Humans were actually something Ivy knew far too much about.
She'd written an entire dissertation on the pre-galactic race, and how it seemed that they had a natural barrier to joining the civilised worlds. Every single time that they appeared to find an economic and political balance, and started to look towards the stars, they would suddenly collapse into war and hatred.
It was a fascinating, and altogether disturbing, topic of conversation.
At least, it was to her.
When Talia was munching on some grass and waking everyone up that morning, Ivy got the feeling that when the woman asked if anyone knew what the humans were like, she probably wasn't asking for a technical analysis of their political history.
"I think they knowing mine." Desdemona stated lightly.
Ivy didn't know if that was true. The humans did have a considerable number of theologies, any one of which might possibly refer to third contact, in either an official capacity, or a tour messing around with a less advanced society, but Ivy just didn't see it.
The resources of the planet were altogether basic. They used a primitive form of atom smashing that required so much room it covered several countries, and so much power that it could never really be justified. Without access to the elements like adamantine, that were required for effective spaceflight, what could anyone want with them?
"Really?" Talia said excitedly, some cud hanging out of the corner of her mouth.
Desdemona shrugged, lightly forking something squirming off her plate and into her mouth. Swallowing deeply before replying, "There be stories. Ancestors of my kind, who be making deals with humans. Health cures for primitives, in exchange for slave work. Doubling lifespan and be like. Not pleasant stories."
"Your ancestors enslaved 'em, and now we're just maids." Talia said glumly.
Ivy slid slowly out of her cocoon, and rubbed her toes against each other, before trying to quietly make for the shower and not get dragged into the conversation.
Not that she didn't want to talk about it.
She had so much she wanted to say, but that would be a bit of a brutal information dump on two relative strangers - ones that she was hoping would soon become friends. She didn't want to freak them out, too soon.
"Ivy? Whatcha think?" Talia asked lightly.
She smiled and turned around, "Too much. But I really need to shower, and then get some sunlight. You guys are already eating, I need to grab mine before work starts."
"You can only get sunlight on the top deck, this early." Talia replied with a shrug. "Better hurry, before they try and lock that down for the rich guests. Don't want no servant ruining the view."
Ivy sat down on the edge of a bench, her hair still shining wet, and very quietly removed her boots from her feet. She really did detest the leather things, but they were a part of the uniform.
Seemed like they had got even tighter after yesterday's disaster.
She spread out her toes on the wooden deck, leaned back on her wrists, and raised her chin upwards until her face was bathing in the sun. A shiver of contentment ran down her spine, and a tiny involuntary moan escaped her lips, as she began to feed on the light.
Her stomach grumbled as it began to anticipate the sugary syrup.
Her flowers spread out, taking in the water and carbon dioxide in the air, and using the light to catalyse them into a sugar on each of her leaves. There it slipped down the stalks, through the folds of her greenery, and directly into her cells. Flowing freely, and throughout.
Ivy bit the edge of her lip, trying to remain polite, in case anyone saw her. Except feeding was such an intense passion for someone like her. It spread her out, picked her up, and faceplanted her right into the highest of ecstasies.
She really did feel like she was floating, just like the ship. Suspended above everything, and filled from toe to brow with a joy that was bright enough to melt the worst of hearts.
Feeding off light was more intense than breeding, it was more intense than the passions of love, it was the highest thing that anyone of her species could experience.
And she got it, every single day.
"Are you okay?"
She opened her eyes blearily, looking at a black-clad leather figure standing over her. They had on a helmet, and were wearing a divepack on their back. Annoyingly, they also had walked between her, and the sun.
"I was having breakfast. I'm a photosynth." She said pointedly, and waved a hand, indicating that they should move aside.
The figure showed no emotion, mostly because of the helmet, but they also made no move at all. Just a long pause followed by, "You should leave. Guests will start arriving, soon."
"I'll be able to leave sooner, if you let me have my sunlight." Ivy snapped, glaring.
She was not a morning person.
The figure shrugged, and walked away. She shook her head, closing her eyes and struggling to refocus on the light. What the heck was that person's problem? And why did they also seem not to care at all, at the end?
She really didn't like things that didn't make sense. Caring enough to cross to this side of the deck, where there was no one else, and nothing, and then not even caring enough to have a conversation? The thoughts tumbled and poked at her, and ruined the taste of the light.
Not that Ivy really knew how to explain what light tasted like. She knew that specific light spectra did... Something... To... Other things? History was her thing. Not chemistry.
