Chapter Text
Olive really should be more alarmed right now. After all, it wasn't every day that she awoke to find someone looming over her in her own bedroom. That sounded like a problem for a slightly less sleepy Olive though, so she blinked her bleary eyes, shrugging off her general grogginess just long enough to confirm what part of her had already known.
It wasn't just anyone– it was her best friend, Iris.
Allowing her alertness to lapse for the moment, she yawned, stretching out as far as she could under her fluffy blankets. Olive balled up her hands and curled her toes, tensing her muscles lightly.
She was finally approaching some level of awareness when they began petting her, scattering her fragmentary thoughts to the wind. Olive melted back into her bed, luxuriating in the sensations of gentle scratching and light pressure.
" Shhhh, petal. It wasn't my intent to disturb your rest. This should only take a minute."
A blossom softly cupped her cheeks, and Olive instinctually breathed it in. What little brainpower she had available devoted itself to trying to identify the complex blend of floral aromas. Smelled like… flower.
Nailed it. Olive congratulated herself on the good job by allowing herself to sink further into the comfy bed. The room felt like it was spinning slightly, and she was torn between waking up fully to greet her friend and allowing herself to ride the wave of relaxing warmth back to sleep.
"There we go, nice and easy."
Olive wanted to speak up, but her brain and mouth weren't currently on the same page. Specifically, her brain was somewhere in a sea of cotton, and her mouth was hanging slightly ajar as a vine expertly stroked her sleepy head. More rest sounded so lovely right now… and would you look at that? She was already in bed…
It would be rude not to greet her friend at all though, she should at least say hello.
"Bwaaah." (Hello Iris, it's lovely to see you)
"Bwah to you too, petal."
"Fmnnh." (I find myself curious as to your presence in my bedroom)
"Is that so? Fascinating."
"Idinnh" (I do acknowledge that I'm far too tired to ask more questions right now, though)
"Of course. Goodness– you must be quite sleepy, kitten."
Olive wracked her brain. Something didn't seem right about that last comment, but she couldn't quite pin it down. Hmm. She was sleepy, so that wasn't it– but that was all they'd said, so maybe nothing was wrong? Then it occurred to her. She wasn't a kitten at all, that was a completely different thing! Iris must have gotten mixed up somehow.
"Mmh?" (Are you aware that you've mistakenly called me a kitten?)
"Was there something you wished to say, petal?"
With the sleepy haze blanketing her, it took longer than she'd prefer to get an actual word out.
"...kitty?"
"A term of endearment, petal. It's hardly the first time I've called you that."
Olive's confusion only grew at the explanation.
"Have you forgotten? You found it rather cute, as I recall."
Oh…
She didn't feel like she'd forgotten– but that was the thing about being forgetful, it usually didn't. Olive guessed it was kind of cute as a term, if a bit embarrassing, though it didn't seem like her to actually say so.
Regardless, the cat was out of the bag now. All she could do was roll with it.
"Mrow"
???
Abort, abort! That was rolling with it way too much, what was she doing?
" Adorable ."
The vine petting her redoubled its efforts, reducing her to a puddle and interrupting her internal panic at the um– unplanned vocalization. Before she could pull herself together enough to stammer out a deflection, Iris spoke.
"I'm going to help you get back to sleep, okay petal?"
They'd continued to pet her even as they spoke, and she was far past the point of being able to respond coherently. Olive made a vague noise of assent, and felt as they slowed to a gentler rhythm.
Iris applied just a touch more pressure with each pass, and she soon found herself drawn to the sensation, focus drifting inwards until it consumed her attention entirely. She felt tingly warmth flowing into her from where their vine made contact, and her mind began to grow pleasantly quiet.
Their pace continued to slow until her thoughts became thick and syrupy, leaving her reactions to each burst of pleasurable static delayed and sluggish.
She entered that odd, half-dreaming state where her mind drifted from thought to thought, rarely lingering long enough to produce anything of note. That was okay though, it didn't need to. All Olive needed to do right now was follow their lead.
Comfortably…
Effortlessly…
Down…
—
When Olive awoke for the second time, she almost wrote off her hazy memories as a dream– until she checked her tablet.
[VerdantV]: I may need to come by a bit early today to give your medications, petal.
[VerdantV]: I trust this won't be an issue.
Then, from a bit later–
[VerdantV]: On my way now.
Sitting up in bed, she pored over her hazy memories of that morning. Olive had barely been half awake for most of it, but she remembered Iris giving her her daily dose of Class-E's and helping her fall back asleep. There was one more thing she remembered, but she would have been far happier forgetting it.
She'd meowed at Iris???
Stars, that was embarrassing. What had she been thinking? Olive knew it was one of those moments that'd haunt her when she was trying to sle-
…
Olive knew it was completely okay, it was just a silly noise after all. Plus, she was literally sleepy! Iris wouldn't hold it against her.
