Ch1 Spruce Onions: Don’t Cry [A Human Domestication Guide Story]

[A very queer found family story inspired by and set in the universe of Human Domestication Guide (original work by GlitchyRobo, wiki can be found here: https://humandomestication.guide). Hopefully  this story will all make sense in a vacuum once it's complete, but you  can learn way more about the setting and the people who live in this  world from the wiki. Or, if you're here as a hardcore HDG fan, I hope  you enjoy my take on an HDG story!

General Content Warnings for  abuse, trauma, panic attacks, suicide, death and death threats and  near-death, self-harm, and otherwise very heavy topics. Chapters will  have more specific content warnings.

Chapter specific content warnings: death threats, abuse, trauma, panic attack, generally heavy topics

Been picking away at this first chapter for a while now, and I think  it's come to a natural place to end off for now. I plan to continue  writing this soon, but I have commissions and whatnot to work on so I  can't guarantee any semblance of schedule for this. Regardless, I have  big plans for this story and I hope you like it so far!]

Running. No thoughts, just running.

At least, that’s what Niamh told herself. Her mind was racing as fast as her feet, which was bad. If she got distracted she was bound to trip on the underbrush or uneven ground. If she tripped then it was all over, and she couldn’t afford to let them take Linna back to that stars-damned ship. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t let them.

Niamh was grasping her best friend's hand as tight as she could and pulled her along as fast as their legs could take them. Linna was running out of breath, but stopping for air was a luxury they couldn’t afford when they were being chased through the woods of an uninhabited planet by a bunch of goons.

Stars, why couldn’t things have just gone according to plan? Why did that smug asshole in the suit have to spot them sneaking away? Why couldn’t they just escape already?

Life aboard the SS God-Given Right was a living hell - at least for the impoverished crew, that is. The rich fucks aboard, however, were living in the lap of luxury. As was always the case, the gross excess of a few came at the cost of countless exploited others. No matter how badly the quadrillionaires wanted never to be on the same ship as the poor, their disgusting mega-yachts wouldn’t run themselves, and Earth itself would freeze over tenfold before they ever lifted a finger when there were others around to exploit.

But no more. No more servitude to those dipshits and no more suffering at their hands. Linna was the one thing in existence that Niamh cared about, and she would give her the contented life she deserved if it killed her… She hoped. Oh stars, please, just let Linna live a good life… Please just let her esca-

Her train of thought abruptly derailed as Niamh found she was suddenly in freefall. Oh fuck, please no.

“NIAMH!”

Everything was in slow motion now. Underneath her was a cliff face who-knows how tall. As she fell in a forward flip, she saw Linna reaching over the ledge from her upside-down, mid-air perspective. Thank fuck: Linna wasn’t tumbling down with her. She still stood a chance.

A selfish thought popped into Niamh’s head. I wish my last glimpse of Linna had been a happy one.

All she could do as she fell to oblivion was tell herself that everything would be ok; that Linna would escape, no matter the odds. She lacked the air in her lungs to even scream, but that was probably for the best. She didn’t want the last thing Linna ever heard from her to be a horrified shriek.

Her tumble took her friend out of sight for the last time. This was it. These were her final moments. 'Let it be worth it,' she thought. 'Let Linna live a better life. I love you, Li-'

—

There was no motion, yet everything was spinning. Nothing was in focus. There were flashes of green and red on a blue backdrop, but shapes weren’t distinct. Sound was no more comprehensible, but there was a lot of it.

Then, Niamh noticed the pain. Everywhere hurt, but mostly her head and left arm.

She was dead, surely. She had to be. Niamh couldn’t quite remember why she knew she was dead, but she was confident in her conclusion nonetheless - at least until a sudden jolt returned her consciousness to some semblance of reality.

“Dirt, roots, mulch, rot, sod!” One voice - definitely inhuman - shouted. “There’s a whole Terran ship here, for frost sake! Who knows how many other little humans could be in peril like this one!?”

“Cussing won’t help, Fray!” A second voice - also inhuman - snapped back.

It was as if the voices were coming from people hiding in a pair of massive hedges that rustled in some imaginary breeze, if Niamh’s returning eyesight was to be believed.

“Cussing always helps!”

“Not in front of the Terran, it won’t!”

“They probably can’t even understand our language!”

“By the Everbloom, Fractalia, we’re speaking sodding English!”

