"What the everliving...?" she groans, sitting up and looking around. Everything's so dark, where is she??

The last thing she remembers is Zash running off to handle the latest crisis at really quite an inopportune time. She had been pacing, frustrated and worried, and then… something hit her…?

She seems to be on a platform of some kind, hard metal, though that's the first thing she can perceive...

...except for a luminous child over there, who doesn't look exactly like she remembers them but whom she might recognise anyway. "Ai, ai... You're finally awake!" they say. "Welcome, welcome, to February."

They're in a great dark dome, large enough to rival one of the Seven Cities themselves. Silver cracks run along its surface, only visible because of the blue and red lights from below. Rows and rows and rows of plants in their pods wait in neat little rows beneath her platform, and beyond the glow of the plants is a dark shape that looks like it might have once been a spaceship, nestled in a large mound of sand. Now that she looks, actually, there's lots of sand all over the place, in little discrete piles, like... it leaked from above.

Ah. Yes. They're underground, aren't they.

".... Uh, it was Zazi, right? Hello," she says, carefully getting to her feet. "Thanks, I feel. So welcomed."

"So polite. You're not mad about how we tried to eat you and then kidnap you and then succeeded at kidnapping you?"

"Um. I'm mostly confused about why you would do that. Eating me makes sense, I guess, even though it's... obviously the option I like the least. Why did you kidnap me and take me to a failed city with a lot of..."

Oh. Oh no. Her brain has caught up with her observations and if there are this many plants in one place, then. Well there is one person she knows about that collects this many plants, isn't there.

"... why would you bring me here?" she finishes, a little plaintively.

"Catching up! Well, anyway, we're sorry about that time we tried to eat you. We disagreed with that us so we ate them and we're not the us who wanted to eat you. That was a very wasteful decision, you're so delightful, eating you would've been no fun. And there's another us who just wanted to eat you and Zash to see what the Punisher and Mr. Knives would do but we don't talk to that us.

"Now the reason we brought you here is that we want you to help with this old disagreement we have with Mr. Knives."

".... Okay. What's the old disagreement, and why do you think I can help?"

She's suspicious already but, well. Probably best to let Zazi explain. Instead of jumping to conclusions and falling into a panic.

"Who's better for us?" They extend both hands out in front of them, palms up, and luminous spores fly out of their sleeves to form tridimensional silhouettes of a person, "Humans," and a familiar bulbous shape, "or plants? Who will be better for the planet?

"Mr. Knives has an opinion. He's biased. We want to hear yours."

"Well, I think that's a false dichotomy," she says, turning from Zazi to continue looking around. Huh. Is that a console, over there...?

"Is it? Mr. Knives will kill all humans; or humans will kill him, and then all plants will die. Isn't that so?"

That's indeed a console. Old, but recognisable.

"With a fatalistic worldview I suppose those do seem like the only two options." She walks over to the console to peer at it. Hm. This... looks like it's connected to the plants below. Probably from all the way back before the Fall, and just updated with additional plants as they were gathered. "But, you know. Maybe there's some in between we can work out."

The spores fly off and the images they were representing dissolve as Zazi flies over to where Yvette is and takes a seat on the railing next to her. "Maybe. We don't see the point. Duke it out, the winner was right all along. It's how we do it and it's always worked for us.

"You know, it was the Punisher's job to bring Stampede here, but we think we'll win that little competish. He will be really bugged until he can find you." They make a face. "That wasn't very good, we should try harder."

This earns a little startled laugh from her.

"... Oh my god, we crashlanded on an alien planet and taught the natives how to pun."

They grin. "Language is such an interesting concept! We should've thought of it ourselves. We can say one thing and mean another, say two things that mean the same thing and one thing that means two. What else will you invent? We are so excited to find out."

"Well I can introduce you to math if you're curious, though that one's not a new invention, and you've probably heard of it by now." Tap tap tap at the console and. Yeah it. It really is connected to. All of those plants below.

"What are you doing there? The doctor will be mad at us if you mess his plants up." They sound like they'd find it very amusing if the doctor got mad at them for any reason.

"Well, if it's the doctor I think it is then I don't particularly care. It's not him I'm worried about. Anyway, I'm not going to mess them up, I just want to look." She frowns. .... Yeah, uh, these plant maintenance routines are as outdated as the hardware. "Isn't that why you put me down here in particular?"

"Yeah! It'll be sad if Mr. Knives kills you, though. We're just hoping something more interesting happens instead."

"Yes, I quite agree." Mmhmm. And from these readings, none of the plants have been getting anything except usual (outdated) supportive maintenance from the system itself. Yet some of them have improved over time, in little bursts. Always one at a time. Sort of like someone with plant healing abilities devoted those abilities to helping a plant. "... Sorry, should I explain what I'm looking at and what I'm seeing? You seem like the curious type, too."

"Yeah! That way after Mr. Knives kills you we'll be able to tell him what you broke."

“I will not be breaking anything but, sure.”

She does, in fact, explain what she’s seeing. How the system is functional but outdated by over a century, and the plants are essentially being left alone in standby mode. Which is fine, it’s not a problem exactly, they’re all stable, but it could be better. See, just waiting for Nai to swing by and personally heal each and every one by himself is inefficient. Clearly, he has a backlog. Really what should be happening is he gets the more complicated and tricky ones, and the rest who are recovering from ordinary wear and tear…

Well. She’s pretty sure she’s being tested. It’s also not like she’s going to be getting out of here without help. So if she is going to be found by people likely to kill her, she might as well make herself useful, first. It just might save her life.

So then she gets to updating the standby mode to do a bit better than ‘essentially leave them alone.’ While explaining what she’s doing to her kidnapper. Knowledge is to be disseminated, after all.

Her kidnapper sways back and forth, watching her intently with a wan smile on their face as she explains. They're not really getting anything, they're just memorising it, but they have a guess for what's going to happen soon which is confirmed by a couple of the bugs they have all over everywhere in this compound.

Her kidnapper is in fact right in their prediction. The metal door leading to this chamber opens and Knives stalks into it looking absolutely—neutral. He does not have much of an expression on his face. The main indicator of his mood are the myriad blades swirling around him. "What is the meaning of this."

She freezes a little, like a child being caught doing something she’s not allowed to do. Then she raises her head and very deliberately continues.

“Well,” she says, not letting the rush of terror leak too much into her voice, “Zazi brought me here, so I thought I might as well help.”

"Help—" He pauses. Squints. "You. I know you."

She… honestly wasn’t expecting that. Not knowing what to do with it, she’s just going to. Not engage with it and move on.

“… Well, I’m flattered to be remembered. And yes, help. You can hear them, and I know they’re terribly easy to take advantage of, but you’d know better than I. Am I actually helping?”

He looks around, then looks at her again, looking even more suspicious. After a few seconds of that he suddenly makes a frustrated noise and says, "Why are you here."

It’s pretty clear that he’s frustrated because he can’t just cheat and read her.

She points at Zazi. “They did it, not me. I don’t want to be here.”

Zazi lifts a hand and grins. "Guilty!"

"I'm going to kill you someday."

"No you won't~"

Knives's blades shoot at Zazi and, when they disperse into bugs, he kills every one of those.

"Helping the plants isn't going to save your life," he tells Yvette.

She takes a deep breath.

"I know. But if I'm going to die anyway, I might as well do some good first."

"What good?"

"What I'm doing right now. Helping the plants. I consider that good, don't you?"

"Yes," he says, then looks frustrated again. "You're human."

Well spotted, Nai.

"Yes," she agrees, instead of being sarcastic at the scary psycho with telekinetic control of knives. "Do you want me to explain everything I'm doing and my reasoning behind doing it so you can make sure I'm not doing anything you wouldn't support?"

"You'd lie."

"I wouldn't," she corrects, a little irritated, "but I acknowledge that I could. If nothing else, having a good idea of what exactly I did would be a good start for undoing it."

He sits cross-legged and cross-armed mid air and gives her a look.

