It Takes Time <To Be Properly Taken Apart> - Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Chapter Length: 4,500~ wordsBeat, Beat, Beat
Content Warning: The following chapter contains graphics which some readers may find potentially hypnotic. If you do not want to see these, you can read a version of the chapter without them on Ao3. Click here to go to the Ao3 version.
Raqi rose softly to awareness. Her body felt sluggish in the way that it always did after a very long sleep, and she had to fight back the urge to roll over and close her eyes once again. She promptly failed, but her continued consciousness in spite of this informed her that her body had decided that sleepy time was over, and so after a few more minutes of savouring the warmth of her duvet, she kicked it off and sat up in her bed. She let out a loud yawn, one hand going to cover her mouth while the other reached for her tablet on her bedside table. She tapped on the screen to wake it up, glancing at the time. It was roughly eight in the morning tomorrow; or, well, today now. She recalled it being somewhere around midday when she had passed out after speaking with Punica, which implied she had slept for something like twenty hours since then. As if chiming in to add to her thoughts, her stomach abruptly began to rumble violently; reminding her that this meant she had also not eaten in equally as long. Santraz akk aqcho, she swore in Saltiltomeyin. I seriously need to stop doing this. If I keep passing out like that, Punica is going to start to think something is wrong with me. ...That more things are wrong with me. While there were in fact quite a lot of things wrong with Raqi physically, this was not actually one of them. Extreme tiredness was a very common side-effect of high levels of socialisation for people with her neurotype; particularly when socialising with new people, or in challenging or novel situations- all of which applied to her interactions with Punica. Given how well some people would probably have reacted to being forced to share a ship with a mind-controlling alien plant, Raqi was probably actually in the top percentile of coping in this situation; nevermind that she was the only landamaeri who had ever actually been in this situation. Still, I need to try and take it easy today. I can't keep working myself this hard, or the fatigue will start stacking up in a way that just sleeping it off won't fix. Despite all of the rest she'd had, the toll it was taking on her body and mind was obvious. She still felt sleepy. Part of her really wanted to just go up to Punica and ask if she could take a nap in her arms again. That was where she'd passed out yesterday, after all. It had just been so cosy, to be wrapped up and held so nicely and securely like that. There was that sound, she suddenly remembered. She made that really nice sound when I put my head against her... That kind of... thrumming, wasn't it? Beat. Beat. Yeah, it sounded something like that. Beat. Beat. Like a heartbeat, but... not. She sat back down on the bed. Beat. Beat. I wonder why she makes that noise? It synched up so well with- Beat. Beat. -the sound while she was moving. Beat. Beat. Yeah. It was-
Beat. Beat.
-such a nice noise. I-
Beat. Beat.
-really liked it.
Beat. Beat.
She paused for a moment, trying to think of what had made it so pleasant. I don't-
Beat. Beat.
understand what it is-
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that makes noises-
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so good in-
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Raqi blinked. Wh- what had she just been doing? Had she just accidentally hypnotised herself? That- that didn't happen often. She made a habit of not doing that; on account of the fact that it was both very embarrassing and also rather inconvenient (and in some cases, dangerous) to end up spacing out in the middle of nowhere. Uh. Okay, I guess whatever that was, I-
Bea
She shut the sound off before it could finish. Yeah I definitely shouldn't think too hard about that. That sound is... not to be underestimated. She forced herself to blink several times, trying to clear her head.