The growling of her stomach lost out to how on edge she was feeling, and Ivy sighed, standing up slowly and stretching. As she did, her leaves went out wide, displaying the fullness of her size. Little corners of her foliage stretching out as far as they could go.
Which was immediately when she felt something hit the middle of her back.
Ivy gave a frightened squeal, instantly pulling in everything to reappear as a person, and stare over at the wide-eyed guest, who had their tongue glued right to her spine.
They gave an embarrassed shrug, but then looked around to see if anybody else had noticed what they had just done.
"No, no, no, no..."
The guest's throat bobbed, and then Ivy screamed as she was whipped off her feet. She felt herself flying straight for their mouth. No chance to even flail.
Another punch of motion hit her gut, and she nearly puked. She was suddenly moving in the opposite direction to the guest. Somehow they'd turned the drag into a throw.
The good news of it, was that they weren't about to eat her.
The bad news of it, was that she was flying at the field that surrounded the top deck of the ship. It was a field, and not a solid wall. It let light through, and it let through other things, too.
It kept out the vacuum of space, and that was about it. Only suicidal people or absolute idiots pushed themselves right up against a field.
Or flying maids.
Ivy didn't know if she was supposed to hold her breath, or if doing that was a bad idea. She didn't remember her space lessons, because she'd never thought that anything like this might happen to her!
Her panicked brain decided that one for her - she screamed right before she hit the field.
Air absent from her lungs, Ivy planted her hands over her mouth as she found herself hit the strangeness of no gravity. It only lasted a moment, because the ship was technically within the gravity well of the Earth.
She felt like it was the bad luck of discussing visiting the Earth, the night before.
There was no way this could be happening to anybody, let alone to her. No guest could try and cover up the grossness of trying to eat someone... With actual murder... Could they?
Ivy's eyes watered as she plummeted towards the clouds below. She flinched and tried to spread out her leaves - which sort of just got immediately punctured by the sheer aggressiveness of the air as she hit it. The only effect it seemed to have was to tumble her head-over-heels.
On a more civilised world, she knew that detection systems would be able to track a falling person. They could track a coin-sized asteroid descending through the skies, and decide whether or not to defend against it. They could save someone falling out of a ship.
Except this wasn't a civilised world.
It was a world that was so primitive that they had only just figured out that climate change affects the size of their brains. Not that they had actually realised that ignoring and placating the masses was a dumb as shit approach to dealing with your world deciding it didn't need you anymore.
Climate change is an allergic reaction, and the immune response, to an irresponsible species. Wipe them out, and start the whole game over.
She had no hope of being rescued, which made Ivy sort of wish she could die quickly. Instead of when the ground might turn her into mushed peas. However, she hadn't broken a bone yet, which sort of meant that she was a floating skydiver, about now.
She'd studied enough archaeological sites to know about jumpers, and the effects that the ground could have on your bones. It was the way a lot of ancient societies got rid of their excess, so that they could help maintain what they had, before they discovered... Well... More civilised approaches to things.
An alien, crashlanding in a primitive society's backyard.
She might well be about to start a whole new religion. Ivy had to timidly smile at that, because it actually was darn funny.
Primitive apes, worshipping a plant that fell from the skies, when they were devoting themselves to technology, and ignoring the greenery.
There are more stars in the sky, than grains of sand on the beaches of the Earth.
To some that platitude offered awe and wonder. To others it offered the fear of insignificance. The truth of it though, is a set of possibilities so startling and strange as to be beyond imagination.
Trying to understand the truth, and the unknown, especially the unknowables, was what had so many species and societies reaching out towards religion, for so very many. Explaining these things was an essential first step towards the next stage of the world.
Not everything could be explained. Ivy wasn't against religion. There were things in the worlds that couldn't be explained.
Yet... None of that helped her, about now.
She was still falling through the skies of the Earth, wearing nothing but an irritatingly skimpy maid's dress.
Ivy had to admit, nothing did ever go to plan for her. It wasn't something she much liked to think about. She wanted to pretend that she was like everyone else, and all she had to do, was try a little bit harder.
Except, falling through the skies of a planet, with no parachute, no jetpack, no void control, not even a damned recall adapter... She was one hundred percent, completely, without caveat... Fucked.
The sadness turned to anger, and Ivy kicked and punched, before quickly realising that's a hard thing to do when you're still holding your breath. Which is when she gave up and tried to gasp in the air whipping right by her.
