Moonstone: Scene 4
G Major Pensieroso
I was dreaming something really wonderful, but I can't remember what it was now. I hate that, you wake up and you can't remember something that was felt like it was absolutely a part of you. I wake up feeling a sense of loss when that happens. Rays of soft frosted light were streaming in through the skylights, so it had to be early Ultralight. The little sphere beside me was still filled with that blue flower.
"Peacock Water Lotus."
"AAAH!" I fell out of bed.
"Are you ok?"
"You scared the crap out of me."
"You mean, I startled you?"
"Yes, you startled me."
Itxata helped me get untangled from my blankets.
"Have you been here this whole time?"
"No, I came in just a few moments before you woke up. I thought you saw me."
"Well, no, I didn't."
"Obviously." She opened my closet doors.
"Oh no, none of that pink foo foo stuff! I refuse to be one of those stupid pink-wearing bubble heads that don't understand anything."
"So *that's* what you hate about being a Flower? You think that we're all just a bunch of foo foo idiots?"
GAH! She had me cornered. Oh well, better to tell her the truth than lie about it. "Well, yeah, most of the Flowers I've seen have been dumb pieces of fluff."
"Even me?"
"Well, no, you're more like a stubborn rock." I was rubbing my sore arm where I was sure I was bruised from her shoving me around. She laughed.
"I'll take that as a compliment. I think I have some new information that might make you feel better... but first... we have to get rid of all this pink!" She pulled everything out of my closet and stuffed it into the recycling bin. Poofs of pink feathers disappeared in a small cloud of incineration. She gave me a small mischievous smile. The next thing I knew, she was incinerating anything and everything that was pink in my room. Items on my desk, items in my desk, blankets, illumination units, chairs - nothing pink was spared from the recycle bin. She looked like she was having a devilish good time disposing of anything foo foo. By this time I was laughing so hard my ribs hurt.
"Ok, have I rid this room of the dreaded pink?" We looked around, searching for anything pink-ish. I noticed a faint feather under the bed. I reached down and pulled out the pinkest slippers I'd ever seen. She smiled and drug over the recycling bin. I held out the slippers for her. Gleefully she stuffed them down into the bin. That was the last bit of pink in my room. "How's that look?"
There wasn't a scrap of pink anywhere.
"Better."
"Ok, so now, let me tell you about your Kyr." She looked around for somewhere to sit, now that all the chairs had been recycled. "Well, maybe I'll show you first, then explain." She looked at my clothes. "I've got a lot to explain to you. Do you know where the dimensional printing unit is?"
"Yeah, oh wait, no I don't know where it is on this side of the house. I don't even know where I am in the house anymore."
"Well, come one, we're going to go look around this side of the house then. I'm sure your father would never have built a house without a proper sun wing."
"A what?"
"A sun wing - that's what the section of a house where a Flower lives is called. Don't they teach you anything about the Flower world in the Academy?"
"I was accepted into the league of scientists, I didn't take any domesticity classes."
"No wonder you have such a disdain for Flowers. I suppose you don't know any of the sciences behind the world of Flowers then, either."
"There is science in the world of Flowers?" I joked.
She rolled her eyes at me.
Walking in this section of the house was much different from the part of the house I was used to. The floors were covered a feathery-soft rug or blanket.
"Normally, the DPU is next to or in the wash room, so that you can always have fresh items ready."
"Really? Normally I just wear the same thing until it itches."
She gave me a look of horror.
"What?
"Let's just try some doors until we find the wash room."
I started opening doors at random, looking for a wash room. Pink. Every door that I opened had a pink feathery nightmare leaping out at me. I prayed silently that the wash room would NOT be pink too.
"I found it."
I went over to the doorway where Itxata was standing. It was white, blue, and green and not a trace of pink! It was also HUGE.
"Hellfire! What do you do in here, vacation?"
Itxata smacked me on my sore arm. "No swearing!" Come on, let's find the DPU so I can show you some things that should make you happier."
I wandered around the flower-shaped bath in the center of the room, in awe of the sheer size. Around the sides of the room in front of ceiling-to-floor hanging fabrics were three lounges. What on earth would you need a lounge for in a wash room? Did Flowers bathe in front of an audience?