"... is that a yes..? Or just that you're going to sit there and watch every single thing that I do for awful human intentions?"

She can't help it; this is frustrating, and it’s starting to leak into her voice. It’s not like she got kidnapped from the best of circumstances. She’s not even sure what happened on the sand steamer, and she’s worried about Zash and how he's probably freaking out right now. Instead of being able to handle any of that, to know anything about anything of the people she cares about, she’s here, trying to bridge this frustrating communication gap with a person that thinks of her as scum.

"Yes," he says, also frustratedly.

In typical language usage, that's not actually a confirmation of either option she provided. However, due to current circumstances and also ambient frustration levels, she's just going to take it as 'talk to me.' That seems the most likely answer, and she can always just stop talking if he'd rather just stare silently like a weirdo.

"Okay."

So she then begins explaining. Because he wasn't here for her walkthrough with Zazi, it does mean she has to start a bit from scratch and explain the basics again, but that's not so bad. Compared to trying to exchange words with a mind reader who despises humans and can't read her, it's soothing. And then they can get into the particulars of what she's doing and the logic behind it and how these new updated supportive maintenance operations actively help instead of just. Leaving the plants on standby.

They can help each other, why would they need a support system from humans.

Well if he doesn't ask that question out loud, she's not going to know to answer, and will instead just happily continue on how to make the support system ~*~more efficient.~*~

Ghhhh.

"Why. Does this work. Humans made it. Plants help each other."

"Oh. Yes, you do. But it's... you can only help one plant at a time. Setting up a system that does it instead means that they all get helped, at the same time. And then you can go and help the more difficult cases that the system won't be able to sort out."

Grump. "Go on."

So she does! Quite happily in fact.

She is really extremely dedicated to her job, very knowledgeable, and brightening considerably as she goes.

Knives gets, if anything, grumpier over time as he watches her. Eventually he gets fed up and says, "Why do you care?"

That question seems to throw her for more of a loop than any of his others.

"... It's my job???? Why wouldn't I care?????" she says, a bit bewildered.

"Lots of humans have this job." Implicit: and they don't really care.

She has had long enough with this frustrating person to catch the implications, actually! Hooray for her.

"Okay, well. I'm not trying to explain them. They're often dumb and selfish and stupid. I'm trying to explain me. And I have this job because I care."

That continues to make zero sense, but fine, whatever. It's incredibly frustrating to be unable to hear her.

The plants offer to help. He accepts, and it's still bewildering. Not her thoughts, directly, but plants' rendition of them. They can hear everything humans are thinking, but the way they conceptualise and translate their thoughts are—well, often very inaccurate or missing important details (in Knives's opinion) and most of all far too rosy. Humans are not like that. They are not good.

Well, there's not really much evidence from the plants' rendition of her thoughts. She really thinks that she's probably going to die in here, and that she might as well help them while she can. Actually, she's idly thinking about how she needs to teach Nai how to do this on his own, and how to learn the systems from the humans he hates so much when they improve at them, to repurpose the things they figure out for actual good.

And she's just continuing to explain everything. Happily. There's really nothing she's leaving out.

At least "she's being honest" is reasonably straightforward for the plants to convey. Zash's surface thought reading (and here's the usual pang of longing and hurt that accompanies his thoughts whenever he thinks of his brother) can be fooled by sufficiently clever manipulation (Zazi themselves are evidence for that) (there's another bug of theirs surreptitiously crawling in, Knives kills it without a second thought) but regular plants are way more thorough and cannot be fooled like this. They can read the entire emotional state of their targets, including the things they are trying to fool themselves about (as Knives has extensive firsthand experience with) (good thing he can hide from them). Yvette is being honest.

He really doesn't know what to make of this.

Well, eventually she runs out of typical system maintenance to relay.

... But apparently she's not done.

"Now, this next part isn't something I'd trust to the computer, because computers are stupid and they can do more harm than good if aimed wrong. But! If you'll allow me without killing me for trying, I can help more directly."

"Explain it to me. If you lie I will kill you. If you omit anything I will hurt you and then kill you."

"I figured!"

And then yes she can (also kind of cheerfully) get into direct ways she could help. Like, for example: the plant from Jeneora! She recognizes that red one by her (and that's the pronoun she uses, her) diagnostics. Usually half of the trouble of healing plants is figuring out exactly what's wrong, but here she already knows! She'd like to finish healing her. Here's how she would do it and here's what she had been doing and damn it she has none of her graphs, does she, does he have paper she's going to need to show what she means with math.

He can make paper appear out of thin air for her. Then with some more effort he can make a pencil. Pens are too complicated.

(The Jeneora Rock plants recognise her! And most importantly, they had Zash there and Zash could translate for them. This is not making it any less confusing.)

She is briefly distracted thinking about that and how actually she thinks that was inefficiently produced. He could have made a great big piece of paper and then cut it with his knives and that would have been more cost-effective than different sheets separately, not even getting into ways to make the pencil more efficient because that's a much harder problem but YES PAPER.

With paper and a writing implement present, it is math time. There will be graphs. She's missing all of her data so she's approximating some things (and noting every time she does, and the plants can feel how this is irritating to her) but she lived and breathed fixing this plant in particular for weeks and it has always bugged her that she never got to finish her damn job, so her memory's pretty fucking good. With a mix of memory, information currently available from the console, and math, she can pretty tidily map where the plant's vitals need to be, and with math she can show how she can help the plant get there with assistance from technology. All of this mapped out she's practically bouncing in front of Nai with her desire to get started. Can she do it. Please please please please will he let her she's wanted to for so long!!

He does, actually, know maths.

Her work does, actually, check out.

What the fuck.

He nods.

She practically dances as she inputs the commands and checks over them to make sure they do in fact go through. Yes? All set up? Everything doing what she thinks it'll do? AHAHAHAHAHAHA YES VICTORY!!!!

Well, okay, not immediately, this will still take some time to implement, it's not like she can just press a button and fix the poor plant, much as she wants to. BUT it is beginning to go in the correct direction!! And since that'll take time to go through, she can also work on this other plant that looks really very simple to help. It looks like someone was just running through standard practices straight from the engineering book. Which makes the problem the plant is facing pretty simple to solve, actually! And here's what's happening and here's how she'd fix it and it is really fucking annoying not having her data but she will persevere!!! With more math!!!!

Don't humans need, like, food and stuff. Zash needs food. ...well, likes food. Liked food. Knives guesses he does not know whether Zash still likes food. Or sleep.

"Do you need food," he asks when he's (once again) reminded that she can't just see what he's thinking.

"What? Oh." She'd absolutely, completely forgotten. Ugh, she does need food, doesn't she, that's the worst. "... Yeah, I'll start to get cranky if I don't eat, it's awful and throws off the accuracy of my calculations. And I guess eventually I'll die and stuff. It's super annoying. Sorry. Um. Are you going to invest resources into caring for my stupid human form or should I just be expecting to do as much as I can before I die?"

"The doctor will get you food."

If he let her starve the plants would never let him hear the end of it.

"Okay, thank you. Probably water should be first, though. Usually I have a water bottle present to remind me to drink, and that leads me down the logic train of noticing I need to take care of myself. Where's the doctor?"

"Don't know." Water's easy, though, and so is glass, it's mostly silicon. Here she goes. "I will find him. Don't touch the console while I'm gone." Then he lets gravity affect him again and starts walking away.

As soon as he's gone, a myriad bugs recoalesce into Zazi. "He likes you."

Water bottle!! Nai gets a thank you, because she suddenly remembers that she is in fact thirsty and should drink something. Time to get to doing that. She will, obligingly, not touch the console while he's gone, and instead sit down over here and stretch out the stiffness in her limbs.

"I can tell, because I'm not dead yet and he's still here," she says to Zazi, a little amused. "Were you expecting this?"

"Some of us were. We were right so we ate the other us."

"I see. Very tidy system, that. I sort of wish I could just eat the people I prove wrong sometimes."

"No you don't!"