This was also something she was relatively used to; though she had not expected to run into anything that triggered this particular reaction while out in Affini space. Normally, a lightly rhythmic sound like that, or any other stimulus that triggered that response in her head, would have been the kind of thing she could just shut out easily; but this was evidence of just how poorly she was keeping herself together psychologically at this point. Trying to manage her relationship with Punica was hard. She needed to keep the plant at a distance, but it was difficult with what felt like nearly half of her brain trying to sabotage her now. Again, if it had been under different circumstances, it would have been fine-
She let out a sigh and shook one hand dismissively. "Whatever, there's no point wasting time on what-ifs. I just need to get my shit together." Today, she would try and reset things with Punica. It seemed like the plant was at least sort of willing to not domesticate her right now- or, well, she may have been about to do it yesterday before Raqi hit her with that pillar, but she had at least stopped when Raqi asked. She supposed therefore that she could always just do that again if things got too intense, and it seemed like Punica would respect it? Attacking someone with a pillar was kind of a stupid safe word system, though; it occurred to her that maybe she should consider coming up with something a little less violent and more practical-
Wait, safe word system? She blinked again. Safe words were the kind of thing that people in established D&S relationships used in order to ensure that play didn't go too far or get uncomfortable. When had she gotten to the point that Punica's attempts to seduce and domesticate her were something that she only needed to moderate, rather than stop outright? No, she told herself firmly. stop. Do not think about her in those terms; do not let yourself go down that road. We do not have that kind of relationship, and we never will. I need to establish boundaries, and get her to stop flirting with me. All the flirting and near-drugging is the reason I'm so bloody out of it this morning.
Just as The Plan.vodf had pointed out, she had an absolutely abysmal flirting tolerance. Her brain had a very well established series of pathworks and behaviours for relationships in which she was the submissive, and it did not take much at all to push her down those paths, even when interacting with people who were only normally dominant; as opposed to 'nine foot tall plant lady whose entire physical form was purpose-designed to enslave you' type of hot.
...Wait, wait, again- relationships? Why was she calling what they had a relationship? Just three days ago, she had kidnapped this woman; not on purpose, but kidnapping was still kidnapping. Raqi still knew barely anything about the affini, and the inverse was also true of Punica. They were not friends; they could barely even be called acquaintances. The circumstances under which the two had been interacting so far were just about as atypical as it got, and it was completely ridiculous to be applying any type of 'normal' framework for relationships to what they had going on; but every single time she thought about her, her brain's autocorrect just kicked in and kept adding landamaeri relationship terms-
Her train of thought ground to a halt. She realised that she was not physically capable of conceptualising what she had with Punica without, in some sense, referring to it as a relationship. It may not have been like any other one she had, but her brain still considered it a relationship; and that meant that it inherited all the mutable boundaries, all the long-conditioned associations and pieces of context that were attached to that label, and all of the dangers and temptations that those brought.
Raqi started grimacing. She suddenly wondered if she might actually be in more trouble than she had realised.
Punica heard the sound of doors opening, and turned to see Raqi walking into the room. She seemed to have changed out of her black-and-emerald dress and into a light blue poncho that matched the colour of her hair, and had donned a pair of flared black trousers on her lower half. The poncho was embellished with threads of black embroidery: a small cluster of lines ran down from each shoulder to the arms, spreading out and multiplying as they went in a pattern that somewhat resembled the roots of a tree. The bottom of the garment was also decorated with a series of roughly diamond-shaped black patches set against the bottom-most portion of blue, each set at slightly alternating rotations to the previous ones. Finally, dozens of string tassels draped off of the garment, flowing and brushing against each other with every movement that Raqi made. In one hand she held a small metal spoon, and in the other, a plastic bowl which contained what appeared to Punica to be some variety of soup. As the plant watched, the xeno took a spoonful of the substance and stuffed it into her mouth, slurping it down before raising a hand up to wave at her. "Hey," Raqi called