"Ok, bring your Kyr here."
Itxata had opened a linen closet that held linens and a strange looking DPU inside.
"Put your Kyr in the round opening right under the screen."
"It won't hurt it, right?"
"No, this is what it was made to do. Go ahead, put it in."
I looked down at the little sphere aware of how attached I had become. Itxata nudged me. I put the Kyr into the round opening and the DPU snapped to life.
"You remember that burning feeling when I told you to put your hand down?"
"Yeah, it hurt like a-oh, yes, it stung."
"This little Kyr took a sample of your original DNA to store, but also gave you a chemical from the plant. You see, that is how a Flower is linked to her flower. Your DNA and the plant's DNA are stored in the Kyr, and then the Kyr releases the optimized DNA hybrid back into your system, as a virus. You have truly become a Flower - you are a plant hybrid."
Before I could speak, I had to find my jaw which had dropped to somewhere around my feet.
"Most males are hybridized by their Mother-Flower upon birth, but females are not hybridized until the Flowering Ceremony, which we did secretly for you."
"I didn't know any of this. I know I wasn't taught that we are all hybrids!"
"Well, we're not *all* hybrids." Her voice sounded disgusted. I wanted to ask her more about that, but she clearly wasn't going to answer me.
"Now let's see, you need clothing. DPU, show me clothing articles." A full catalog of clothing items displayed on the screen. They were all blue, green, and gold.
"You see, when you joined with *your* flower, and fused into the Kyr, you became that flower, so now with the information stored in this Kyr, you can clothe yourself, create items you need, and more. DPU project hologram formal clothing. You certainly can't go around anywhere outfitted in those rags." The faster she talked, the more excited she got. The more excited she got, the faster she talked. I was having issues keeping up with her.
"But how did I choose that one flower? What was that goo?" That caught her attention.
"You don't choose a flower, it chooses you. That "goo" was a living metal that only allowed the flower that had chosen you to be seen."
"That goo was ALIVE?" I needed to vomit.
She looked irritated. "Do you know what flower chose you? Do you know the importance, the VALUE of your Kyr?!"
I knew my blank look was not what she wanted to see.
"There is only ONE Water Lotus in the ENTIRE Flower world. The Peacock Water Lotus chose YOU. A Kyr is the most valuable piece of equipment a Flower has, and yours is the ONLY ONE OF IT'S KIND - YOURS IS THE KYR OF THE WATER LOTUS!"
Now I knew why there were lounges in the wash room, so that when you were yelled at so vehemently, you had somewhere to sit down.
"You wanted rank? You wanted to be distinguished? You wanted confidence? Every male and every female that sees you will know *instantly* that you are the only Water Lotus. There cannot even be another Water Lotus until you are dead!"
I sat straight up. "What?"
Itxata immediately recognized with horror what her statement meant.
"You need to be tagged. DPU print full catalog item Full Formal Early Flower." While the DPU started happily printing my new clothing in molecular layers, Itxata pulled a round case from her draw-string bag.
"Give me your right wrist. I need to tag you." I held out my wrist for her.
"This tag is for your age. Green is too young, Brown is available, and Blue is appropriate age." She held out a thin piece of metal and it wrapped around my wrist in a slender bracelet that turned a shimmering brown-blue.
"This is your class tag. This tag will range anywhere from orange to white, but no one ever has white. You want the palest yellow shade you can possible have." Another piece of metal wrapped around my wrist to make a slender bracelet, but it went completely white, nearly invisible on my white Energy-race skin.
"This one must be the wrong one. Do you have another?"
"You can't have the wrong one, the tags are made from living metal, they adjust to each Flower." She stared, hard, at my wrist.
Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!
"Your clothes are done. You bathe and put on your new clothes while I go talk to your brother. And YES YOU HAVE TO BATHE EVERY DAY!" She shut the wash room doors.
How did she know I was going to ask that?
I'm a hybrid?
Who isn't a hybrid?
What does the white tag mean?
I shook my head. So much to learn. I started the running water into the giant flower bath. I noticed a little nob on top of the water faucet, so I pulled it.
"Hellfire!" I jumped out of the way of the falling water. I half expected to be smacked.
Falling water to bathe in?
So many new things.
Where's the soap?