"That's what the 'sort of' covers!" she laughs. "Admittedly it's a very load bearing 'sort of.' With humans it's, well. When you eat something you go and use all of the resources properly, yes? Nothing is truly lost, just reallocated. And with humans it's not like that."

"It's not. You just take and take and take, greedy little critters. And you're repeat offenders, too." Here are some more glowing spores, this time adopting the shape of planet Earth, with appropriate colours to boot. "Earth. Have you seen it?"

"In pictures, yeah." She reaches out her fingers towards the spores, not quite touching. "But it feels like such an impossible fairy tale to me, you know? A whole world that was just. Good." She drops her hand, sadly. "And then we ruined it."

The planet turns brown and dull and then blows away in a nonexistent breeze. "We wish we could have met bugs from there. We would have exchanged so many stories."

"So you see where we're coming from, asking how humans can benefit the planet."

“I do. It’s a very fair question. Though I also see that instead of asking you’ve just put me down here and gone ‘Now what will you do?’ So, clearly you want more than just words.”

"Smart engineer. Mr. Knives says it all the time, humans lie. We don't think we've ever seen either of the twins lie—well, Stampede sometimes, but not when it counted—and we've had them bugged for a while. Oh, that one's good, we'll use it again."

She giggles a little.

"It was pretty good, well done. Yes, we do, so. I understand why you'd skip the step. I'm really not... upset with you about it. It makes sense. And it might not even end in me dying horribly, which is a nice bonus. Though I do think you have royally pissed off both of the twins in the process, so. Good luck with that, I guess?"

"Mr. Knives is always angry. And very bad at emotional regulation! But that makes him predictable." Shrug. "And kinda boring. We're spicing things up a little."

Snort.

"Zash isn't always angry, but I suppose the change might be a bonus to you. Is it just novelty you're after?"

"We always want to learn. Grow. Evolve. Metamorphose. Only the strongest and the best survive. But it'd gotten a little dull before humans arrived. Now you're here! Bringing new ideas and concepts and things we can learn so we can always become better."

"I can respect that. I'm glad that the Fall was good for someone, really."

"Someone. Someones. Your language is not that good at us."

That's when the metal door opens and a bald man in a body-length white coat walks in. He's wearing goggles and has an impressive mustache plus a couple of metal plates attached to his skull.

"Ms. Yvette Marlowe."

“It’s really not, is it,” she agrees. “Sorry on its behalf, I guess.”

Then she turns and looks at the doctor and the warmth she was showing the worms just freezes solid.

“Doctor William Conrad,” she says, because two can play at that game, bitch.

"Master Knives has mentioned I should see to your needs. Come with me." And he turns around without waiting.

"Cheers!" And they explode into worms, again.

“Bye, Zazi,” she says, and then yes then she can follow the absolutely monstrous man who has done terrible things.

There are very many corridors they have to walk through. At first he's silent, but eventually he says, "You wish to ask me questions."

“Do you actually perform human experimentation on child subjects with a horrific survival rate in an effort to make up for your past horrific experimentation.”

"...yes and no. I want humanity to survive. It cannot do so as it is. With my research there will be a way for humans to become as durable and immortal as plants. As independent plants. As the twins."

“Ahuh. And I’m sure you explained this, and the risks involved to the subjects, before you did any of this testing for this grand mission. And got their full and expressed consent, and recompensed their families for their loss if they died.”

"...Morgan Wolfwood the Punisher was an orphan. She has no family. And Rollo the Gale... his family was going to kill him. He was born on a windless day, and they were to sacrifice him so that God would bring them their wind back.

"They all have stories like this. Nowhere to go, no future. I give them a future. As for the losses...

"...they are for the greater good."

“Yeah? And that bit about their healing thing killing them, and then throwing them off to be used like things?”

He shakes his head. "They are my failures. I tried, I tried very hard... to give them access to a gate. To make them more like Master Knives, and Zash the Stampede. But every attempt has ended in failure. I have made them stronger, more able to survive, but never for long. Every avenue of research...

"I don't know if I can save any living humans. I don't know if it was all in vain."

“Mm. And if this greater good of yours never appears, you haven’t done a damn thing to reduce the harm you’ve caused, have you. All or nothing, is it? What an appropriate place to make your lair.”

He shakes his head once more. "It is all or nothing. If i cannot succeed... Master Knives's plan will kill us all. It is already in motion."

“And I’m sure you’ve done so much to convince him of the worth and value of human life. With all of your work.”

"He will not listen to me. I tried, I tried and tried and tried, over a century ago. Every one of my words, doubted; my intent, questioned. If the plants can read my heart and show it to him, it has been found wanting.

"Perhaps you will do better. I pray you will. I pray... that all my work has been in vain. That I will be able to die a hated man, a monster, and that there is a better way I was too weak or too cowardly to pursue. Hate me, because I deserve it. Do better than me. Because if you can't, then... I must keep doing this. Master Knives will not allow me to die, until I succeed. Or until he does."

"Yes, I wouldn't want to live as you either, doctor. But I'd just actually try to change instead of wringing my hands about the futility and monstrousness of my existence and bemoaning how my words are no longer being believed. Are we there yet or is this place nothing but damn corridors."

"A couple more corridors."

He doesn't say anything more. There's no point.

There really, really isn't. He's just trying to justify himself to someone, to have someone else that is clever and human agree with him and say, 'Yes, it was awful, but you had to.' That would grant him some measure of comfort, of peace.

She will not be indulging him. He's a monster, who had a thousand ways in a hundred years to try to do better, be better. After all of them, he's still making pathetic excuses and experimenting on children like they're things.

Finally they arrive at: a bedroom. It's simple fare, bed and desk and a bathroom. Then he gestures down the hall. "There is a kitchen that way. We have ingredients if you wish to cook and full meals produced by the plants if you do not. They often make whole batches at a time.

"Now if you'll excuse me."

"You'll get no excuses from me, actually, but yes. You can go. Thank you for your help."

He bows to her then walks away.

And she can go and eat something and use the bathroom and so on. Annoying biological needs that she'd really rather be without.

... Once that's handled, she has a hunch. It's not particularly expensive to test, so she might as well.

"Hey, Zazi?" she says, even though there's no sign of any worm anywhere in particular.

Well here's Zazi walking around the corner and into the kitchen. "Hello! 'You'll get no excuses from me, actually', that was great, we are writing that one down for later."

Well now that she's talking to them, worms are pretty cute, actually???

"Hello. Happy to be of service. Would you be willing to help me find my way back here in the future, my spatial memory is not up to the task of navigating the maze of corridors, and I think if I spent much more time around the doctor I might try to strangle him."

"Do it! We'd love to watch. —but fine, we can show you around." They extend a hand and one little flying bug crawls out of their sleeve up to their palm and then flies over to her to circle around her head.

"Thank you, I appreciate it. I recommend nestling next to the bun, you'd look cutely ornamental up there. ... Though I suppose then Nai might kill it. Hm."

This does mean that she will have a worm running around in her hair, of course, but honestly? She has had to deal with overcoming quite a lot of instinctive flinch reactions from things that are icky or unclean, since she left December, so. Little lifeform hitching a ride on her hair, sure, why not. It's not like she takes her hair down that often anymore, anyway.

There goes the bug, then.

Zazi just shrugs. "We are not individuals. A single bug is not a loss. It does not matter if Mr. Knives kills it."

"All right, you'd know better than I. I admit, I don't really understand, but." She shrugs. "I don't really need to in order to take your word for it. I'll figure it out." Then she grins. "Or I won't! We'll see. Will you help lead me back to the plant room now that I've been fed and watered? I'd absolutely like to get back to work."

"Yes, yes, we'll lead the way." There goes the tiny bug.

"Thank you, Zazi, you're the nicest hivemind I've ever met," she says, because she suspects that Zazi will find this highly entertaining, based on their love of language. To the plant room!!

They do find it very entertaining. The nicest! Also the least nice! Language is so fun.