“...Oh yeah! Hee hee, we are speaking ‘sodding English’~”

There was a distinctive rustling of leaves as the two hedges began to intertwine a little bit. Were they teasing each other? Attacking each other? Flirting with each other?

“Shut up and fly us out of here, jalapeno~”

“I will if I can manage to pry my eyes off of you, Vera dear~”

…Alright, definitely flirting. If this really was the afterlife - which Niamh was beginning to doubt - then these were the two strangest ferry pilots she could have imagined. The river Styx was a lot weirder on this planet.

“They’ve spotted us, we’re being hailed.” The second voice called as one of the hedges hastily slapped some of its branches against a computer terminal. Though, now that the spinning had slowed and Niamh’s eyesight was sharpening again, the hedges began to look more like tangles of leaves and vines.

Niamh pinched herself - a rather pointless exercise considering her body was already hurting all over. She was alive after all, so it would seem. That meant these plants could only have been Affini - a species from another galaxy who claimed their grand purpose in life was to take care of everyone else in the universe. Regardless of what any propaganda said, after meeting humanity they quickly steamrolled the Terran Accord out of existence. All that was left were stragglers from the Terran Cosmic Navy who refused to surrender… and, of course, the quadrillionaires like Robert Pearson running for the figurative hills aboard their space yachts with their life savings in tow.

The wall ahead of her - which turned out to be a large monitor - suddenly blipped on to display two familiar humanoid figures. Niamh didn’t need perfect vision to recognise exactly who was on-screen. Her heart suddenly felt like it was in a vise.

“Alright you commie weeds, you’re going to do precisely as I say, precisely as I say it. You’re going to pack up your shit, turn the hell around, and fuck off within the next five minutes.” The voice belonged to Niamh’s father-by-blood and owner of Pearson Insurance, Robert Pearson. He was standing next to none other than Linna, who was staring at her feet.

After Robert Pearson stated his demands, the plants erupted in a series of growls and rumbles carrying  musical undertones. If Niamh had to guess, the pair of aliens were either fuming or laughing hysterically, and she didn’t know which was a more frightening prospect.

Niamh’s father pulled a light pistol from his holster and pointed it at Linna’s head. “Otherwise, I execute all these goddamned parasites before you can even blink.”

The Affini fell silent in an instant.

The air temperature in the room seemingly fell a few degrees, and the world began to spin again. It had all been for nothing and her best friend was doomed and it was all her fault and she should have paid more attention and she couldn’t live without her and this was all her fault and… and she couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was choking.

…oh. OH. She was screaming. She couldn't stop screaming.

Something soft suddenly pressed against her face, and an oddly sweet smell somehow captured her attention. Before she could think about it too hard, she again lost consciousness.

—

When Niamh woke up, she felt surprisingly well-rested. There was a soft bed beneath her and an even softer blanket gently wrapped around her. The lights were dim, but after rubbing her eyes, she could make out that she was in an enormous and lavish bunk unlike any she’d ever seen on a Terran ship. To her right was an equally enormous bedroom even larger than her father’s quarters aboard the God-Given Right. Directly in front of her on the far side of the bunk were a number of shelves which housed a few books, some plushies, and a scale model of an Affini ship that looked like some kind of weird coniferous tree. To her left were the cosmos themselves. It was as if there was no wall separating inside from outside, allowing for a spectacular panorama of outer space in all its glory.

The curious human tentatively reached a hand out to the stars, but was halted about where she would have expected a wall would be. If this was some kind of glass she was touching, it was imperceptible to the naked eye.

Her sore, outstretched arm suddenly grabbed her attention. There were scrapes and bruises that hadn’t been there last she checked, and a quick appraisal found the rest of her body similarly battered. Despite this, she wasn’t in nearly as much pain as she thought she should be in.

Everything felt ethereal, almost as if she were still dreaming. Niamh figured this must be what it was like to naturally wake up, without an obnoxious alarm blaring and the fear of god prompting her swiftly out of bed… or maybe it was a painkiller dulling her senses. Yeah, that was probably it, because she felt like she was forgetting something…

Linna.

Niamh’s mind snapped back into panic mode, suddenly alert. Fucking hell, Linna had been caught and now Niamh found herself aboard fuck-knows which Affini vessel fuck-knows how far away from her crush. Fuck. Fuck.

