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keaalu“Half-dream”, 2024 11 04
Came to me in that space where the alarm clock has bumped you awake and you can’t get a certain thing out of your head but you’re not quite asleep or dreaming either? I suppose it’s sort of a half-dream. This is all you get, btw. I haven’t pinned down (and probably won’t) any of the rest like why they’re on Earth, why Zelda sent a giant sundew to the planet, WHERE it ended up, how it caught Mary, or anything.
Saw sundews on “Scotland: The New Wild” Sunday night which might have inspired it; I love carnivorous plants anyway (I have two growing on my kitchen windowsill) so it wasn’t a great leap to end up with this. Plus of course I wanted one where Hiro’s love of plants could be the bit that saves everyone! (Even in the episode where the plant was (essentially) the bad guy, AND it was all happening in their own home environment, these two idiots weren’t allowed to be the heroes without help. So. Yes I am biased.)
-----
The plant looked like a giant sundew - easily taller than a human, the great spoon-shaped leaves covered in fleshy crimson spines, each tipped with a glistening globule of dew. Velvety, dusky-pink ribbons that could have been petals? or bracts? or... something... spiralled down from thickened, wrinkly bulbs like little brains at the top of the thickest stems.
The skeletonised remains of small animals and birds drooped from the upper leaves, like small treasures held in open palms to tempt in the unwary.
And at the top, wrapped in six or seven of the aggressive leaves, was Captain Falconer. It had already stolen her pistol and carried it far out of reach – not that she looked in any position to fight to get it back. Limbs slack, her head lolled backwards and her eyes were almost closed – she looked at very least unconscious, if she was even still alive.
“Oh, no, oh no no no!” 101 squeaked, alarmed. “Don’t you worry, ma’am, we’ll have you out of there in no time-!” He took up position just out of reach and drew his weapon.
“No, 101. Wait.” Hiro dropped into a hasty crouch next to him and mantled both hands over the gun. “No shooting.”
“What do you mean, no shooting?! It’s eating her!” the zeroid wailed. “We have to get her out of there!”
“And we shall do. But we will do it my way – with kindness and diplomacy.”
“Diplomacy? It’s a pla-ant!” 101 despaired. “What part of ‘it’s eating her’ did you miss, first time around? Did I not enunciate it properly?!”
“No, I understood you. I just think there may be a better solution than going straight into shooting it to pieces. Not to mention, we may injure the captain in the process.”
From her elevated vantage point, Captain Falconer watched with a sort of detached calm. The plant was obviously exuding some sort of sedative in its dew because in spite of the rash of itchy spots everywhere it had oozed through her clothing and made contact with her skin, she felt remarkably peaceful. Mostly comfortable. Not in any pain. She smiled at her two would-be rescuers and mouthed the greeting – hi – but no sound accompanied it.
101 looked up at her. “I’m really sorry, Captain! I don’t know what’s got into him, apart from it’s a plant so of course he’s having a freaking moment!”
Hiro shook his head, with a tired smile. “Would you stand watch, please? Just in case Zelda is monitoring all this and decides she needs to encourage a little more violence? I would prefer you were ready to defend us and not caught off-guard.”
“What?” 101 turned and immediately saw what the lieutenant was planning. “Oh, whoa, what? No!” His vocalisations grew steadily more frantic. “Hiro, what are you doing? What are you doing?! Oh, no, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare! You hear me?! Don’t! Oh please Hiro please don’t, I can’t rescue you both! I don’t even have hands-!”
But Hiro had already walked forwards, and with his hands up and palms out in a show of trust, stepped into the embrace of the leaves.
At first, the plant automatically grabbed him, with one of the enormous spatulate leaves covered in dewdrops, like an enormous sticky hand coming round behind his shoulders. Then-... it hesitated.
Hiro had picked out one of the long curling ribbonlike tendrils, with its coating of fine velvety red hairs. He held it in both hands, carefully, sandwiching it between both palms, before bringing it to his chest.
The other leaves that had been converging on his position suddenly all froze in place, trembling.
Hiro closed his eyes and concentrated. ~Hello, friend.~
The response was more of a series of vague impressions than actual words, but the meaning came across quite clearly. Confusion. A fading aggression. Surprise. Friend?
~I wish you no harm. I fear our first meeting has not been under best circumstances. I would like to rectify that...~
101 watched in jittery astonishment for a second or two. It... actually seemed like... maybe they were communicating?
Attempting to burn off a little of his agitation, the zeroid took to patrolling the perimeter, a slow fractious wobbly start-stop orbit. He’d do a quarter circuit, then stop, peer into the distance and check no-one was approaching, then spend just as long watching Hiro, worried. It was taking every ounce of willpower and trust in his best friend not to give into temptation and shoot the leaves off at the point they joined the plant’s thick trunk.