When she gets to the plant room Knives is already back. He is floating in front of one of the plants, doing the exact same thing Zash did with the sand steamer plant. The "transformation" of his skin is more thorough, he is entirely covered in white with the blue glowing patterns with zero humanlike skin showing, and he is glowing more brightly than Zash did.

He does not react to their arrival.

Aw.

Well, she will not be starting work until he's done, because that is the sort of thing that might get her killed, so. She'll sit down and sip her water and wait.

It doesn't take very long for him to be done with this iteration of it, and he soon floats back to the platform.

And then kills every single bug with a blade, including the one resting on Yvette's head. His blade does not touch Yvette herself, though; even her hair is left unscathed. "You have returned. Are you ready to continue?"

That's kind of terrifying, but it's better for him to have fine control than not that, so uh. Yay for that???

"Yep!" she says, standing.

(.... she kind of wishes he'd wear some clothes. She is having emotions about being sexually attracted to Zash's brother. And also a murderer who hates humanity, but, like, the part that feels weirdest is the brother part.)

If the plants are conveying her thoughts to him, he is not reacting at all. He once again adopts his cross-legged position in mid-air, but this time he is sitting much closer to her, close enough to be able to watch her at the console and her equations.

Fortunately for her complicated libido, she can absolutely tunnel vision onto her work! Yes, there are so very many plants to help, and she can absolutely work up the proper enthusiasm to help them.

It's still VERY ANNOYING that she doesn't have any of her data, though. She's having to re-derive some equations!!!!!! This is clearly a waste of time but she'll tolerate it because the alternative is stopping and NEVER. Even with this handicap, this is the most freedom she's gotten to actually do her damn job since Jeneora. Technically on the sand steamer she was also doing her job, but it really felt more like her job was enabling horrific abuse and therefore completely awful. Plus, it was sort of like trying to do that job while also desperately fighting off a vicious carnivorous beast that was trying to rip her patient to pieces in front of her no matter how much she didn't want it to. Which is really very obstructive to just enjoying her work, actually.

Anyway yes he can have more math and more explanations and she will help more plants and she will be gleeful about this, actually. There are so many easy ways to help!! The harder problems can wait for later after she's got all of her tools back!!! Eeeee she gets to do her job eeeeeeee she's so happy.

Knives can actually remind her of some bits of her maths. Not because he himself had already seen them or derived it, just from the same kinds of intuitions Zash displayed before but filtered through his more systematising personality.

Oh! Oh good! Okay, excellent, hold on, she'll write it all down. Then they can use that over here immediately, and that'll also make this other one easier, too. Probably with this information they can derive something to get somewhere with this one but actually probably they should put a pin in that problem and save it for later because while that's a tempting problem she wants to solve she doesn't think it's an efficient use of time for maximum plant assistance provided. Yet. SOON THOUGH. SOON.

She is totally going to forget to feed herself, though she is better at watering herself with a water bottle right there.

Honestly it's the plants that notice she's getting hungry, what with all of the ways they have full access to her sensorium and emotions.

"You need to eat," he says eventually. "And sleep."

"What? Oh. Damn it, not again. You're right, thank you."

She has definitely gotten worse at caring for her own physical needs! This is a mix of never having been confronted with so many new and shiny problems to solve all at once before, and also that uh. ... Zash was kind of doing that. (She misses him.)

Knives's left eye twitches a bit when she thinks about Zash but he otherwise does not acknowledge it.

Here's a guide bug.

No the fuck it is not.

"... I might legitimately get lost going back on my own, it's a maze of corridors and I spent most of my time getting there passionately denouncing your doctor friend."

"What does that have to—oh." His growl is purely mental. "Fine. Beast, you can send one bug. One."

Bug!

"...and he is not my friend."

"Well, good, because he's a shitty person and seems like he'd be a shitty friend, too. Hi, Zazi, thank you Zazi."

And then off they can go! To care for the annoying squishy human who can't just do things indefinitely!

Knives does not follow her. So long as she doesn't touch any consoles he doesn't care what she does or where she goes.

Well, where she goes is to eat, and then have a shower, and then... wish for some kind of change of clothes of some kind, flop into bed without most of the one set she has on, and attempt to go to sleep.

It's really, really hard to sleep without Zash. She misses him. Misses being held and snuggled. Misses feeling his psychic presence, his emotions and thoughts and affection. The temperature in this room is perfectly regulated, and yet. ... She still feels cold.

She does eventually manage it anyway.

Who is this human?

She's been honest about everything, the plants guarantee that. That's fine. Being honest is one thing. But the thing with the doctor...

The way plants reason is very relational. Examples, comparisons. And when this human was getting very, intensely angry at the doctor for hurting humans, experimenting on them, and killing them... the plants heard. And one of them presented the thoughts and feelings she'd been having then, next to the thoughts and feelings she was having when Knives was grilling her about plants, and sent him a single emotion:

[=]

The way she feels about plants is the same as the way she feels about humans. She doesn't just "care" about plants, she isn't just "honest" about wanting to help them. She cares about them and wants to help them just as much as if they were humans. More, one of the plants piped up, because she saw them as so much less able to stand up for themselves and so much more vulnerable.

Which is true, and is the thing Knives has been incandescently angry about for the past hundred and fifty years. The plants won't be angry on their own behalf, but he will be angry for them.

This human is also angry.

And then there's Zash. The plants conveyed that human thing, likened this human and Zash to those romantic relationships humans have. Knives doesn't understand those. But then one plant likened that to his own relationship with Zash and that was absolutely preposterous. There is no way they can share that, Knives and Zash are twins, they've inhabited each other's minds entirely, they've been together (apart) for a hundred and fifty years. Where does this human who hasn't even been around a year in his life get off on claiming she could ever compare?

(She didn't. The plants did. Because they saw the resemblance, themselves, in her mind.)

(Zash can't reciprocate that, he wanted to argue, except he... probably can.)

(Who could Zash love as much as he loves Nai?)

And now. Now this human is thinking about the times she's spent with Zash in Zash's mind. Sharing feelings and thoughts, like that. Zash can project to and read humans, it's not the same but it's the same.

No one can do that. Only him.

He wants to kill this human.

...and yet.

And yet.

And yet she still, eventually, wakes. She sits up and takes stock of her new situation, feels a horrendous echoing hole in her heart because it all happened, it’s all true, it wasn’t a dream. Zazi really kidnapped her, she really is in February, she really is probably going to die whenever she says or does the wrong thing. It’s scary and awful and she wants to hide in this little bedroom forever like a child until the big bad world outside sorts itself out and stops being awful.

But, well. That’s not how anything gets done, is it. She is now the one in the glass pod. How will she be, stuck in here? Hide in a corner, use up resources without replenishing in any way, consume and consume like Zazi says?

Yeah, no. If nothing else, she’d get bored.

So she tables her concerns for Morgan and Zash’s passage on the sand steamer now that she’s just gone. Boxed up is her frustration with how she and Zash went and did the stupid feelings thing, despite both of their best efforts and better judgements, and then she didn’t even get to fuck him! Her confusion and fear and despair at probably never getting to even see sunlight again before she dies are set aside. She will not be getting out of here, not anytime soon.

So while she’s here, she might as well work.

Knives looks somehow both angrier and less angry today. He doesn't say a single word all day long, but that includes not threatening her. When he wants to remind her to care for her (so, so fragile) physical form, he just pokes her with a foot and gives her a look.

And also he... relaxes, a bit. He isn't watching her like a hawk, so much. Still watching, still devoting all his attention to her, but there's... something different in the way he does it.

He looks a lot less ready to kill her at the drop of a hat.

She doesn’t understand the silent foot poking at first, but she catches on quickly enough, and eventually starts to view it with a sort of wry fondness. Yeah, it sure is dumb to have to solve the same stupid problem over and over again. She’s sorry, and she’s perfectly cooperative when reminded.

He is confusing and she doesn’t understand him, but it’s sort of like trying to figure out what’s going on with plants on the other side of their gate. She doesn’t have all the information, but she has some. Angrier and less angry implies… probably he still doesn’t have any real issue with her? And finds that intensely frustrating. Poor Nai. She’s not sorry, exactly, but she does recognize that it’s fucking hard to be confronted with something you didn’t expect to ever exist.