There was no hope of escape for her now, but maybe there was a way to bargain. She was in some Affini’s bedroom, meaning she was almost certainly one of the ‘lucky’ ones to be taken as a pet, or whatever the Affini called the people they 'domesticated.' Flutes? Florts? Ferrets? Furries?? Probably not furries, but it didn't really matter.

Or maybe Niamh was just in a temporary pet role, like a sort of trial run to see if the Affini liked her enough to adopt her. If they didn’t like her, they’d probably send her to a mining colony or to the sweltering engine rooms or something for hard labour. Who knew what the plants really had in store for her?

She’d seen the propaganda - both Terran and Affini in origin. Niamh’s father often called the Affini “commie vegetables”, which meant they could be anywhere from marginally left of him to full-on anti-capitalist - but there’s no way in hell it was the latter. More likely, Niamh figured, the Affini enforced an economic system generally kind to their own, while more hostile to those they conquered. Some die-hard Terrans were hell-bent on the notion that each and every one of them would end up in the mines or ground into fertiliser, but that wasn’t realistic: there was so much other hard, dirty, or otherwise unappealing labour work they almost certainly needed doing. Besides, how could they deny that they took pets given all the evidence? It was all just a big lottery, exactly like in the Terran Accord - your lot in life handed down from up high, and all you could do was hope you got the less-shitty one.

Unless… Could the Affini lottery be rigged? Probably not, but she had to try.

“H-hello? Isssomebody there?” Niamh called out. She tried to sound firm and confident, but her weary, slurred words and the fear in her voice betrayed her.

It only took a moment for a horrifyingly large figure, maybe as much as 12 feet tall, to scurry into the bedroom - followed quickly by two more just like it and a… human? …riding some sort of small vehicle.

“Ah, you’re awake! How are you feeling, little one?” The first Affini to enter said with a soft smile - or, as soft a smile as one could with false, wooden teeth so sharp. The plant was a mass of vines and leaves tightly-woven into a mostly humanoid form, save for the four piercing, metallic eyes staring at her that shifted in colour.

“Where’s Linna?” Niamh whimpered, struggling to hold back tears.

All three plants cocked their heads to one side. “Linna? Who might that be?”

“L-Linna! Sh-she’s the one who… Oh stars, he held a gun to her head and-! A-and-!!”

“Shhh, it’s alright dear, you won’t come to any harm here.”

“I don’t care about me! I don’t care if I’m safe, I j-just want Linna to be safe! She’s my best friend, and she's in so much pain, and-! And-!! And I love her… I w-would do anything for her. I will do anything for her!” She was crying now, but at least her head was a bit clearer and her words were a bit sharper. So much for putting on a brave face, though.

The Affini stood silent. The one who was speaking to Niamh scratched her chin, which, if these plants were anything like humans, meant she was probably unsure what to say next.

Niamh pushed on. “I’ll go to the mines, I’ll be your servant, I’ll grovel at your feet, I'll read out your propaganda for you to broadcast, anything! As long as y-you rescue Linna and keep her safe - so no sending her to do the dirty work! - I’ll go quietly, I swear! Please just s-save her! I’ll do whatever you want, no questions asked. You can even hurt me. O-or k-kill me…”

Everyone else in the room seemed to be alarmed by something she had said.

“Oh you poor thing…” The nearest Affini said. “Little Terran, we would never hurt you.”

“Didn’t you hear me!? I d-don’t care about me! You can have me do whatever you want! P-please, just… Just accept this! Trade my life for hers! I’m begging you!”

“What I meant to say is, we would never hurt any of you. We will rescue Linna, and you two will be together again, I promise.” A weary, forced smile grew on the Affini’s face. Something felt unsettling about it… Or rather, it felt as if the Affini itself was unsettled, and that feeling was contagious.

“...Wh-what’s the catch?”

“The catch? Dear little Terran, now  you’re speaking my language!” One of the Affini in the back piped up. “You see, this ship catches itty-bitty lil fishies all the time! So don’t you worry about your grillfried Linna one bit!”

“G-grill… Fried!?” Niamh stuttered in abject horror.

“Carrot!!” The other Affini in the rear snapped at the one who spoke with a piercing glare. "Not helping! And it's 'girlfriend,' you fish-obsessed fool!"