I was dreaming something really wonderful, but I can't remember what it was now. I hate that, you wake up and you can't remember something that was felt like it was absolutely a part of you. I wake up feeling a sense of loss when that happens. Rays of soft frosted light were streaming in through the skylights, so it had to be early Ultralight. The little sphere beside me was still filled with that blue flower.
"Peacock Water Lotus."
"AAAH!" I fell out of bed.
"Are you ok?"
"You scared the crap out of me."
"You mean, I startled you?"
"Yes, you startled me."
Itxata helped me get untangled from my blankets.
"Have you been here this whole time?"
"No, I came in just a few moments before you woke up. I thought you saw me."
"Well, no, I didn't."
"Obviously." She opened my closet doors.
"Oh no, none of that pink foo foo stuff! I refuse to be one of those stupid pink-wearing bubble heads that don't understand anything."
"So *that's* what you hate about being a Flower? You think that we're all just a bunch of foo foo idiots?"
GAH! She had me cornered. Oh well, better to tell her the truth than lie about it. "Well, yeah, most of the Flowers I've seen have been dumb pieces of fluff."
"Even me?"
"Well, no, you're more like a stubborn rock." I was rubbing my sore arm where I was sure I was bruised from her shoving me around. She laughed.
"I'll take that as a compliment. I think I have some new information that might make you feel better... but first... we have to get rid of all this pink!" She pulled everything out of my closet and stuffed it into the recycling bin. Poofs of pink feathers disappeared in a small cloud of incineration. She gave me a small mischievous smile. The next thing I knew, she was incinerating anything and everything that was pink in my room. Items on my desk, items in my desk, blankets, illumination units, chairs - nothing pink was spared from the recycle bin. She looked like she was having a devilish good time disposing of anything foo foo. By this time I was laughing so hard my ribs hurt.
"Ok, have I rid this room of the dreaded pink?" We looked around, searching for anything pink-ish. I noticed a faint feather under the bed. I reached down and pulled out the pinkest slippers I'd ever seen. She smiled and drug over the recycling bin. I held out the slippers for her. Gleefully she stuffed them down into the bin. That was the last bit of pink in my room. "How's that look?"
There wasn't a scrap of pink anywhere.
"Better."
"Ok, so now, let me tell you about your Kyr." She looked around for somewhere to sit, now that all the chairs had been recycled. "Well, maybe I'll show you first, then explain." She looked at my clothes. "I've got a lot to explain to you. Do you know where the dimensional printing unit is?"
"Yeah, oh wait, no I don't know where it is on this side of the house. I don't even know where I am in the house anymore."
"Well, come one, we're going to go look around this side of the house then. I'm sure your father would never have built a house without a proper sun wing."
"A what?"
"A sun wing - that's what the section of a house where a Flower lives is called. Don't they teach you anything about the Flower world in the Academy?"
"I was accepted into the league of scientists, I didn't take any domesticity classes."
"No wonder you have such a disdain for Flowers. I suppose you don't know any of the sciences behind the world of Flowers then, either."
"There is science in the world of Flowers?" I joked.
She rolled her eyes at me.
Walking in this section of the house was much different from the part of the house I was used to. The floors were covered a feathery-soft rug or blanket.
"Normally, the DPU is next to or in the wash room, so that you can always have fresh items ready."
"Really? Normally I just wear the same thing until it itches."
She gave me a look of horror.
"What?
"Let's just try some doors until we find the wash room."
I started opening doors at random, looking for a wash room. Pink. Every door that I opened had a pink feathery nightmare leaping out at me. I prayed silently that the wash room would NOT be pink too.
"I found it."
I went over to the doorway where Itxata was standing. It was white, blue, and green and not a trace of pink! It was also HUGE.
"Hellfire! What do you do in here, vacation?"
Itxata smacked me on my sore arm. "No swearing!" Come on, let's find the DPU so I can show you some things that should make you happier."
I wandered around the flower-shaped bath in the center of the room, in awe of the sheer size. Around the sides of the room in front of ceiling-to-floor hanging fabrics were three lounges. What on earth would you need a lounge for in a wash room? Did Flowers bathe in front of an audience?
"Ok, bring your Kyr here."
