Aricia

Bleu had provided the butterfly woman with a mild tranquilizing spray, calming down her shock at being awoken in a strange place facing one of her gods. Dustin waited until the woman’s eyes showed signs of the spray taking effect before he spoke. “How are you feeling? What do you remember?” he asked softly, doing his best to appear friendly as he did so.

“I feel… strange. The… the whisper the blue lady pressed against me has made my thoughts fluttery. But I feel alright. Safe? The vanishing one is not angry with me like the other - and she spoke in a way I could understand, unlike before.” The butterfly woman’s face scrunched as she considered. “I remember… I was walking with my family, we crossed over the stream and there was a vanishing one - it had spikes and made a noise like sap-drones in the summer. Then I felt cold and… My family, where are they? There were tubes, and we were floating together, and then I woke here alone.”

Dustin’s heart sank through the floor. “Your family were taken too? I’m not sure how to say this…” he began, before Defia stepped forward. “Statement. Vanishing one that **** you was from a group of fallen ones, aiming to keep your people in darkness and raising you like cattle. Designated units here sent to release your people from their bondage. Statement. We arrived too late to save your family. I am sorry.”

The rogue Fractal’s words - admittedly including the lie that they had made up to help deprogram the Fractal worshipers - were soft spoken, and if Dustin hadn’t known better he would have said they were almost emotional. Guessing that Defia had been trying to help, and seeing the tears forming on the butterfly woman’s face he moved closer and took the rescued woman’s hand. “I’m so sorry too. We moved as fast as we could, but by the time we got there - you were the only one left. The others have passed beyond the veil.” He said, thanking the stars that he’d spent some of the time waiting for Bleu having a debrief with Emely and Meli over a video link on the local customs.

The woman stared down at his hand, then up at Defia. “I… I should be sobbing. I should be broken, but all I feel is softness. It’s as if my head was made of a puff-flower.” She glanced sideways at Bleu, who was busily monitoring the medbay scanners. “Is this your magic? To take my fear and sorrow?”

Bleu moved from the scanners to the bedside, running a hand scanner over the other woman’s head before replying. “Not entirely. It hasn’t taken your feelings, merely held them at bay while you wake fully. The way in which the vanishing ones kept you imprisoned can have some negative impacts on your health if you become too stressed too early after waking.”

Dustin squeezed the butterfly woman’s hand. “We’ll be here when the sobbing starts” he promised, then glanced at Defia. “And we’ll help you return to your people; you are a long way from home. Before that though - could you tell us your name?” The woman blinked a few times before she responded, still seemingly shocked by the lack of tears. “My name is Aricia. Why are you and the other lady here with this vanishing one?”

It took a little time to explain the entire situation to Aricia and Dustin’s satisfaction. The butterfly girl was all too willing to accept the children of the stars myth that Emely had made up - but found the idea that she had been taken into the sky by Defia in order to heal her from the damage done by the Fractals somehow implausible. Eventually, Bleu got tired of the back and forth. “She is clearly healthy, and able to move. Any issues she has are likely to be mental rather than physical and thus Trea’k’s domain - take her to the observation lounge; let her see her world.” The medic snapped, tossing Dustin a medical scanner. “If that thing starts beeping and doesn’t stop though, bring her back, otherwise I suggest you get Naera to whip her up some food afterward before taking her to see the counsellor.”

Aricia rose on shaky limbs as Dustin helped her up; her wings fluttering slowly as she spread them. The time in the tank had not been kind to the delicate membranes, and she seemed off-balance as she moved as a result. “My wings feel like their first sprouting” she said glumly, taking tentative steps while holding on to both Dustin and Defia’s arms. “Never thought I’d be helped to walk by a vanishing one, but right now my balance is completely gone.”

The trio made their way carefully down deserted passages to the observation deck. Dustin had cleared the corridors in advance, taking the decision that overloading Aricia by showing her too many aliens too soon was not a good idea. Due to the needs of the ship, they had to take a somewhat roundabout route, but eventually the doors slid open in front of them and the butterfly woman gasped.

