing thought, insofar as Olivia can feel distressed right now. Her home is gone and she may never see it again, and if she does  it will be unrecognizable, defiled by xenos and stripped of everything that had made it feel human. Olivia had been to a xeno planet once. It felt foreign in a fundamental way, as though some eldritch horror had vomited upon the land. But xenos can’t help what they are and how they are. No doubt they would feel the same on a Terran world. Gross philosophical musings weren’t enough to completely sabotage her medicated contentment.

“What’s your world like, Verda?”

:”Mine?” Although she covers her mouth, her shock is visible in the motion of her eyebrow analogs.

“It’s… not unlike Terra, I suppose. Bigger. Hotter. Greener, quite a bit greener. Some of your planet’s radio transmissions from long ago suggest it was once very green, almost like Ede-fa High, which is where I lived before coming out here, and eventually meeting you, my adorable pet. There were forests thousands of kilometers across, some silent, some full of animal life. The blue band at the southern pole had trees so tall they scraped the clouds, all with deep blue foliage. I lived by a river suitable for swimming in. Perhaps I’ll take you there some day, or to that world, perhaps.”

.”That sounds beautiful. Is it still there?”

“I’m sure it is. It takes a great deal to dismantle an entire planet.”

“Why did you leave?” Olivia imagines herself walking in a sapphire forest, talking to the birds.
“I felt like it. Change can be a good thing.” A touch of sharpness enters her voice.

“Anyway, your dinner should be ready by now. Are you hungry again?”

Olivia nods slowly, blinking away the mental fog unsuccessfully. Food, yes. Verda smiles and gracefully rises from her seat. She sends several vines out to stop the human from dumping herself soundly onto the floor, only for her to shiver and moan, leaning into the vines and further toward empty space. Verda tilts her head and sighs. She walks to Olivia and takes her by the hand to lower her gently.

She doesn’t let go of her captor’s hand on the way to the table. The pleasant prickle of her touch is still there, if muted from before. Olivia finally starts to notice what she’s wearing. It’s as gaudy as she expected: a lime green top over orange leggings. The top has lacy semicircles on the top that form clumsy epaulets and the neck is rather low,but not in an exhibitionist way. The material is very smooth, almost like silk. Her bare feet slapped gently against the cold floor in the low gravity of the habitation unit. She feels a little like a pirate and giggles a little as she searches for the parrot hiding in the leaves of the affini beside her. She receives a bright smile back from the other woman who keeps her hypothetical bird safely hidden.