It's very hard to breathe at altitude, with the thinness of everything. It's even harder, when you're moving through it hard enough to make everything solid. She went dizzy, head spinning, and smiled slowly.
Ivy giggled, as a strange sort of euphoria bubbled up and through her.
She... Was about to die.
She was about to die!
It seemed hilarious to her, even if she knew that was a very bad thing to think. But thinking was for people who were still breathing, and laughing, and getting hit on by guests on board a cruiseship, that people only ever went on because they wanted to see and explore everything.
She was about to see everything. She was going to go splat and pff and then she'd be everywhere, and one with what wasn't. That was the best way to see things that exist everywhere. To step beyond what existed, and to look back over your shoulder.
Ivy should have become a monk. Religious folk always got way too much money, and no one guilted them when they used it to explore everything that existed, just to see the handiwork of their gods.
If she were a monk, she could put aside this bubbling happiness, which was burying the petrifying fear, by putting together her hands, and being all centred with everything in the world.
Most monks got some very basic archaeological training. They learnt translation, and the principles of exegesis were pretty sound for interpreting most ancient documents, but especially the religious kind. She'd be able to jump right into that.
Sister Ivy Green.
Sister to the Green.
She was about to become part of the Green.
What was the... Green?
Just as the darkness finished closing in around the edge of her sight, and the numbness began to spread through Ivy, she felt something brutal grasp at one of her uselessly flapping leaves. It tore right away, but she was so far gone that it didn't even hurt.
If she had the energy for it, she would have laughed.
Laughing.
That was the right way to die.
Ivy floated softly, quietly, without motion, without sound, and without a meaning in it all.
She blinked, and there was light.
She wasn't sure what the light was. It floated before her, around her. It was swirling, without form. It was not in any place, because the idea of a place wasn't real. Not yet.
Ivy felt her flowers opening, breathing in the light. Pulling and dragging at it. Giving form to substance, separating the light from its absence. Creating the darkness. She breathed in the light, and so there was life.
Her feet landed on soft soil, her toes squirrelling instinctively down into it. Through the dirt, and down into the waters below. She felt the void give substance, and groaned as she pulled in the water, and the light, together becoming energy, and so there was life.
She felt the petals of her flowers wilt, and drop away. Gasping for breath, for the light, they gave up. She felt the effort and concentration, the grossness of her monthly, as each bulb began to grow their seeds. Little things bursting forth, falling to the ground so it might produce vegetation, and so there was life.
She saw other lights popping and bursting into life, all across the sky. Each of them marking a moment in history, something to be remembered, something to be recorded.
The pinpoints that drew together the stories that people needed to know where they'd come from. Genetic memory be damned.
Little fish appeared in the water, nibbling at her roots. Birds called to each other, as they filled the sky.
A hand slapped the hell out of her mouth.
Ivy fell onto her side, coughing and gasping. Reeling as light flooded into her eyes, and she found herself lying on some rather sharp grass. Blades scraping and scratching away at her cheek, as she felt her lungs burning like someone had actually tried to light her on fire.
"Finally." A disgruntled voice said.
A familiar voice?
Ivy blearily looked up, and started as she saw a figure dressed in black, with a black helmet. She remembered him, now. Not just from the moment before, when she had been trying to have her breakfast.
"Y-..." She gasped, and found her throat was far too raw to manage to accuse him of knocking her into the pool.
If he expected her to thank him, for saving her from falling off the ship, then he had another thing coming! He had knocked her into the pool, and she'd very nearly drowned, and he hadn't even checked on her.
Well... She would thank him.
Falling through the skies and surviving it, was amazing. She was incredibly grateful to him. That didn't mean that she wouldn't hate him. It was only fair that he saved her, after what he done earlier.
Well... She was grateful to him.
Hard not to be grateful, when you were having some strange near-death experience, and someone swept in and dragged you back from the brink of it all.
The man didn't crouch to check in on her. He didn't go anywhere, either. So it wasn't as if he were abandoning her, but Ivy was quite certain that he didn't give a single care towards her, at all.
Maybe it was his job to save idiots like her, who ended up overboard?
That would explain his getup.
Fingers spread through the soil, and she very weakly pushed herself upright. Ivy swayed dizzily, and found her flowers intact. Quite closed and pulled in, frightened from the whole experience. At least she hadn't lost those.
"Ready to go?"