Speaking of, Olive was glad she'd remembered to key her hab to Iris.
She would have felt really bad if they came over only to get stuck outside because she was too busy catching z's to let them in.
It was nice of Iris to help her get back to sleep, too. The petting was maybe a bit excessive, but what else could you expect from affini? It was like expecting a bird not to fly, or Olive to stop being so fierce and powerful. It just wasn't realistic.
The fact that it felt good was entirely beside the point.
She looked over at her night stand, and the col– resistance training aid that was resting on it.
The thought of wearing it wasn't any less daunting than it had been the night before, but she'd promised herself she was going to give the training her all. Olive should probably do some of her morning routine first though, you know, just to be responsible.
As she went about her day, she continued deftly handling important tasks as they came up, which coincidentally happened to be whenever she didn't have anything else to do but consider trying on the collar.
Honestly, it was starting to frustrate her a bit. She couldn't stop thinking about wearing it, but she also couldn't bring herself to actually try. The least her brain could do was let her distract herself, but instead hour after hour she found herself stealing glances, telling herself that she'd try it on any minute now.
But Olive didn't try it on that morning, evening, or even night. Instead she found herself once again laying in bed, glaring at the flowery band that was occupying so much of her mental real estate.
She flipped over.
Tomorrow would be the day, she was sure of it.
—
Watching Iris glide out of her hab after stopping by for her daily meds, Olive knew her time had come. She picked up the collar, taking a deep breath to try and psych herself up.
She could do this! Olive wouldn't let some silly accessory hold her back from being her best, most powerful self. Hadn't she conquered all the obstacles in her way so far?
Sure, maybe her initial bet with Miss Iris hadn't gone too well, but even if you could argue that she'd technically won there by enlisting Miss Iris's help afterwards, she'd be generous and rule that one a rare Olive loss. (0-1)
There were so many Olive victories to choose from though! She'd won when they first did testing by being really patient through the whole thing for Miss Iris, since it meant she'd get better results from her training– so that was one right there. (1-1)
The next one wasn't strictly training related, per se, but she'd won at hyperbowling (and no, it didn't matter that she'd gotten a little help, hypothetical Olive naysayer); and since Miss Iris was so proud of her, it definitely counted. (2-1)
That wasn't even getting into all the resistance training sessions! She'd given it her all each time, and Miss Iris told her that she only lost if she stopped trying her best, so would you look at that? At least 3 more wins for Olive. She was unstoppable. (5-1)
Plus, she was proud of herself for bouncing back and having a nice time after she messed up ordering at the cafe the other day, which pushed the total all the way up to 6-1! That was basically a perfect record, and it just went to show how much progress she'd already made.
Deciding to go for it before she could second guess herself even more, Olive hesitantly lifted the collar to her neck, wrapping it around and feeling for the mechanism. One side of it had a little button on top and bottom, and when she squeezed them the collar activated, vines from each side intertwining and locking in place.
Olive braced herself for the wave of flustering embarrassment…
-and it came, but it wasn't nearly as bad as when Miss Iris put it on her. Olive assumed it was because she was choosing to wear it herself, but whatever the reason, she'd take it.
Olive was doing it!
She'd hoped she could, but it was really reassuring to know for sure that she was fierce and resistant enough to handle being collared.
…At least at home.
Results in front of other sophonts not guaranteed (yet), but she'd get there. If she could keep this up, soon the collar wouldn't have any power over her, and that was an easy road to one thing–
Olive victory forever!
She decided to focus on getting used to the feeling for a bit first, though. You couldn't rush this sort of thing.
Still cozy in her bed, she spent the morning browsing the overnet on her tablet. Apparently the big trend on the ship right now was 'the touch-twister challenge'. Sophonts tried to read a long, complicated tongue twister of a poem to its end while on a hybrid Class-A/W whose effects ramped up whenever they weren't speaking; and that included hesitation and stumbling over words.
The one she was watching didn't make it very far, and by the end they– oh, oh stars. Her cheeks reddened. Switching from video to video hardly helped, as most seemed to end the same way. Olive was far from a prude (she'd have a terrible time on a ship with such a high percentage of florets if she was), but vines were going in places she wouldn't have thought possible and it was highly flustering to see.
Deciding it was time for a different activity, she went to take a shower, only to hesitate. The collar was waterproof, right? It was hard to imagine it wasn't, as that seemed like a solved problem where the affini were concerned, but maybe she should message Miss Iris?
…and let them know she was collared right now? No thanks.
Olive hopped in the spacious tub, letting the stream wash over her as she settled in to relax. She'd never get tired of having limitless hot water. At a certain point it probably crossed the line from chore to leisure activity, but as far as she was concerned, being warm and cozy was basically her number one job.