Hiro was still standing, though, and not because the leaf was holding him up. So it wasn’t eating him, 101 guessed. (Hoped.) Unless it had hypnotised him to be able to balance. 101 fidgeted, dismissed the thought before it could get itself too firmly established, and resumed his patrol.
He was on his sixteenth circuit when Hiro finally spoke out loud.
“Be ready to look after Captain Falconer,” the young man instructed, dreamily.
101 skidded to a halt. “What do you mean?”
“That plant is about to let her go. Please do not be in the way, but be ready to monitor her biosigns. I think she should be fine but she will probably not fully rouse for a little while.”
“What about you?”
“Well, I have successfully bargained for her release. Hopefully my new friend may be persuaded to let me go as well.”
“-hopefully?!-”
“...now, are you ready?”
“What?! Oh! Er? Right!”
The plant let Mary gracelessly down to the ground in a whispering rush of leaves; clumsy and probably uncomfortable but it managed not to let her head impact the ground as it did so. When it let her go, all the blobs of dew came away from the leaves, leaving her decorated with what looked like a thousand shimmering bubbles.
101 got round behind her and pushed her gently out of reach of the plant, then burrowed under her arm so her hand lay with the palm flat on his casing. Although any close contact was technically good enough, he could pick up her vital signs better that way; her heartbeat was slow, and soft, but steady – her breathing too. Like he imagined it would be if she’d been heavily sedated. Well, that all tallied. She was very sticky, too, but that would wash off. (He hoped it would wash off, seeing as it was all getting on him, as well. Ugh.)
Unexpectedly, a minute or two later the plant released Hiro, as well; he stumbled backwards, lost his balance, and landed with a wince on his backside.
“Are you all right?” 101 was immediately fussing around him. “Talk to me? Did it hurt you? Are you okay?”
“I am fine.” He tolerated the zeroid’s increasingly anxious (and slightly heavy-handed) checkup for only a few seconds before pressing both hands to him with an exasperated laugh. “Argh! Owun, I am FINE! Go look after Mary!”
“At least just tell me how you knew it wouldn’t eat you?” 101 wondered.
“Well, I... didn’t, for definite. But I was fairly confident.”
“Fairly conf-...” 101 butted into him, frustrated. “...you are gonna make me blow a fuse, one day, and NOT in the good way.”
Hiro patted his cowling, then grimaced at the long strands of sticky dew that came away on his fingers. “Come on. We still have a job to finish.” He gathered Mary carefully against him so she wasn’t sprawled out over the rocky ground, then ensured her palm was back against the zeroid’s exterior. “Have you raised the alarm with the others?”
“Yeah. I calculate they’re about forty-five minutes out.” 101 approximated a sigh. “Could Zelda not have at least found a plant that wasn’t gross and sticky? I am going to be completely covered in twigs and dirt by the time we get home and I KNOW Zero’ll make a big deal out of it for weeks.” He leaned against Hiro’s leg, and grumbled; “And people act like I’m weird when I say I prefer it up on my lovely clean spaceship.”
Hiro cleared his throat, delicately. “Whose lovely clean spaceship?”
“Um. The?”
Hiro’s eyebrows still hadn’t stopped their voyage to deep space.
A little huff. “Fine. Your lovely clean spaceship.”
Hiro laughed. “Our spaceship, I think? Cheer up, my friend. I will help you bathe when we get back. You will soon be your clean fashionable self again.”
The zeroid gave a satisfied little chirp and wiggled himself comfortable against his friend’s side while they waited for collection. Mary slept peacefully on, although she’d started very slightly to stir, so was obviously recovering nicely.
“So, uh. What are we gonna do with Sticky, anyway?” 101 kept looking back at the monster sundew, as if not totally convinced it wasn’t about to change its mind, get up on its roots, and come after them again.
“Oh, I think Sunny is a nicer name, do you not?” At the full-body eyeroll, Hiro smiled, and patted his sticky zeroid on the crown of his head. “It was already a terribly long way from home when Zelda found it, in a damaged, abandoned exploratory vessel. She promised to find it a new and better home. It had been alone for so long, in the cold and the dark, of course it agreed. She sent it to Earth as a spore on the side of a cargo vessel, which is how it evaded our attention.”
101 looked up at him, cocked exasperatedly to one side. -and?-
“I told it we would find a home for it, until we can work out where it belongs. It accepts that we may never be able to send it home, but... At least we can find it somewhere that we can care for it and feed it, and give it the company it desires.”
101 gave him a loaded glance. “Please don’t say you mean on Spacehawk-!”
----
Plot twist: it IS an Earth sundew, picked up in prehistory by aliens, experimented on and given sentience and size in an effort to make it some sort of ‘property defence organism’, then some disaster befell the crew before they finished and they abandoned it on their ship, just drifting, where Zelda finally found it. So it WAS far from home. It’s just... not far from home any more?