She didn't both trying to speak, just slowly shaking her head, which made the world rather spin around her. She very nearly ended up falling back into the grass, if she weren't leaning so hard on her arm.
The man sighed and kicked the ground idly with one of his black leather boots. What was with the black leather everything? It wasn't exactly the bright uniform of the cruiseliner. They were all about bright and preppy, like her stupid uniform.
A uniform, that Ivy realised was looking a little scorched.
She was, as well. But a few days in the sun, and she could heal those burns. She was fragile, but she always healed well. Scarring wasn't something that anybody but the best could spot on a body like hers.
But the uniform?
The stupid and irritating thing was incredibly expensive.
She might have to work an extra shift to pay for a new one! Not getting to go down to... The planet that she was actually on. May as well enjoy it whilst they were down here. Though she got the strong feeling that her rescuer wouldn't be interested in doing that.
Ivy struggled slowly to her feet, and turned about.
She could see where the two of them had come down. There was a long streak of mud, where grass and flowers had been propelled out of the way. Tiny pieces of her maid's outfit, here and there. For being as ruinously expensive as it was, the darn thing wasn't exactly well held together.
The flowers that had been lost were mostly a kind of wildflower. Small and yellow little daisies. They were cute, and made her think all kinds of countryside thoughts. She loved them. Along with those, were a few dandelions, their seeds floating one by one, off and along the gentle breeze.
A breeze that was cooling her flushed cheeks, and bringing her down to... Earth. She was really here, planetside, before any of the other servants that she knew. She might not be near a city, but this was a beautiful place.
"Ready to go?" He repeated. She ignored him.
There was more than one grass here, growing upright or lying down. Sprouting here or there. They were clustered, and yet, altogether, it felt like the grass was a field. A soft and muddy sort of field.
There were all kinds of weeds, as well. Flat and spread out leaves, trying just to eke out an existence, whilst hoping that everything around them would ignore that they had taken root. Desperately clinging on to life.
Ivy took a deep and cold breath of air, before smiling broadly, "I love it here."
"The cities suck."
Her head whipped around, looking at the impassive stranger in surprise, "You've been here before? To Earth?"
"Mmm. Ready to go?"
She rolled her green eyes, and looked back to the clearing. Gazing out beyond it, to the trees that were surrounding them on all sides. Some were thin and tiny pines, scraggling for height, among the much broader and firmer oaks.
Her bootless feet crept into the soil, toes waggling down into it, and feeling the joy-filled root systems all around them.
She could hear the forests, breathing in slowly, holding for a moment, and then letting go the transformed air. Purifying, cleansing, as they did nothing more than live. Balanced in a beautiful equilibrium.
"Ready to go?" He tried again.
Ivy turned and glared at him, "Nothing is going to happen to the guest who threw me, is it? I'm going to get in trouble for this. So why would I want to go back? Why would I want to get yelled at, when we have... All of this?"
He shrugged silently.
That pushed her anger over the edge. The adrenaline still burning through her, made Ivy stalk right up to the man and poke him hard in the chest, "They might not apologise to me, but you damn well should! You pushed me into the pool! Foliage doesn't swim, you absolute jerk!"
She couldn't see his face through his helmet. He didn't seem to even notice her pushing on him.
Ivy remembered the slap he'd given her, to pull her back. She was thankful for it, but his current stubborn behaviour deserved more than just a slap.
Her knee flew up, slamming into the centre of his groin, where most men tended to keep their rather private parts, in most species.
He folded up instantly, with a slow groan and hiss of air.
Ivy spun around, and glared out at the beautiful garden all around them. "You're a terrible person."
He wheezed.
She crossed her arms, rolling her jaw. "I get fucking thrown out of a fucking spaceship, and the only thing you can damn well ask me, is if I'm ready to go back? I fell out of a spaceship! I fell. I should be dead. If I take years to recover from this, it wouldn't be surprising. Am I ready to go back?"
He didn't answer.
She stomped both her feet into the soil, brushing and connecting with the roots below. "You throw me in a pool. I almost drown. I can't even get a sorry? What are you, a freaking child? You're a terrible person. An asshole. An absolute bastard! You nearly kill me, and the best you can do is ask me if I'm ready to get back to work? I never want to work again! I want... This! I want to be free as those butterflies. These ants. I just want..."
She broke off, choking up as she realised just how close to everything ending she really had come.
He said nothing, just very slowly getting to his feet with a creak of leather.
Ivy gave a loud tsk and glared at him, "Fine. Let's go back."