But she thinks she’s getting somewhere. Fuck you, Conrad, there is someone Zash loves in there, and you might have buried him deep under a pile of misanthropy but she will drag him out if she can. If he’ll let her. (The comparison doesn’t occur to her, but it’s sort of like the way she decided to drag red plants back from the edge, actually.) That takes time and patience, though, so for now: she will teach this person all she knows as she uses it to help as many plants as possible.

While they’re working, the Jeneora plant flips from red to blue. Yvette doesn’t actually notice, because she’s in the middle of an equation to help figure out how to heal another one.

Knives does. And immediately abandons Yvette to go float over to the plant and touch the glass. The plant unfurls to match him, but they don't do the glowing thing. They just stay there, looking at each other, in silence.

Yvette finishes her equation and looks for confirmation and an extra pair of eyes, and. … there is no Nai. What? Huh?? Did he just wander off, how is she supposed to input any of this into the console without him present to be sure she’s not secretly murdering the pla—

Then she sees where he went.

Oh.

She knew she could do it, but. Damn if it’s not another thing entirely to see the math become reality. She sets her papers and pencil aside and. Yeah. She can just be happy.

(There are tears in her eyes. She hasn’t noticed.)

Knives spends a long, long time there. Unmoving. Nearly half an hour, just floating there.

Then he'll float back and stand by the console and wait for her to resume.

He looks unperturbed. There is no evidence that he's feeling... anything. No evidence, except for the last half hour.

It’s okay if he takes a while. She packed her lunch today, so she can just have that while she waits.

Well, she will beam at him and say, “I’m really glad she’s feeling better.”

And then, yep. Back to work. With occasional reminders to take care of her fragile human form by someone who ostensibly hates them all. She takes them with good grace, because yeah, she’s really bad at it when she’s working. Sorry.

She. Did Zash teach her that? Zash himself keeps slipping into calling them "it" whenever he spends too long around humans. He tried to explain it once, how humans think plants are machines, and Knives still does not understand how this could possibly not make Zash absolutely livid and want to destroy things. Zash just, just smiled sadly and said "Ask the plants." and Knives knocked him unconscious and left.

So, so this human has been around Zash and Zash felt okay saying that plants aren't machines and now the human believes him and uses the right pronouns and.

Knives is really fucking angry and he has no idea who or what at. Maybe himself.

“… are you all right?” she asks after a while, hesitantly, when it’s obvious enough to her that he’s having… some kind of emotion.

"No."

“Okay. Um. Can I help?”

"Help the plants."

What the fuck is this human.

She frowns a little. That didn’t seem like an answer of what was wrong, and how she could help. That seemed like ‘it’s not important, focus on your work.’

“… All right. But you matter too, so. Let me know if I’m needed elsewhere.”

But then yes she’ll go back to doing her job. Still a little concerned about him, but he’s expressed his preferences and she will follow them and if she doesn’t understand what’s going on then oh well.

What the fuck is this human!!

YES, YES, HE GETS IT PLANTS, THIS SITUATION IS ANALOGOUS TO HOW SHE FEELS ABOUT OTHER PLANTS AND ABOUT HUMANS, YES SHE CARES ABOUT HIM INDIVIDUALLY, NO HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND AND IS MAD ABOUT IT.

CAN THEY MOVE ON.

YES? THANK YOU.

????? He is so incredibly upset, and she can tell, but doesn’t have enough to understand. She’s just going to keep doing her job??? She guesses???? Much better to ignore the strange scary knife man and his black box of feelings and just get lost in math and problem solving. Except she can’t entirely, because the scary knife man is, like, right there, having his emotional whatever it is. Constipation, maybe. She can’t help but poke at it a little, in her mind, try to figure out what’s wrong.

Eventually the hypothesis she decides on is that he’s probably mad that humans could have done this and didn’t. That makes the most sense. She’s also kind of mad about that, really.

And yeah, it’s pretty fair to want to ignore that and just focus on being better! She supports this. She continues doing equations, a bit more happily, now.

WHY IS SHE HAVING THESE THOUGHTS NOW.

HE HATES HER.

(They are such reasonable thoughts. Yes he's mad that humans could have done this and didn't. That wasn't what he was mad about just then but IT IS NOW.)

(Beats being mad about WHAT IS THIS FUCKING HUMAN.)

Yep, she thinks she totally figured it out, and has no idea she gave him an even better thing to be mad about! Instead she’ll just continue happily working with no fucking idea of what she’s done to his internal state.

She still wants to teach him the logic of how to do this himself, though!!! Doing it personally is nice and all, and she will happily continue, but since she’s a squishy human and will die eventually she wants her work to outlast her. He is not a squishy human, so clearly he is a better repository for how to do this than she is.

The computers are recording everything she says and does anyway, he made sure to have the doctor set that up, so he doesn't have to rely on his own memory.

...but also he wants to learn, himself. For some reason. And he wants her to teach him. For some STUPID reason.

Then she will! Happily.

She does however still have those annoying human needs like ‘sleep,’ though.

Yeah, he knows. It's dumb.

Whatever.

For what it’s worth, the plants will compare her annoyance to his and offer an [=], so it’s not like she’s doing it to spite him personally. Though, that might make it worse, really.

Anyway, she goes and takes care of human needs, kicks herself for forgetting to ask about more clothes, and then goes to bed. And misses Zash.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes two of them.

Zazi shows up, sometimes, to chat. Not while she's working, because Knives is still shooting their bugs off whenever they show up in the plants room, but when she's taking her breaks, or right after waking up, or right before going to sleep. They've decided they like Yvette, and they're getting her help with coming up with more puns. And they're starting to get pretty optimistic that Knives won't kill her at all!

No. He won't. He's coming to realise this, to his great annoyance.

Her death no longer constantly imminent, she does get new clothes and a toothbrush and a hairbrush and other things associated with the maintenance of one’s human. She can in fact do any advocating for herself and her comfort! Imagine that.

Honestly, she kind of likes Zazi, too. Talking to them is a nice change of pace as she settles in to something almost resembling a routine.

Would Zazi like to learn math? They’ve probably figured a lot of it out, but that’s not the same as someone teaching them, and, well. If humanity gives nothing else to the natives of the planet they crash landed on, she strongly feels like the ability to do math is a pretty fucking good way to be remembered.

Ooh, can they learn can they learn? Pretty pretty pleeeease, Knivesyyyyy?

...fine. He's not that mad at Zazi anymore anyway.

Yeeeeeeey!

Excellent! Then Zazi gets math lessons.

He doesn't understand.

Every day, he follows her, and he watches her work. Every day, she does good work. She teaches him things. She helps the plants.

Why couldn't the doctor have done this? He did so much work on Tesla.

(The doctor's work is only to destroy, never to heal.)

He doesn't know when exactly he gets completely convinced that she just isn't... bad. At all. Doesn't know what the precipitating event is, if there even is one. He spends his time with her, and he watches her work, and his sisters read her mind and try their best to communicate it to him. It keeps coming up the same, every time. Every time. She's being honest.

Was Zash right? Is that what's going on? But it makes no sense. Even this human agrees that other so-called "plant engineers" aren't like this. They're awful. They use and use and use. They hurt his sisters, hurt them until they die. And he wanted to save them but couldn't. Couldn't find them all in time, and couldn't keep them alive. Not at the rate humans consume them. Not in the long term.

It's noticeable, to Yvette, how he gets more comfortable with her over time. Stops glowering quite so much. Starts talking to her more like someone who can be listened to.

He... can sort of see. What Zash saw, here.

He likes her fire. He likes the way she gets so absorbed in her work she just starts to run her mouth. He likes that she is...

...angry, like him...

...and compassionate and kind and loving, like other plants.

Like Zash.

He doesn't understand. But he wants to.

Knives trusts her. That's the thing that's happening, here. He's starting to trust her. She doesn't have any ulterior motives, she just is like that.

