"—wait, you saw him??? And survived?????"

"Uh? Yeah? He came for the plant, I was right there. He had many knives. They flew. Somehow."

Zash shudders.

"I'm in retrospect even more relieved you're alive."

"... You aren't going to want to hear what I said to him, then."

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, then says, "Hit me."

"Well, first he told me to, and I quote, 'get out of his way, human.' To which I refused. Because I was busy. And then he brought out his knives and asked again, and since by that time I had successfully saved the plant from a death spiral, I did in fact listen to him. And then I threatened him with my absolutely nothing to not put the poor plant all on its own like that asshole bomber had been planning to do."

"...what exactly did you say."

"Uh. ... 'Not yet, I'm not done saving it,' and then something about how he shouldn't dare to take it somewhere all by itself."

"......yeah that'd do it."

"On the not being murdered for my insolence front? Neat."

"I think if you insisted you might've died anyway but, uh, refusing to do what he told you to do because you were trying to save the plant would get you a lot of points with my brother."

"Aw. I'm even making friends with the in-laws. Look at me, now you're going to have to actually meet my parents."

He shudders again. "That sounds terrifying. I've never met the parents."

"Chin up, champ, you're immortal! Ish. Or something. Do I get to hear all of your secrets now, since I have successfully out-stubborned you."

He looks out the window. "You're not freaked out that Knives is my brother?"

"Mmmnnno? I'm freaked out about the murder, but I did also see how the Jeneorans were gun happy, so."

"Mm.

"Well, Knives is my brother. —uh, his name is Nai, I don't think he particularly cares about it either way but some other people call him Knives for the obvious reason."

"Nai entertains me more, I'll go with that. But yes, makes sense. Sooooooo. How'd that work. Did someone fuck a plant?"

"No. We just appeared fully formed as infants in the plants room of SEEDS ship 05."

"The ship itself? Before it crashed? Then. Was Nai the one who...?"

Oh goddammit he wished she hadn't made that inference.

"They called us independent plants, because we didn't need the tanks to survive like regular plants do. We weren't the first; there was a girl, before us, they called her Tesla. And they—"

Okay he's actually never told this to anyone before and he's not finding it very easy to.

".... did not see her as a person, probably, and wanted to do horrible unethical experiments upon her?"

"We found the room where they kept her, inside glass tanks. Her head was separated from her torso. Her eyes were separated from her head. We didn't find her left arm or her right leg.

"She was still alive."

"Oh. I'm. I'm sorry."

"Nai couldn't handle it. He was just... in shock, stopped responding or doing anything or even thinking, didn't wake up for days. I...

"...I tried to die. I tried to die very much."