out. "Good morning." "Good morning, dear," Punica replied, closing up the gaping hole that had been open in her chest and turning to face the other woman. Raqi raised her eyebrows at her. "What're you up to over there?" "Ah, I was merely grafting samples from the remainder of the unidentified species of flora on this ship into myself," she responded easily. "I discovered when I was creating your medication that none of the plants you have here are known to me, and so I thought I would take the opportunity to take cuttings from them for future research. Oh, and, on the note of medication..." She opened her chest back up and reached into it as if it were a storage cupboard, producing another bottle of Raqi's medicine. "I have your medication here when you're ready." "Oh!" Raqi excitedly put down her soup and half-walk half-skipped over to Punica. "Thank- you," she said, somewhat musically. Once she had made her way over, she took the medication from the affini, and then made her way back over to her soup. Without skipping a beat, she stuck the spoon into the medicine container and extracted a spoonful of the honey-like substance. Before Punica even knew what was happening, she had placed it in her mouth as if it was no different from the soup in her bowl. "Wait, what are you doing?!" Punica exclaimed. "That medicine is not meant to be eaten!" Raqi suddenly spun around, spoon still in her mouth. "Huh?" The plant's face contorted in a look of exasperation. "That medication is a topical ointment. It is meant to be applied to the skin; not eaten." She let out a pained sigh. "Within the Affini Compact, injections are the preferred method of delivery for most forms of routine medication; followed thereafter by ointments. Pills and other edible methods of delivery are generally only employed as a last resort, for particularly picky medicines, on account of usually being less efficient. I expected you would know as much; but in hindsight, there was no reason for me to think that." "Oh." She removed the spoon from her mouth. "Am I gonna die now?" Punica's look of exasperation turned into a disapproving frown. "Of course not. You don't seriously think I would give you something that could harm you; regardless of how severely you misapplied it? No, it merely will have diluted the effect." A vine shot out and whisked the pot out of Raqi's hand before she could react, eliciting an offended yelp from the other woman. "Honestly, what standards of medicine are you used to that you would think there was a risk of such a thing?" Raqi looked perplexed. "There isn't much medicine in Landamar that can't kill you if you overdose on it. Even stuff like supplements can be dangerous if you take them in ridiculous amounts." Punica released a sound that seemed to Raqi remarkably like that of an old tree creaking. "Ferals," she muttered in the tone of a curse. She heard Raqi snickering in response. "If you think that's bad, I won't get into how you have to pay for medical care in a lot of ships." The look, then, on Punica's face was enough to actually make Raqi somewhat regret saying that. "Uh, anyway-" she said, suddenly very eager to change topic. "Discussion of very stupid medical institutions aside, I once again had a few things I wanted to say. First off was that: I am endeavouring to be a bit more chill today than I was yesterday and the day before that. If that works out, I should actually be able to be up all day instead of passing out and sleeping for the rest of the day. Which, just before you ask isn't particularly unusual for my species; so pleaase don't think I'm ill. We just do that when we get, uh, overworked socially." Yet another interesting comment about Raqi's species. Punica decided that she was determined to finally extract some concrete information from the xeno about that today. "I do admit that I was starting to grow concerned. If that is the case, though, then I will overlook it; on condition that you do indeed take it easy today and do not overexert yourself." "Yes, mo-" Raqi abruptly stopped mid-sentence, and for a second, their eyes widened almost to full size. "Uh. I mean yes." Punica's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What were you about to-" "ANYWAY," Raqi loudly interrupted her. "The other thing was: I was hoping I could ask you for some new drugs today. You probably don't remember - which is fine because I also completely forgot until about ten minutes ago - but I mentioned there was a second medication that I was on when we first talked about it; the less important one." Her ploy worked. Punica's expression immediately shifted to one of curiosity. "You're right, I do remember you saying something about that. It had completely slipped my mind as well; otherwise I would have asked you for details already." Raqi nodded. "Yeah. I have a feeling this one might be slightly more tricky to synthesize. It was a relatively well controlled substance in the Fleet, on account of being, well, drugs of the drug kind rather than the medicine kind." There was a moment of silence. Upon seeing that Punica had no idea