Carrot - if that was the Affini’s name - shook its head with a shrug. Naimh felt her face burning up at the implication Linna was her girlfriend.

“Nonono, it’s alright dear, Care-Bear here just misunderstood…” The first Affini shot daggers at Carrot, too. “There will be no grilling or frying of cuties such as yourself or Linna, I can assure you. But to answer your question, no, there are no catches, drawbacks, or ploys involved here. We will rescue Linna and ensure you are both treated well.”

“...But wh-what will it cost me? If there’s no catch, then this has got to be absurdly exp-expensive, right?” Niamh shuddered. “What do you even use as currency? I don’t have any T-Terran money let alone Affini money…”

"We don't use money here, flower." Being called flower made Niamh blush and avert her gaze. She wiped away the tears and tried to hear her captors out. "We live in a post-scarcity society, as you Terrans put it. No capital, no exploitation, no poverty."

"Y-yeah, I've heard all that quite a bit from your propaganda. Mind telling me the whole story instead?" Niamh huffed, hoping she wasn't about to live out a scene from an Affini propaganda transmission.

"I'd be glad to share with you the full history of Affini society, but that's a monumental undertaking best left for a less stressful time." The nearest Affini sounded genuine, even though that was rather hard to believe. "For now though, you need rest. You took quite a fall while we were planetside. If your descent hadn't been slowed by foliage, and if there wasn't a pond there to catch you, it's quite likely you would have perished. I’m sorry we weren’t in time to catch you ourselves, flower."

One of the Affini in the back - the one who wasn't Carrot - piped up. "We saw you fall and rushed you back to our xenoveterinarian as quickly as we could. Thankfully, your injuries are minimal and you'll make a full recovery."

Oh yeah. 'Xenoveterinarian.' Niamh forgot that's what the Affini called their doctors who tended to non-Affini patients.

"I s-still don't care about me. Please… Just make sure Linna is safe… I'll be a cog in your 'post-scarcity society' or whatever it really is. I just want Linna to be ok…"

Meanwhile, the other human in the room gently tugged on one of Carrot's vines, grabbing her attention. They shared a glance, and Carrot nodded silently.

"Um, excuse me." The human said. Their vehicle extended tentacle-like appendages so it could climb up onto the bed. Once it was closer to Niamh, she could tell it must have been some sort of advanced Affini wheelchair. It resembled a Terran wheelchair in that it had two large wheels and two smaller ones attached to a footrest, but it seemed to be made mostly of plant matter. It also had retractable vines, presumably for mobility such as what Niamh had just witnessed.  "My name is Talia Evergreen, Fifteenth Floret Cotyledon. She/her." Oh yeah. 'Floret’. That was the Affini word for pet. ‘Cotyledon’, though, was a mystery to Niamh.

"Oh stars, where are my manners?" The nearest Affini said in surprise. "I forgot about introductions! I am Vera Caepe, First Bloom. I use she/her and it/its pronouns."

"Fractalia Caepe, Second Bloom!" The other not-Carrot Affini said. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, flower! Oh, and I use any pronouns, so you can just refer to me however you'd like!"

"And my name is Carrot Evergreen, Twelfth Bloom. I'm rather fond of xey/xem, myself." So xeir name was Carrot. Niamh supposed it was fitting enough since xey seemed to be mostly orange with leafy green hair, though the dimmed lighting didn’t allow her to make out much more detail than that.

Still, as far as their names went, Niamh had could only guess what the Nth Bloom part meant. Was it some sort of military rank? That would probably make the most sense. If Vera was First Bloom, did that mean she was in charge? That would explain why she was the one doing most of the talking…

"Sorry for interrupting, petal." Vera cooed, using a handful of vines to pet Talia - which the human happily leaned into.

"It's ok Miss Vera!"

As Talia took a moment to enjoy the physical affection, Niamh was able to get a better look at the first floret she'd ever seen in person. The first thing she noticed was how healthy Talia looked. Her arms were pretty muscular, and her abs were visible under her tight floral tank top. Her moisturised skin and frizzy black hair looked well-cared for. There were a few faded scars she could see, but they looked surgical in nature and had healed quite well. Beyond that, though, even her posture was healthy! Nobody cared about their posture in the Accord! It certainly seemed Talia at least had good medical care.