Pale light from the system’s star lay in shafts across the room’s floor and caught on Aricia’s hair and wings making them sparkle like mother of pearl. Outside of the strange goo she had been kept in by the Fractals it turned out that her hair was a faint silvery-blue, while her wings were pearlescent; Dustin found himself vaguely taking that information on board as he helped her to the window. Reaching out, she placed a hand to the glass, her eyes wide as she stared at the moons floating nearby to the green and blue of her world.

“I… I truly am in the sky, then?” She asked, turning to Dustin. He nodded, then caught her a moment later as her eyes welled with tears. “Then it is all true… my family…” Defia stood nearby, her own gaze unreadable as Dustin gently lowered the sobbing woman to the floor and did his best to comfort her.

Sometime later, the rogue Fractal stepped into her quarters and frowned. Her latest painting was set on the easel; she moved it carefully to rest on the desk instead - the oil was mostly but not entirely dry. Picking up a new canvas, she selected a brush and began filling in the big details from memory - the black of space, the warm tones of the starlight, and an area of white primer.

Another brush was chosen, then rattled against the frame of the easel in a ceremonial manner that she did largely because it was unnecessary - a little action of inefficiency to help her get closer to her biological crew-mates. This new brush danced over the image, adding the forms of the crouching captain and the collapsed woman, her wings just outlines against the light from the window as of yet.

Stepping back, Defia considered the picture. “Statement. It is a representation of the image stored to an accuracy of nine seven point five nine nine percent, discrepancy caused by medium used. This is well crafted, but is it art? Query. Before continuing, should I make this art? How do I make this art?” She spoke aloud - another unnecessary distraction from the polished efficiency of a cluster that she had adopted to try and help understand her new companions.

The whole point of her changes were to better understand biological life. This painting was supposed to help with that - and yet she found her core process overheating whenever she contemplated the fact that she was just reproducing images from memory. “Statement. I again reopen the case for synthesizing biological emotional chemistry and… approve initial planning on the procedure. I want this to be art, and art requires emotion.” She carefully cleaned the brushes, then turned and left the room in search of Trea’k.

Elsewhere on the ship, Dustin and Emely were gently guiding Aricia through her first meal after waking. Naera had gone to lengths to prepare things that were as close as possible to Aricia’s normal diet - but even so, it was a challenge for the silvery-haired woman who had cried until she no tears left to shed. The combination of her balance loss due to her wings still drying and her gut-wrenching sorrow at the loss of almost everyone she had ever known had done no good for her appetite at all - but Bleu and Trea’k had both indicated that she should eat, and so they were trying to coax her into food.

Emely’s hand gently guided the other woman’s, navigating a fork into a plate of softened vegetables and leafy greens before gradually moving up to Aricia’s mouth. “I know it’s hard, but you need to eat. There are others on the planet below us who are getting ready to help overthrow the false vanishing ones and their prophets. You still have friends.” The Feliax woman said as she worked, her tails twitching reassuringly behind her.

Dustin sat down next to them, setting a jug of water from the automat on the table as he did so before filling a glass and pushing it toward the pair. “What Emely says is the truth. We’re going to help make sure nobody has to suffer what you did ever again.” He said softly; behind them, Naera gave a snort of agreement.

The butterfly woman lifted her head at the sound, giving Dustin a thin smile. “It sounds like your chef is the angriest here about what has befallen me.” She said, her tone thin and bitter. Dustin was about to reply, but Naera got in first, sliding into the seat opposite Aricia and putting a plate of some kind of biscuit down alongside the vegetables. “That’d be because this cook knows what it’s like to lose your family to those things” the plant woman said sadly, reaching across the table to squeeze Aricia’s free hand.

Dustin watched as their guest froze, her eyes widening slightly as she turned to look at Naera. “You… lost your family too?” She asked, her voice almost a whisper. For a moment, Dustin thought he would have to call Trea’k urgently - that the two women would trigger each other’s sorrow to spike until they were both utterly distraught. But to his relief, Naera kept it together. With only a faint sniff, the Caenii rubbed her eyes and nodded. “Not like you, not just a family taken though” she said, her tone so sorrowful it broke Dustin’s heart. “They killed my world.”