what she meant, Raqi added: "Like, xenodrugs; as opposed to medication-drugs." "Ohh." Understanding immediately washed over Punica's face. "Yes, we don't discriminate between the two in quite the same way that other societies do." Raqi let out an amused snort. "Yeah, I should've guessed. Anyway, so, uh: Part of the problem is that I don't actually know what the chemical composition of the drugs was, and I don't have any examples to give you, so I feel like reproducing it is probably going to be sort of difficult. Another part of the reason why is: The drug affects yuyayni completely differently to ch'ikan, so if I just tell you what the effect was without mentioning the chemicals, I'm worried it's going to make no sense." There were two words that Raqi just spoke which Punica did not understand. "Hold on for a moment," she said, raising a hand. "I am not familiar with two of the terms you used; 'yuyayni' and 'ch'ikan.' What do those words mean?" "Oh, right- of course you wouldn't be. Uhh..." Punica was beginning to notice that Raqi had a distinctive face that she would always make whenever she was trying to figure out how to say something. It was as if she could physically see the neural pathways firing in her mind: the way her eyes always twitched away, her face growing still for just a moment or two until she would turn back and speak aloud whatever it was that she came up with. The pauses could be quite lengthy at times, but it seemed as if in return, she virtually never made 'filler noises' in conversation. The 'uhm's and 'uh's could easily be mistaken for just that, but she had learned that those seemed to be born of awkwardness or embarrassment; rather than used as a behaviour to fill space. It was an interesting quirk: a lot of the xenos that Punica had interacted with had preferred to hold certain consonants, or repeat already-used or stock phrases whenever moments of silence came around. Eventually, Raqi's attention flicked back to Punica; indicating that she had finally finished processing. "Uh, so basically- in Landamar- I mean, among the landamaeri, specifically; not other races in this case- we have two... well, not just two, but like- for the sake of simplicity- two main neurotypes. You have the ch'ikan, who are neurotypicals- well mostly anyway, they aren't actually all neurotypical but that's more nuance than I'm going to get into right now- anyway they make up about 97% of the population, and then you've got the yuyayni; which is the neuro-minority group that I'm part of." She began blinking abruptly. "Wait, uh- Do you actually know what neurodiversity is?" In a single instant, something like two dozen pieces of information in Punica's mind were instantly recategorised. It was a moment on par with when Raqi had initially mentioned being transgender: only this time, she was even more shocked that she hadn't registered it earlier. This was perhaps the single most obvious conclusion to have drawn about why Raqi was the way that she was, especially with the added context she had gleaned about her youth from her 'play.' In hindsight, the fact that this had not occurred to her earlier was downright embarrassing. "Yes, of course I do," she replied immediately. "The existence of neurodivergence among sophont species is a well researched and understood fact within the Affini Compact. It's one of the things that we go out of our way to make sure to account for when domesticating new species." "Oh." The xeno sounded slightly surprised. "I probably should have guessed. I was just checking because in the Fleet, it's still not a thing most people really understand." Her tone grew somewhat uneasy. "The average person hears the name of any neurodivergent condition and usually just thinks either 'stupid', 'disabled', or 'troublemaker' for the most part. Even the ones that don't do that tend to have no idea about any of the actual theory behind it. There's still a lot of ongoing debate about whether or not it's a disability, and... well, there's also the fact that most people tend to think that being disabled is also a moral failure." There was a hint of unusual sensitivity in her next sentence. "Do your people view it as a bad thing?" "No." Raqi almost took a step backwards. The sheer force in Punica's voice had been enough to send tingles of alarm down her spine. "We do not, Raqi." As she spoke, the core of the leaves that made up Punica's humanoid form seemed to begin changing subtly shifting colours; shifting from their normal dark green to a deep, venomous purple. "The right to equal treatment and respect for individuals whose neurology diverges from that of the majority of their species is enshrined within the principles of the Affini Compact, and protected in the same way that other values - such as gender and sexuality - also are. No one would ever be discriminated against, or considered lesser, on the basis of being different to other members of their species." Punica fell silent for a moment after finishing speaking; taking a moment to collect herself. As she did, the leaves on her body began to return one by one