Itxata had opened a linen closet that held linens and a strange looking DPU inside.
"Put your Kyr in the round opening right under the screen."
"It won't hurt it, right?"
"No, this is what it was made to do. Go ahead, put it in."
I looked down at the little sphere aware of how attached I had become. Itxata nudged me. I put the Kyr into the round opening and the DPU snapped to life.
"You remember that burning feeling when I told you to put your hand down?"
"Yeah, it hurt like a-oh, yes, it stung."
"This little Kyr took a sample of your original DNA to store, but also gave you a chemical from the plant. You see, that is how a Flower is linked to her flower. Your DNA and the plant's DNA are stored in the Kyr, and then the Kyr releases the optimized DNA hybrid back into your system, as a virus. You have truly become a Flower - you are a plant hybrid."
Before I could speak, I had to find my jaw which had dropped to somewhere around my feet.
"Most males are hybridized by their Mother-Flower upon birth, but females are not hybridized until the Flowering Ceremony, which we did secretly for you."
"I didn't know any of this. I know I wasn't taught that we are all hybrids!"
"Well, we're not *all* hybrids." Her voice sounded disgusted. I wanted to ask her more about that, but she clearly wasn't going to answer me.
"Now let's see, you need clothing. DPU, show me clothing articles." A full catalog of clothing items displayed on the screen. They were all blue, green, and gold.
"You see, when you joined with *your* flower, and fused into the Kyr, you became that flower, so now with the information stored in this Kyr, you can clothe yourself, create items you need, and more. DPU project hologram formal clothing. You certainly can't go around anywhere outfitted in those rags." The faster she talked, the more excited she got. The more excited she got, the faster she talked. I was having issues keeping up with her.
"But how did I choose that one flower? What was that goo?" That caught her attention.
"You don't choose a flower, it chooses you. That "goo" was a living metal that only allowed the flower that had chosen you to be seen."
"That goo was ALIVE?" I needed to vomit.
She looked irritated. "Do you know what flower chose you? Do you know the importance, the VALUE of your Kyr?!"
I knew my blank look was not what she wanted to see.
"There is only ONE Water Lotus in the ENTIRE Flower world. The Peacock Water Lotus chose YOU. A Kyr is the most valuable piece of equipment a Flower has, and yours is the ONLY ONE OF IT'S KIND - YOURS IS THE KYR OF THE WATER LOTUS!"
Now I knew why there were lounges in the wash room, so that when you were yelled at so vehemently, you had somewhere to sit down.
"You wanted rank? You wanted to be distinguished? You wanted confidence? Every male and every female that sees you will know *instantly* that you are the only Water Lotus. There cannot even be another Water Lotus until you are dead!"
I sat straight up. "What?"
Itxata immediately recognized with horror what her statement meant.
"You need to be tagged. DPU print full catalog item Full Formal Early Flower." While the DPU started happily printing my new clothing in molecular layers, Itxata pulled a round case from her draw-string bag.
"Give me your right wrist. I need to tag you." I held out my wrist for her.
"This tag is for your age. Green is too young, Brown is available, and Blue is appropriate age." She held out a thin piece of metal and it wrapped around my wrist in a slender bracelet that turned a shimmering brown-blue.
"This is your class tag. This tag will range anywhere from orange to white, but no one ever has white. You want the palest yellow shade you can possible have." Another piece of metal wrapped around my wrist to make a slender bracelet, but it went completely white, nearly invisible on my white Energy-race skin.
"This one must be the wrong one. Do you have another?"
"You can't have the wrong one, the tags are made from living metal, they adjust to each Flower." She stared, hard, at my wrist.
Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!
"Your clothes are done. You bathe and put on your new clothes while I go talk to your brother. And YES YOU HAVE TO BATHE EVERY DAY!" She shut the wash room doors.
How did she know I was going to ask that?
I'm a hybrid?
Who isn't a hybrid?
What does the white tag mean?
I shook my head. So much to learn. I started the running water into the giant flower bath. I noticed a little nob on top of the water faucet, so I pulled it.
"Hellfire!" I jumped out of the way of the falling water. I half expected to be smacked.
Falling water to bathe in?
So many new things.
Where's the soap?
posted by Peach @ 7:31 PM
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