Came to me in that space where the alarm clock has bumped you awake and you can’t get a certain thing out of your head but you’re not quite asleep or dreaming either? I suppose it’s sort of a half-dream. This is all you get, btw. I haven’t pinned down (and probably won’t) any of the rest like why they’re on Earth, why Zelda sent a giant sundew to the planet, WHERE it ended up, how it caught Mary, or anything.
Saw sundews on “Scotland: The New Wild” Sunday night which might have inspired it; I love carnivorous plants anyway (I have two growing on my kitchen windowsill) so it wasn’t a great leap to end up with this. Plus of course I wanted one where Hiro’s love of plants could be the bit that saves everyone! (Even in the episode where the plant was (essentially) the bad guy, AND it was all happening in their own home environment, these two idiots weren’t allowed to be the heroes without help. So. Yes I am biased.)
-----
The plant looked like a giant sundew - easily taller than a human, the great spoon-shaped leaves covered in fleshy crimson spines, each tipped with a glistening globule of dew. Velvety, dusky-pink ribbons that could have been petals? or bracts? or... something... spiralled down from thickened, wrinkly bulbs like little brains at the top of the thickest stems.
The skeletonised remains of small animals and birds drooped from the upper leaves, like small treasures held in open palms to tempt in the unwary.
And at the top, wrapped in six or seven of the aggressive leaves, was Captain Falconer. It had already stolen her pistol and carried it far out of reach – not that she looked in any position to fight to get it back. Limbs slack, her head lolled backwards and her eyes were almost closed – she looked at very least unconscious, if she was even still alive.
“Oh, no, oh no no no!” 101 squeaked, alarmed. “Don’t you worry, ma’am, we’ll have you out of there in no time-!” He took up position just out of reach and drew his weapon.
“No, 101. Wait.” Hiro dropped into a hasty crouch next to him and mantled both hands over the gun. “No shooting.”
“What do you mean, no shooting?! It’s eating her!” the zeroid wailed. “We have to get her out of there!”
“And we shall do. But we will do it my way – with kindness and diplomacy.”
“Diplomacy? It’s a pla-ant!” 101 despaired. “What part of ‘it’s eating her’ did you miss, first time around? Did I not enunciate it properly?!”
“No, I understood you. I just think there may be a better solution than going straight into shooting it to pieces. Not to mention, we may injure the captain in the process.”
From her elevated vantage point, Captain Falconer watched with a sort of detached calm. The plant was obviously exuding some sort of sedative in its dew because in spite of the rash of itchy spots everywhere it had oozed through her clothing and made contact with her skin, she felt remarkably peaceful. Mostly comfortable. Not in any pain. She smiled at her two would-be rescuers and mouthed the greeting – hi – but no sound accompanied it.
101 looked up at her. “I’m really sorry, Captain! I don’t know what’s got into him, apart from it’s a plant so of course he’s having a freaking moment!”
Hiro shook his head, with a tired smile. “Would you stand watch, please? Just in case Zelda is monitoring all this and decides she needs to encourage a little more violence? I would prefer you were ready to defend us and not caught off-guard.”
“What?” 101 turned and immediately saw what the lieutenant was planning. “Oh, whoa, what? No!” His vocalisations grew steadily more frantic. “Hiro, what are you doing? What are you doing?! Oh, no, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare! You hear me?! Don’t! Oh please Hiro please don’t, I can’t rescue you both! I don’t even have hands-!”
But Hiro had already walked forwards, and with his hands up and palms out in a show of trust, stepped into the embrace of the leaves.
At first, the plant automatically grabbed him, with one of the enormous spatulate leaves covered in dewdrops, like an enormous sticky hand coming round behind his shoulders. Then-... it hesitated.
Hiro had picked out one of the long curling ribbonlike tendrils, with its coating of fine velvety red hairs. He held it in both hands, carefully, sandwiching it between both palms, before bringing it to his chest.
The other leaves that had been converging on his position suddenly all froze in place, trembling.
Hiro closed his eyes and concentrated. ~Hello, friend.~
The response was more of a series of vague impressions than actual words, but the meaning came across quite clearly. Confusion. A fading aggression. Surprise. Friend?
~I wish you no harm. I fear our first meeting has not been under best circumstances. I would like to rectify that...~
101 watched in jittery astonishment for a second or two. It... actually seemed like... maybe they were communicating?
Attempting to burn off a little of his agitation, the zeroid took to patrolling the perimeter, a slow fractious wobbly start-stop orbit. He’d do a quarter circuit, then stop, peer into the distance and check no-one was approaching, then spend just as long watching Hiro, worried. It was taking every ounce of willpower and trust in his best friend not to give into temptation and shoot the leaves off at the point they joined the plant’s thick trunk.