If he leaves her to it, she'll keep doing what she's doing.

She will keep saving his sisters.

And one day, while she's being particularly annoyed at some dumb decision some human made, he laughs at it.

And then he notices what he just did and... panics. That's a dumb thing to happen, but he panics.

What is going on.

"I have something to do," he says abruptly, then he turns around and leaves.

"Um? Okay," she says, bewildered. This is not normal Nai behavior. She was kind of in the middle of something, reading diagnostics from the console, and hadn't finished following this potential lead to see if it went anywhere. It irks her to just go and put it down without getting to a decent stopping point. ... But trust is important, and to have it she needs to be trustworthy, so she will. Back away from the console like a good human. Leave it be for later, when he's here, so he can know that she will not abuse his trust. And try to figure out something else to do, she guesses.

(She really hopes he's not going to go kill people.)

It's not really clear what she should do with herself without work to hyperfocus on, though. Um. This is hard. She could probably explore the facility? Without trying to leave? She can navigate back to her own room and the kitchen just fine, by now, but there is a lot of retrofitted spaceship to wander around in.

The bug on her hair buzzes a bit.

"Mmm? Somewhere you'd like me to go?"

It buzzes a bit more then takes off.

"... Okay, sure, but please remember I will be much less interesting if I am dead," she says, a little bemused, but: yeah okay, sure. Is... she going to be shown Conrad's horrible experimental lair with his unwilling human subjects? Because she hasn't seen any hint of it since coming here, but probably it's nearby, right? It'd just be practical. (And also she will absolutely break it into tiny, tiny pieces if she can do so safely.)

It turns out that no! It takes numerous twists and turns but as they walk the architecture gets... nicer. Cleaner. Less old and destroyed. A newer area of the ship/city, or one that wasn't as affected by the destruction as the plant room was. And the specific room she's being led to is a big, spacious one with a very tall ceiling and a single, beautiful piano in the middle.

".... Huh."

She hasn't seen a piano since back in Jeneora Rock. She'd never gotten around to playing that one because it was in an awkwardly public spot, and she was kind of busy doing other, more important things. So the last time she played was back in December, and that seems like several lifetimes ago. It's really very tempting to go play. Hopefully her skills haven't atrophied too much from lack of use, her tutor would be livid.

But... this whole place feels... something. Sacred, maybe. Certainly well kept. How about she investigates thoroughly before she touches anything, hm?

The bug nestles itself on her hair again and goes quiet.

It's not decorated. Other than the piano, a stool, and a small box with a pile of what turns out to be sheet music, there's nothing there.

And there's some sheet music on the piano itself, above the keys, neatly placed and ready to be read and played.

Huh. Okay. Then... she's tempted. What songs are available to play? There are a few she could do from memory, but they're not the fun ones.

The sheet that's on the piano itself seems to be just the one song. It's not terribly complicated, certainly not for her, though it is a two voices song with some interesting cross-hand moments. From looking at it it looks somewhat melancholic, with some interesting higher notes that will probably sound very nice in harmony.

It does look like it'd be reasonably fun. A pretty good warm up song, actually. So. ... Yeah, okay. She thinks it'll be okay. Trespassing probably isn't going to get her killed. Despite randomly leaving for no apparent reason, Nai's been relaxing around her lately. At worst, she expects him to be cross, and tell her to never come here again. And she hasn't in a while, and no one's here, and she doesn't have anything better to be doing right now.

She will in fact sit down, read through the song to familiarize herself with it, stretch her fingers, and play.

It's beautiful. A bit over three minutes long, and it almost feels like a story being told, its words long forgotten. It's not one she's heard before, except, perhaps, very distantly, from months ago at a town that no longer exists.

She'd been too far away to hear it then. Maybe if she had, then she'd understand some of its significance. As it is now, it just looked beautiful and like it'd be fun.

But she plays it well enough, and it's more beautiful when heard instead of written, and it really was fun to finally get to play again.

She finishes it, then goes poking around in the box for another song to play, humming some of the last one's tune to herself as she does.

Knives takes a seat next to her at the piano. It's unclear when he arrived, he's silent as death.

But warmer. This close to her, he's as warm as Zash is.

She jumps a little, surprised. Um??? Um.

"Oh, hello. Sorry, I didn't mean to distract you from your, um, thing?"

Why does he look so intense. Because, uh, she's got a decent feel for his microexpressions by now and. That is extremely intense and focused and it has her concerned.

He grabs the sheet music she'd just been playing from, puts it together neatly, then summons some floating blades to place it into the box. Some other blades gently nudge her away from said box so he can fetch another sheaf which he then places on the piano for both of them to read.

Because this song needs four hands.

It's a duet.

Without saying anything, he starts playing; his part of the duet lasts about thirty seconds before hers begins, so that's how long she has to get her bearings and join him. And while this is quickly clear just from reading the sheet it becomes even clearer as he plays:

This is the original song. It's meant to be played by two people. The song Yvette had just been playing is a modified version of it, made to be played alone, but between listening to Knives's part and reading the sheet music itself it becomes painfully obvious that there was something very important missing from what she'd been playing, that you can only notice when you listen to the original, like this.

Oh, hell, what has she just gotten herself into. Something she can't get out of except by putting her heart into it, clearly, because obviously this is very important to him. And... probably because he played it with Zash. Yeah, uh, good job, Yvette. You're in for it now, whatever 'it' is.

She'd really prefer to have some more time to familiarize herself with this before she's thrown into the deep end, but, um, okay sure. She waits for the appropriate moment, and then she'll pick up her part.

He doesn't judge her for her mistakes. If it seems like she needs a redo, he'll pause and redo, or gesture at the correct keys or straight up show her how it's done. At times he seems to get frustrated, probably at having to physically show her stuff rather than being able to just share his mind with her, but...

...he started crying at some point. Silently, just two lines of tears running down his cheeks from his eyes. His expression doesn't change, and he doesn't otherwise acknowledge his feelings, but he's definitely crying.

She doesn't make very many mistakes, actually, though she does make them. She had her warm up, and it was even on a song that's based on this one, and she is very much trying her best. It's extremely stressful, though. She is probably the most anxious he's ever seen her, even beating out when she first arrived and literally feared she was about to die. They are not following the (read: her) standard piano playing procedure!!! Usually she'd read over the whole thing and maybe quickly practice the hardest parts before putting it all together instead of just, just. This!!! Duet with a guy who knows this song like it's his own heart, because in a way it kind of is, no time to breathe you're in the deep end and and and and.

It's fine. This is fine. She does not need any redos, she is fine she will make her damn tutor proud and she will awkwardly fill in for this lonely man's twin and if she flubs a little then then then it's his own damn fault, okay!

When the song is concluded she lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. In sort of a nervous whine. She eases up from her hyperfocus to look at him and. Yep he's. He's crying. Um.

He spends a few seconds staring at the piano keys, not saying anything.

Then he gets up and walks away.

??????????

"Okay, bye???" she says in a very small voice, still a little shellshocked.

A few seconds later Zazi walks into the room.

"Both twins, huh?"

She’s still a bit slow on the uptake, she’s usually much more quick to parse Zazi’s implied meanings.

“… What?”

"Nothing, nothing. We didn't know you could play but we made a bet and boy did it pay off."

“The… piano? I. Zazi I would have appreciated a warning before accidentally walking in on half a man’s bleeding heart and casually playing it for funsies.”

"Where would the fun in that be? And besides, he got really excited that you were playing with his instrument."

“Oh, so you’ve graduated to innuendo now, is it,” she snorts rolling her eyes, but her lips do twitch because, well. … it was a pretty good one. “Shit. Right. Um. I’m going to go back to my room now, I guess.” Her mouth twitches again, and okay, she can’t resist. “Since he did do a number on me in his enthusiasm.”

They laugh delightedly and then their little bug buzzes and starts leading the way. "Keep going like that though and you will bag both twins," they call after her as she's leaving.