However, things got confusing when Niamh's eyes reached Talia's legs. She was wearing a brightly-coloured skirt that let her see her legs: there was a gradient between normal human legs and feet made of pure plant matter. A forest green colour ran in disorganised stripes just under her skin, which were soon revealed to be vines as they broke the surface around her knees. The vines were growing out from under her skin, which - the further down her legs Niamh looked - rapidly became all that was visible. It was almost as if Talia had the lower legs of an Affini in humanoid form - albeit human scaled ones as opposed to the proportionally huge legs of the Affini.

Eventually, Talia's attention returned to Niamh. "Hi, sorry about that. How can I refer to you?"

"Oh, um… Niamh, she/her please."

"Hi Niamh, it's nice to meet you! I'd be happy to help you get your bearings now that you're here on a Compact ship. Oh yeah, I should mention, you're currently in the home of myself and Miss Carrot aboard the Abiegnis. It was grown from genuine Earth spruce saplings! This is actually one of the newest ships in the Compact, and I think it’s the first to be made of Earth plants!"

A vine belonging to one of the Affini gently stroked Talia's shoulder. "Petal, as much as ships like this are fascinating, perhaps now might not be the time to go off on a tangent." Vera said softly.

"Yes Miss Vera!" Talia nodded. "If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them."

"I… I just… how are they going to get Linna back? And… why are they doing this for me?" Niamh asked.

"Miss Carrot is an expert at safely extracting sophonts from wayward ships. To xem, they're just lil fishies waiting to be caught!"

"...Sophonts?" Niamh furrowed her brow.

"Oh, ‘sophont’ is just the general term for a sentient being. As for why the Affini do this, it's because they care about the wellbeing of all sophonts and want to help everyone be their best selves." As if knowing exactly what Niamh was thinking, she added “I know it sounds too good to be true, but they really do have the best intentions at heart.”

At about this time, Carrot had pulled out a tablet and was interacting with it somehow. “We’re about to be late, Veralia!” Veralia? Did xey just squish Vera’s and Fractalia’s names together? Before Niamh could wrap her head around what she’d heard, Carrot placed a kiss on Talia’s cheek before motioning to the other two Affini and scurrying out of the room. Fractalia was quick to follow, but not before tenderly stroking a vine on Talia’s shoulder.

"I'm sorry little ones, but we're being called away." Vera said. "We have urgent matters regarding the safe rescue of all aboard the Terran ship you were on - the God-Given Right, was it? Talia, would you please keep our guest company while we're out?" She, too, rubbed a vine against the floret.

"Of course, Miss Vera!"

With that, Vera also rushed away, leaving the two humans alone together in the comically oversized bedroom.

"Do you have any other questions, Niamh?"

“I… I…” Niamh muttered. She felt the tears begin to well up in her eyes again. Talia patiently waited for Niamh with genuine concern written on her face. “I don’t understand… I don’t understand…”

“It’s ok, I know how overwhelming it is at first. But I promise it will all be ok.” Talia gave a genuine smile that succeeded in warming Niamh’s aching heart, if only a little bit and if only for a brief moment.

“...It’s all my fault. It was my plan, It was my plan but we were seen and they chased us and I wasn’t paying attention and now Linna got caught and my f-father has her and-! And-!!” She struggled to hold back and began to weep.

Talia gently shifted off her wheelchair and onto the soft bed so she could sit next to Niamh and wrap her in a caring hug. It was almost as if she was giving Niamh permission to cry - something she had never had before - and that opened the floodgates. Niamh wailed like she never had before, louder than she thought she could ever be. It felt… relieving. She had bottled everything up her whole life, and now there was nobody here to punish her except Talia - but punishment seemed like the last thing the floret had in mind for Niamh at the moment.

The captured Terran felt her fear and pain flood every part of her being. It had all been set loose, and there was no way for her to contain it any longer. Yet still it felt relieving, because all that anxiety was slowly seeping out of her system as she bawled and bawled.

Some unknown length of time had passed with Niamh weeping and Talia constantly holding her close, giving her a shoulder to cry on. It felt like ages, it might have even been hours, but there was no way of knowing. Eventually, though, her cries faded to a whimper, then to a halt. She was still really scared, but she somehow felt much better than she had before. Her body felt weak and her eyes were drooping. Talia seemingly guided her onto her back, still hugging her tight, then pulled the covers over them both. The last thing she remembered before falling asleep was the other human wiping away the tears on her face.