Hiro was still standing, though, and not because the leaf was holding him up. So it wasn’t eating him, 101 guessed. (Hoped.) Unless it had hypnotised him to be able to balance. 101 fidgeted, dismissed the thought before it could get itself too firmly established, and resumed his patrol.
He was on his sixteenth circuit when Hiro finally spoke out loud.
“Be ready to look after Captain Falconer,” the young man instructed, dreamily.
101 skidded to a halt. “What do you mean?”
“That plant is about to let her go. Please do not be in the way, but be ready to monitor her biosigns. I think she should be fine but she will probably not fully rouse for a little while.”
“What about you?”
“Well, I have successfully bargained for her release. Hopefully my new friend may be persuaded to let me go as well.”
“-hopefully?!-”
“...now, are you ready?”
“What?! Oh! Er? Right!”
The plant let Mary gracelessly down to the ground in a whispering rush of leaves; clumsy and probably uncomfortable but it managed not to let her head impact the ground as it did so. When it let her go, all the blobs of dew came away from the leaves, leaving her decorated with what looked like a thousand shimmering bubbles.
101 got round behind her and pushed her gently out of reach of the plant, then burrowed under her arm so her hand lay with the palm flat on his casing. Although any close contact was technically good enough, he could pick up her vital signs better that way; her heartbeat was slow, and soft, but steady – her breathing too. Like he imagined it would be if she’d been heavily sedated. Well, that all tallied. She was very sticky, too, but that would wash off. (He hoped it would wash off, seeing as it was all getting on him, as well. Ugh.)
Unexpectedly, a minute or two later the plant released Hiro, as well; he stumbled backwards, lost his balance, and landed with a wince on his backside.
“Are you all right?” 101 was immediately fussing around him. “Talk to me? Did it hurt you? Are you okay?”
“I am fine.” He tolerated the zeroid’s increasingly anxious (and slightly heavy-handed) checkup for only a few seconds before pressing both hands to him with an exasperated laugh. “Argh! Owun, I am FINE! Go look after Mary!”
“At least just tell me how you knew it wouldn’t eat you?” 101 wondered.
“Well, I... didn’t, for definite. But I was fairly confident.”
“Fairly conf-...” 101 butted into him, frustrated. “...you are gonna make me blow a fuse, one day, and NOT in the good way.”
Hiro patted his cowling, then grimaced at the long strands of sticky dew that came away on his fingers. “Come on. We still have a job to finish.” He gathered Mary carefully against him so she wasn’t sprawled out over the rocky ground, then ensured her palm was back against the zeroid’s exterior. “Have you raised the alarm with the others?”
“Yeah. I calculate they’re about forty-five minutes out.” 101 approximated a sigh. “Could Zelda not have at least found a plant that wasn’t gross and sticky? I am going to be completely covered in twigs and dirt by the time we get home and I KNOW Zero’ll make a big deal out of it for weeks.” He leaned against Hiro’s leg, and grumbled; “And people act like I’m weird when I say I prefer it up on my lovely clean spaceship.”
Hiro cleared his throat, delicately. “Whose lovely clean spaceship?”
“Um. The?”
Hiro’s eyebrows still hadn’t stopped their voyage to deep space.
A little huff. “Fine. Your lovely clean spaceship.”
Hiro laughed. “Our spaceship, I think? Cheer up, my friend. I will help you bathe when we get back. You will soon be your clean fashionable self again.”
The zeroid gave a satisfied little chirp and wiggled himself comfortable against his friend’s side while they waited for collection. Mary slept peacefully on, although she’d started very slightly to stir, so was obviously recovering nicely.
“So, uh. What are we gonna do with Sticky, anyway?” 101 kept looking back at the monster sundew, as if not totally convinced it wasn’t about to change its mind, get up on its roots, and come after them again.
“Oh, I think Sunny is a nicer name, do you not?” At the full-body eyeroll, Hiro smiled, and patted his sticky zeroid on the crown of his head. “It was already a terribly long way from home when Zelda found it, in a damaged, abandoned exploratory vessel. She promised to find it a new and better home. It had been alone for so long, in the cold and the dark, of course it agreed. She sent it to Earth as a spore on the side of a cargo vessel, which is how it evaded our attention.”
101 looked up at him, cocked exasperatedly to one side. -and?-
“I told it we would find a home for it, until we can work out where it belongs. It accepts that we may never be able to send it home, but... At least we can find it somewhere that we can care for it and feed it, and give it the company it desires.”
101 gave him a loaded glance. “Please don’t say you mean on Spacehawk-!”
----
Plot twist: it IS an Earth sundew, picked up in prehistory by aliens, experimented on and given sentience and size in an effort to make it some sort of ‘property defence organism’, then some disaster befell the crew before they finished and they abandoned it on their ship, just drifting, where Zelda finally found it. So it WAS far from home. It’s just... not far from home any more?