“Hooray for me, the full set,” she says, but, um. Well, now she’s embarrassed and going to go hide in her room. She’s aware that Zazi can absolutely see her hide under the covers but damn it she’s going to do it anyway because. Because.

(Noooooo no no no twin threesome fantasies are not for involving real people because they are fantasies and therefore are entirely fictional and they are better that way!!!)

After about an hour a child appears at her door. This is notable because the child is not Zazi. She's platinum blonde like Nai and she's wearing a simple sleeveless white dress that goes down to her knees and she's barefoot.

By this point she’s screwed her head back on from where it popped off at playing the piano. She’s had a shower and is lounging on her bed, reading. (Among the things humans require for maintenance is literature, in her opinion.)

She looks up at her door opening, blinking. “Oh, um. Hello. Can I help you?”

"...you? You are the human Master Knives is obsessed with?" she asks, stepping into the room with a look a jungle cat might reserve to something it hasn't yet decided whether it's prey. Not that Yvette will get the reference but she'll get the look.

… why does she feel like she is in quite a lot of danger right now.

“Probably, he doesn’t tend to keep a lot of pet humans around,” she says, a little warily. “I’m Yvette, it’s nice to meet you?”

"...no. No it's not.

"Why does he like you?" She starts pacing back and forth around Yvette as if trying to discern her true nature. "What so special about you? Why are you still alive?"

She sets her book aside and draws herself up to a sitting position.

“Well, I have put quite a lot of work into healing plants, so, uh. That’s probably it? To all three questions. I don’t think I’m otherwise all that remarkable.”

"You're playing dumb. Stop doing that."

Her brow furrows.

“… Fine. But my answer nonetheless remains the same. I don’t think I’m an outlier, I just think I was the first idiot to trip into all of this.”

She smirks. "Idiot is right," she says, with a purr in her voice that really clashes with her childlike appearance. "Well, he'll forget about you soon enough, and then I'll have him for myself again."

And off she goes without waiting for a response.

The fuck was any of that???

But, yeah she’ll just let creepy predator girl who is maybe having jealousy issues with Nai leave without any kind of bye or anything? That seems like the best option for her own safety.

None of the myriad superpowered people in the compound come to bother her for the rest of the day.

Well, uh. Good???

Despite this thought, she does wander out of her room to see if Nai is back with the plants. Because if he is, then she can therefore throw herself into work and stop having confusing human feelings. That sounds much better than having those confusing human feelings in a compound surrounded by people who mostly all think humanity are scum.

Knives is there, floating in front of another plant, a red one, and glowing while he heals her. He doesn't acknowledge Yvette at all.

Oh. Uh.

That's technically here, but also not what she was hoping for. She's not sure what she was hoping for, actually, now that she thinks about it. Pretending everything is normal and the world hasn't tilted sideways seems... like an impossibility right now. Mostly she just wants to distract herself with work. And is too damn trustworthy to pick it back up again without him to supervise her, because she's trying to make a fucking point, here.

... She'll just go back to her room and read, then.

No she won't.

An X of blades appears in front of the exit before she can leave the room, and then another blade whose point is in the direction of the console appears next to her, swaying back and forth like some video game arrow pointing at her goal.

But then the X disappears, after spending a few seconds there. If she really wants to she can go back to her room, but... he wants her here.

???????

O...kay???

Well that definitely looks like permission to work even though he's clearly distracted, so. She will just. Do that.

Good.

He won't supervise her for the rest of today, though; he'll just flit between plants and do his thing with them while seemingly paying her zero attention. Also, given the number of them he can do this to, he clearly has a lot more stamina for this than Zash does, and the limiting factor is the plants' own stamina, not his.

She notices the difference in stamina compared to Zash, but it makes sense. He's spent all of his time doing this, and comparatively, Zash has been running around in the desert with humans, just trying to get to them to help. Instead of building his plant healing stamina.

But anyway yes, work. Soothing, soothing work, where her brain can be used for things that are not latent sexual panic things that are confusing and squishy and not math. Math is better. Math is here for her.

Knives isn't here for her except for how he apparently kind of is. It's unclear exactly how much attention he's paying but given the blades from earlier, well. Some, at least.

She will not be thinking about that, because apparently her type is extremely powerful and dramatic men and man is that inconvenient. It is strictly math time. Plants will be so helped and she will calm down. Yes.

And then when she's tired and cranky and is noticing that her dumb human body is reaching its dumb limits forced upon her by biology, she can go to bed like a normal person.

...

"Goodnight, Nai," she says before she goes, feeling a little silly with how he's ignoring her. But, well. He clearly does trust her, and she does really appreciate that.

He turns around to stare at her as she leaves (he hasn't been healing the plants anymore for the last hour, just chatting to them) but before she's fully gone he says, "Good night."

Nai...?

She smiles a little and then goes to bed without further incident.

And while she sleeps, someone else arrives in February. A plant from a sand steamer that Yvette had spent quite a lot of time with.

Oh, yes. The nut who calls him "God" was meant to go fetch it. He really can be quite useful sometimes, it'll be a little bit of a shame to have to kill him if the Punisher succeeds at getting Zash here. Not much of a shame, he's also a prick, but, you know.

He goes to fetch the plant and find a place for her while he talks to her and reintroduces her to their sisters. Hi, hello, yes, he is Nai, these are—

—yes, indeed, that one human is in this compound, she was on the sand steamer? Huh. Interesting. And then they—she did what? And Zash did what? And she thought what???

What?

What.

Yep.

She did and thought all of those things. Fought desperately to keep this poor plant alive, and raged quietly at the callous humans that wanted to squeeze her dry, and hated herself a little for what she was being an accomplice to, and loved Zash, and despaired because this meant she would break his heart. All where this plant could see. All shared willingly with her, and treating and respecting her as a full person.

Zash helped them talk to each other more directly, and, once the communication bridge was raised, Yvette was quite happy to. And good at it.

There's. There's one explanation. One blindingly obvious explanation, now that he's thought of it. But it... it makes no sense. Why now? A hundred and fifty years late, too late?

...she's angry, and she's loving, and she's compassionate...

Why now?

No answer is likely to make itself apparent without words, with how she has that irritating problem with not being psychic.

But after she's cared for her dumb human biology she will be back in the plant room with her water bottle, looking to help.

Knives is already there, talking to a plant. He does react when she walks in, though, turning around and floating over to her. "Where were you born?" he asks with no preamble.

"Uh, December?" she says, blinking.

Big city plants... he doesn't know them that well. December is far, he doesn't visit it often, doesn't have the chance to.

"When?"

"Twenty-six years ago...?"

He looks up at the plants for a couple of seconds then nods and looks back at her. "You were born from parents? A mother and a father?"

"Yyyyyes that is how it usually works with us."

That rules out the standard scenario. He nods again then goes to float next to the console, chewing on something.

??????

"... Uh, while you're feeling talkative," she says, trying to move on from... whatever the heck that was about... "I had a visitor yesterday. Uh, small blond girl, looked like a child but spoke like a carnivore, one gold eye one blue?"

"Elendira."

"Okay. Well, she seemed..." Obsessive? Jealous?? Murderous??? "... like she had some sort of problem with me, and, um. I am squishy and delicate. So. Do I need to be worried about her?"

Because she is. She totally is.

"No."

Because if Elendira does anything to this human(?) Knives will make sure she lives to regret it.

"... All right. Thank you." Pause. "I've got to be honest but you attract a lot of fucking weirdos."

"Tell me about it."

... This earns a little giggle from her, actually.

"That sounds difficult. I'm sorry."

He offers her a small smile.

Then it's back to his usual scowl.

She thinks that he might just have a resting bitch face, actually.

Anyway. With all of that out of the way they can get back to work! The thing that makes them both happiest, honestly.

Yeah. Yeah, it actually is.

...but after about an hour he asks, "How similar are you to your parents?"

"Hm? Very. I look like almost a carbon copy of my mother and my dad's also a plant engineer. Um. A good one, not, like." She waves vaguely.

"He's not here. You are."