A while later she hopped out, laying back down and doing puzzles on her tablet. She'd discovered a bit of a quirk of the puzzle generation in some of them, which was that they were always made with a unique solution. On some of the harder difficulties, guesswork was required, but if a guess resulted in a non-unique solution for even a tiny piece of the puzzle, that meant she could rule it out without following the guess all the way to the end.
Olive knew she should probably get up at some point to make breakfast at the very least, but she was kinda low energy, so she figured it was fine to delay for a bit.
Plenty of puzzles later, she switched to reading, picking up a really cute historical romance about two early Martian colonists with a love of handwritten letters falling in love by correspondence (and the small retrofitted rover they named Thweep that delivered them back and forth).
Maybe Vell would like it-
Hm. Olive wasn't sure how to feel about that right now, but it was out of her hands , she didn't need to worry.
After an hour or two more of reading, her stomach was rumbling but she was having trouble convincing herself to hop out of bed and grab something to eat. She stopped reading, only to find that now she was just laying there, doing nothing but still incapable of making herself get up.
This happened far too often, but all she could really do was deal with it and hope her brain started cooperating with her soon. Oh well, there was nothing for it. She'd probably be feeling better by dinner time, so she could still get at least one meal in today.
Her hands grabbed the tablet, messaging Iris.
[OliveBranch]: I need help, could you come over?
[VerdantV]: Of course, petal. I'm on my way.
Oh, right. She could ask Miss Iris. Olive wasn't sure why she hadn't thought of that before today– or for that matter, before she messaged them. Something felt… odd, but she wasn't sure why.
Olive was still trying to pin down why she was feeling so strange when she realized something far more pressing– she was still collared.
She needed to fix that before Miss Iris got here.
Reaching up to the back of her neck, she hesitated, her hand hovering just an inch away.
No, come on! She'd literally put it on herself! It was okay for her to take it off.
So she should do that.
…Any moment now.
Olive was still trying to convince herself when she heard her hab door opening.
Nonono, this was mortifying.
She sat up a bit in bed, unable to lift her gaze to meet them as they entered her room. Olive braced herself for some playful teasing from Miss Iris, but it never came.
"Hello, petal. How can I help?"
Olive opened her mouth, then quickly realized she couldn't speak right now. Instead, she pulled out her tablet and messaged them again.
[OliveBranch]: I'm having trouble getting up and taking care of myself
[OliveBranch]: and I haven't eaten today
"You did good in reaching out. I'm very proud of you, petal."
She felt herself blush a bit at that for some reason.
[OliveBranch]: I just feel bad for not being able to handle it on my own
[OliveBranch]: it shouldn't even be hard
[OliveBranch]: and I don't want to inconvenience you
She was typing more, but Miss Iris spoke– and her tone demanded Olive's full attention.
" Listen to me, petal ."
"You never need to apologize for requiring help. Nothing you do will ever be an inconvenience to me, and even were that not the case, you are worth any inconvenience."
[OliveBranch]: I get what you're saying
[OliveBranch]: but
"No buts. You will accept that, or you will be repeating 'I deserve to be helped' until you've internalized the lesson sufficiently. Am I understood?"
[OliveBranch]: umm
[OliveBranch]: yes
[OliveBranch]: you're understood
"Good."
Olive couldn't help but fidget a bit in place. It wasn't that she didn't think it was okay for her to need help, or that she didn't deserve it– or at least she didn't fully believe that. It wasn't really the time to argue when Miss Iris took that tone though.
Vines delicately scooped her up, carrying Olive out of her room and placing her on the couch.
"This will do for now."
Olive laid there limp on the couch, unable to motivate herself to move. Miss Iris began traveling back and forth between her compiler and kitchen, speaking to her along the way. One of their vines stayed behind, resting in Olive's hands.
"I'd like you to give my vine a squeeze. Can you do that for me?"
It took Olive a moment, but she managed it.
"Wonderful, petal."
She was still feeling a little bad about the whole situation, but the praise from Miss Iris raised her spirits.
"Today I'll be making a terran pasta dish known as bucatini all'amatriciana. Are you familiar with it? Squeeze once for yes, twice for no."
Olive gave their vine two squeezes.
"It's a simple dish, consisting of just four main ingredients. Tomato, pecorino romano, guanciale, and noodles. The simplicity of the dish is supposed to allow each ingredient to shine, and although we'll also be using a dash of white wine as well as red and black pepper flakes, they serve only to highlight the main flavors."
It was kind of unfair that Miss Iris was so knowledgeable about all this when they didn't even need to eat. Had they learned all this… for her? Olive didn't know what she did to deserve her friend. They were kind and patient and caring, and everything they said was so interesting, and they helped her even though she was– like this.
Olive felt like she was going to tear up, so she hugged their vine to her chest and closed her eyes, letting their calming touch ground her.
Everything was going to be okay.