//------------------------------//
// Chapter 39 
// Story: Return to Sender 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

Felicity followed the honored expedition of strange plants through the remains of the Custodian ship. 

The vessel seemed so small from the outside, with each deck barely as wide as service passages on a human or pony ship. That size was deceptive, though—from the inside, the space seemed vast.

As they got closer to their destination, they saw other plants swimming up and down from different directions, like the circulatory system of a living creature. The boundary was fuzzy here, with some sections of broken ship repaired with the living bodies of plants, grown over the openings.

There were many plants who didn't seem capable of movement, or very little of it. Even stranger, she saw leaves emerge from the inside of an open conduit, with little flashes of light moving along it.

"Does someone live in there?" Felicity asked, gesturing at one such opening. She should be focused on her mission, she knew that—but her curiosity was impossible to fully restrain. "It looks so uncomfortable."

"Numberless," said one of their guides, a guard who had introduced himself as Pyroduct-Flooded-Near-Terminal-Vine. "Most who join to service aboard the Sky Temple will eventually join with it. It is an inevitable consequence of our time spent in orbit. Motion becomes more difficult, until we merge into the ship."

"So many dead..." whispered another guard, their scent lost almost as soon as the words were out. "Only the core of the Sky Temple remains intact. The rest was opened to vacuum, killing all. A small percentage survive, no more."

"That is..." Delta began. Her voice was unsteady. "Awful. They devoted themselves to the temple to protect us, and that's what they got in response? That's so unfair!"

She wasn't just yelling to their guards, of course. Her scent was focused on Felicity.

"How many of the enemy have we killed in response?" she asked. "Do we know how many people?"

The guards laughed, or the plant equivalent. The normally happy smell was tinged with bitterness, like sour fruit. "None, of course. None grow among them. They are... a renegade machine. Some feared they were mightier than the temple and all who grow aboard."

"But they were wrong to doubt," Pyroduct said, urging them all forward together. He gestured to a doorway just ahead, one wide enough for a dozen creatures to pass through at once. Bright green plants grew along its edge, spiraling over the structural supports, covering every nearby surface with living vines.

Except... no, those weren't alive. As she got close, Felicity smelled nothing. She caught the faint reflection of artificial materials, meticulously cleaned. This was the plant version of imposing civic statues, with bright spotlights shining on nothing.

There were more guards floating outside, and every single one of them carried weapons. Curiously, these weren't the microwave-pistols she had seen all over, useful for defense against predators but harmless to their own.

She saw them not as weapons at first, but gardening tools. Motorized hedge-trimmers, adapted for the specific conditions of underwater use. Each soldier carried two of the strange weapons. They elicited a particularly fearful response from anyone who swam close, remaining well away. 

Only their escort came close, swimming straight toward them.

"The Last Witness has been told of your message," said Pyroduct. "She has not permitted any of our number to visit with her during this war. But an exception has been made for you."

"We all need some good news," said another guard. "We look forward to hearing what you share, when the message is sent to the rest of the Sky Temple."

They stopped a short distance from the doorway, falling into a submissive position in the water, their limbs hanging down. They made particular care to point their weapons away from those by the door, even if those tools would do nothing to another plant.

Those by the door had no uniforms—the idea of clothing made very little sense for plants growing together in ideal conditions. But they did have more of the strange purple leaves. In fact, their bodies were so covered with them that they had almost no yellow or brown growth to be seen, let alone green.

They also moved more quickly than anyone else she had seen on the Custodian ship so far. Two of the half-dozen or so zipped across the room to Felicity and Delta, prodding them with several limbs at once. 

"Float still and be searched," came the command. "That no harm will come to the Last Witness."

Delta obeyed instantly. Felicity was a little slower to uncoil her body, eliciting more force from the searching guards. They pried her vines apart, searching in the space between for anything she might be hiding.

There was no shoot or vine thin enough to prod at the implants woven into her flesh, though, and soon the search came away with nothing.

In the time it took for the search, several plants had gathered. It wasn't just a hallway, but a prominent courtyard, with much traffic moving in both directions. Now it clogged, with plants cramming into every opening.

None spoke directly to her, but Felicity heard much of what they said anyway.

Many were surprised to see plants so green and healthy on their ship. Yet instead of suspicion, she felt trust. Something about them made the plants all supportive, eager to have them around. Of course they wanted to know what was happening, and why.

"They've come to see the Witness," said one of the nearby plants. "They must have news from outside. Their ship reached us when so many others could not."