to their natural hue, and when she resumed speaking, her tone was much calmer than it had been previously. "Standard practise when caring for members of xenosophont species who are part of neurological minorities is to ensure first of all that all local facilities can be seamlessly utilised by them. This is rarely an issue, as most all facilities in the Compact are already intended to be used with the assistance of an affini; so it is rare for a xenosophont's neurodivergent condition to impact their ability to access any service in particular. Beyond this, however, we see to it that all non-majority neurotype sophonts are given any kind of additional support that they may require to live happily and healthily; be this in the form of changes to their accommodations, the assigning of a support worker, or anything else that they require." In the wake of Punica's explanation, a stillness seemed to have settled over Raqi; distinct from her usual processing states by the way that she remained intently focused on Punica all throughout. "What about in cases of those whose neurodivergences render them unable to peacefully co-exist with the majority population of their species?" Punica's core rumbled softly. "Cases such as what you are describing are exceptionally rare. The vast majority of sophont species, once thoroughly domesticated, become able to both tolerate and include those whose behaviours or identities differ from the norm." "I'm not talking about whether the majority can tolerate them." Raqi's voice was utterly still, her gaze unflinching. "I mean in the reverse situation. What happens if a minority population is incapable of living happily alongside the majority?" Another soft rumble. "I do not believe I have ever heard of such a case. However, that is likely from a lack of knowledge, rather than because none has ever arisen. Were I to guess about how such a situation would be handled, I presume that the individuals in question would simply be relocated to a new habitat more suited to them." She shrugged. "It does not seem like an overly difficult problem to address. We separate species all the time on worlds where some are predators and others are prey. What you are describing could be treated in accordance with the same principles." Several seconds passed in which Raqi continued to stare at Punica. It almost seemed to the affini as if she were trying to discern whether she was lying. Then, finally, she gave a satisfied nod. "Alright then." It had been a while since she had thought about one of the other parts of Raqi's stated goal for coming here; namely her desire to 'assess' the Affini Compact. It was something that, in all honesty, Punica had not taken very seriously. The sheer hubris inherent in the action of a xenosophont from an undomesticated society - a society governed by a species that had probably existed in their present evolutionary form for less time than the Compact had as a civilisation - to barge into Affini space and claim that they had the authority to 'assess' the Compact, was just downright comical. It was not really the kind of thing that could be taken seriously. For that reason, Punica had mostly been treating it with the same kind of curiosity as she had all of Raqi's other idiosyncracies. She had been happy enough to answer the girl's questions about the Compact - educating xenosophonts about the Affini way was, after all, an integral step in helping them integrate - but that had never been with the intention of attempting to sway the outcome of her assessment. The reason why was that it did not ultimately matter what Raqi thought of the Compact; the Compact was what was best for the universe, and that was that. Whether Raqi Marr the landamaeri would benefit from domestication was still an open question, but whether the landamaeri would was not. It occurred to her that it may now be time to let part of that facade go. She had spent enough time interacting with Raqi that she was fairly sure the blue-haired xenosophont now had a better grasp of the power differential that was in play between the two of them. While Punica was still intent on respecting her autonomy for now, that was a position she held for pragmatic reasons; because at least for now, it was what she thought was best for her. It was not, however, a position she had arrived at because she had no other choice; nor was it one she was bound to for ethical reasons. If she ever decided that it was necessary for the girl's wellbeing that she override Raqi's, she would not hesitate to do it; and neither was there anything which the girl could do to stop her. Raqi was well acquainted with that fact at this point, and the two of them had largely skirted around the issue up until now; but Punica had decided that it was time to let the charade drop.
TerraTranslate :: Raqi Marr :: Punica Granatum :: The Affini Compact :: Landamar Mobile Fleet :: Hormone Replacement Therapy :: The Chimera Module :: Affini :: Intersidera :: Posters :: Magnesium :: Wonderland :: The Hundredth Time: Part I :: Communication :: aftermath :: Physical Confrontation ::