"Well, yes, but I also don't think Zazi would have any reason to... also kidnap my dad??"

"He was not on the sand steamer," he says with a frustrated sigh. "Or in Jeneora. He's in December."

".... Also yes, but. Most of his work's been on linking plants together to let them help each other instead of separating them into little groups. Which was, for some fucking reason, the standard procedure before. I, he's. I know he's not here but he's doing good."

...a lot of plants linked together, was it. In December. Where this plant engineer was working with them. And he was one of the better ones, so that she wouldn't be punished or mocked when she turned out—better. And instead she grew up to be like this. Like she was meant to be.

"Hm," he replies, noncommitally.

"There are other good humans, really," she adds, softly.

"Yes, I am aware that that is an opinion you have."

She gives a heavy sigh, dropping her shoulders. Ugh.

"There's a, a range of goodness in humans. Statistically speaking it's extremely unlikely for there to be a single fantastical outlier, much less one that falls into the specific circumstances to meet you. And you seem to actually like me. Am I a bad human?"

"You're not bad." Jury's still out on that other part, though.

That causes her to smile, just a little.

"Well, thank you. So... what evidence do you need to rule me out as an outlier?"

"A human who is very slightly less good than you are. A human who is better. Many of them."

"Okay." Huff. "I can't get that for you right now, I don't really specialize in meeting and judging humans by a metric of goodness, but. Maybe some day." Zash would be able to. Unfortunately, she's not Zash. "Though I really feel like the doctor's just the absolute worst human for you to have kept around for so long."

"That much I know."

"Just, just an absolute not-even-good-enough-to-be-considered-garbage person that is terrible even when being an instrument of someone else's will," she continues, seriously.

"He does what I want. I don't care about the rest."

"Even though it's probably why you're surrounded by crazy people???"

"They don't bother me often. Some of them are useful. The telekinesis human brought me the sand steamer plant. The cross gun human is bringing me Zash."

"Th—" she stops. "The what. Bringing you Zash???"

"The human with the gun. That is a cross." This is so frustrating if she were a proper plant he'd be able to just show her who he means.

"No, no, I, um. Recognized her from the description, I just. Morgan?"

"I don't know the name." Why would he memorise the names of the crazy humans the doctor makes. Most of them don't last a decade anyway.

"Right. Um. Okay."

This seems to have neatly shut her up, actually.

The plants are presenting him with analogies. And saying this is important.

"Did the human lie?" he eventually asks.

".... not directly but. ... yes."

"Humans lie," he says, nodding. "...I'm sorry she lied. I did not tell her to."

"I. Thanks."

She's still upset.

Relatable, he gets upset for very long too even when things are no longer being actively upsetting, but for some reason this is distressing him.

He doesn't know what to do about it.

She is mostly wishing Zash were here to hug her, actually. She misses hugs. But more cerebrally, she also wants to actually talk to Morgan, hear her side of things, because. Probably the truth is complicated?? The truth is usually complicated.

One part of that makes sense, at least. Though it's not like it's possible to talk to humans. He stares at her intently and tries very, very, very hard to project to her.

Yvette appears to have no idea whatsoever. Though she does eventually notice him staring.

"Oh, um, I'm okay. Just a little sad," she assures.

...nngh.

Whatever. Working is simpler. Untangling this stuff seems like it'll take a while.

Working is simpler! And they're almost done getting their new guest settled, and honestly Yvette doesn't feel even a little bit bad about this one being stolen. She saw what was happening and, well. Look, she wants to help the humans too, but there are more sustainable ways to do that, which means more helping in the long term. Granted, uh, Nai is.... not going to let any of them do those sustainable things, but. .... she'll try to convince him, okay. She's working on it.

But once that's all squared away she does actually leave the console to go gently touch the tank that was formerly on a sand steamer.

"Sorry I can't say your name properly, but. It's nice to see you again and I'll help you feel better, okay? You did really good work and deserve to rest for a while," she says, while thinking a sort of wry 'Yeah, me too' at technically being in kind of the exact situation. Of being kind of kidnapped. Again: she's working on it.

When she returns to the console he's sitting cross-legged in the air and staring intently at her again, frowning deeply.

????

"Is... something wrong?" she asks, blinking.

"Yes. No. Maybe." Words, man, they fucking suck no matter what the Beast thinks.

"O...kay. Can I help?"

Funniest thing, she feels like they've been here before.

"Yes."

"Oh, good! How?"

Because she wants to!!!

"I don't know."

He sounds so incredibly frustrated.

"Oh." She droops a little. "Can you... describe what is wrong to me so I can maybe diagnose what is going on."

He shakes his head. "I don't know what you are."

"... Human??? I didn't realize that would be in question??"

"Are you?"

"Yes?? I think I would have noticed if I weren't by now??"

"Would you have? How do you know?"

"You... have cool psychic powers and a healing factor and had as I understand it an extremely accelerated childhood. I have had none of those things."

"The plants have learned better."

Word words words words suck.

"... What?"

"Humans hate us. Zash and me.

"They don't hate you."

"Are you... you think I'm some kind of extremely stealthy plant hybrid. That. Is your explanation for why you like me."

"Obviously."

"That. Is. Very much not the obvious explanation to liking a human???"

"In hindsight."

"I really feel like you're just looking for a way to write off the rest of humanity and fit with your established worldview over following grounded evidence."

Fine. Fine, if he needs words to communicate he will. Make an attempt.

"You are like me. And you are like Zash. In... temperament. Tesla... didn't work. We didn't work. You grew up with humans, they listen to you. You care about plants like you do humans. You care about the Beast like you do humans. The plants said so. If the plants wanted to help, and be helped, and be heard—they made us. And it's been a hundred and fifty years, they know more about humans—here. On this planet."

She considers this.

"... Okay, I see the logic. It would be a very clever way to get what they wanted. I think I still ultimately disagree with you, but I've had more ability to personally interact with humans where they're not... so desperate and scared and, and incentivized to be vicious. I also think you're majorly handicapped in your ability to perceive tone and body language and use these annoying words things. So I do not feel at all like an outlier, but I can understand how you would. Um. I'd say do you want to meet some humans, but I think that'd go terribly, actually. Really what I want to do is shove you at Zash and try to get him to explain why some humans are great, but."

And there's that familiar longing for Zash again.

"That is the point. He needs to explain. You need to explain. I don't need to explain you. You are you, desperate and scared."

"... Right. I.... think I understand. You want humans who are good under all circumstances. Because we're, er, other humans who are not me because I've been purposefully predictable, are like a black box that sometimes outputs awful things and sometimes outputs good things. And you can't predict it at all, and that inability is terrifying when there are lives on the line. Which there are, and the people you do understand are dying to the people you don't. Does that sound correct?"

"Because plants are good under all circumstances. Zash is good under all circumstances. They are just good. You are just good. If I," and he runs a frustrated hand through his hair. "If I never let you leave. You will help the plants. If I do, you will help the plants. And the humans. And even the Beast. That is not how humans are."

“I mean, I think I have been less than perfectly good in some circumstances. I did kill a guy.” And because of his self hatred and how he’s part human, he is not an available example, because he believes he needs to be the bad guy to save them all. “Otherwise… that makes sense. Mm. And you just want there to… never be any bad intentions or actions, ever?”

"You killed him because he was evil." His frustration is continually increasing. Why can't they just share a mind. He does not know what constraints his sisters were operating under but not giving their new independent any means to properly talk is very bad. "It's not about what I want. It's about what is."

She’s also very frustrated, because man she is not good at undefined vague variables like ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ Can she please go back to her equations, everything makes sense there. Probably this is exactly what he’s feeling, too. Damn it. Apparently, she should have gone into philosophy instead of plant engineering, because that would be a better vector to save the world. Convincing this one guy that humans can be worth the trouble.

“…. This is a very hard conversation for both of us, I think, and we might both just be getting frustrated without really going anywhere. Would it help to break it into chunks?? God I wish I could just. Psychic at you.”

"Me too. It would be faster and more.

"Break it into chunks how?"