She did not get to keep listening, because their escorts chose that moment to shove them through the doorway. They did not follow, stopping in formation beside the lifeless statue of healthy growing plants. A heavy mechanical door slid down behind them, plunging Felicity and Delta into darkness.
 
For a few seconds Felicity drifted forward, borne ahead by the momentum of the shove. The space was lifeless, with only the smell of faintly rotting plants in the water. Like walking through a hospital full of terminal patients. It wasn't quite the stink of someone dead, but of serious sickness.

"Why is it so dark?" Delta said. One vine touched against Felicity, holding to her. Only through it did she make out even faint words. "The sky temple was supposed to be filled with endless light. It's hard to think in the dark. Don't want to sleep..."

"You will not," said a voice. Not a scent at all, but words directly into Felicity's mind. And Delta's as well, she assumed. "I have had significant time to adapt your physiology. Before you left your transport ship, you were saturated with substantial magical energy. This would sustain you for decades without light, under normal circumstances. Unfortunately this vessel possesses a powerful dampening field, one that is consuming your supply at a rapid rate. I am hopeful it will be sufficient."

Lights came on from all directions, so sudden and powerful that Felicity could not reply. Her eyes did not work the same as a pony or human's, so she could not be blinded by that light. 

It was instead like being brought inside after a hard day of work in the freezing cold. Discomfort turned to relaxation, anxiety to peace. 

The room was a sphere, huge by plant standards. Growth covered the walls, thousands of vines all twisted together, interconnected. Their leaves were old, yellowed in many places. The vines had worn away from the metal supports, giving her a view of conduits and pipes beyond. Light shone through from the gaps, suggesting they grew on a transparent lattice, constantly suffused with it.

What she couldn't see was any clear division of individuals. Vines branched and split from each other, without the dense "stem" that formed the center of all the other plants she knew.

In the center of the sphere was a smaller glass sphere, one covered with ancient grimy residue. Even so, the light that shone from within was softer and more comfortable than anything she had ever felt. Felicity could float here, and never feel hungry again.

"Fascinating. It appears we have discovered an ancient behavioral conditioning tool. I am overriding the impulses it sends to you, but not Delta. The others here will expect obedience. That knowledge may be useful."

Delta reacted to the light as she had done on their arrival, spreading out and relaxing her leaves into a gesture of complete religious subservience. "I do not belong in your divine light," she said. "I am only a Grovetender. Please show me your mercy, witness of the sun—"

"You escaped," said a voice. It came from all around them in equal measure, an overwhelming, discordant voice. Like Harmony, if Harmony were poisoned. "We are greatly blessed by your success. We knew the light would again shine for those who watch and witness."

Delta lowered herself in further submission. Felicity imitated her motions, though it came much more slowly. "Am I understanding this right?" she thought, through the implants. "This entire race is ruled by a fancy lightbulb?"

Manny's reply came instantly. "Careful bioconditioning over many lifetimes. They exist as useful laborers, created with exactly the intelligence required to complete their work, then die and leave the system ready for their creators to inherit."

"We have come to share what we know," Felicity said. Even with Manny interfering with the light, she still found speaking here difficult. There was an unseen gravity, pulling her towards the walls. There were empty spots on the framework, big enough for her. It would be so easy to stop fighting. 

That's what Delta is doing, she realized. It wasn't just instinct pulling her towards the walls, but her companion, swimming sluggishly in their directions. 

"You will," said the voice. "Your victory has earned you a place of honor. You will join us—become of one mind. Then we will know all that you know. We will learn the weaknesses in the Blight, and how to destroy its tools."

She could let go of Delta, and let her get drawn in. But if those words were true, it would mean more than just losing her to this congealed mind. It would mean the First Witnesses would learn everything Delta had seen. Some of those lessons might just show it ways to keep fighting the Varch'nai. At the very least, it would inform the mind of Felicity's real identity, and they could cut her apart.

Felicity swam against the current with deliberate force, startling Delta from her passive obedience. "Help her, Manny. I'm not losing her."

"Done."

Delta stopped resisting her. Her vines curled slightly, many angling towards her. They watched in confusion. "Felicity? Don't you want to—"

"No." There was no one to face. No single person—or maybe there was. This was no Harmony, an incomprehensible union of minds far beyond her ability to understand. These were a few thousand plants at most, barely holding on to life.

"I cannot join you, First Witness. I am not what you think—but I do bring your salvation, if you will hear me."

She smelled bewilderment then. The mind surrounding them had not imagined resistance was possible. It was so confused that it could form no words.

Felicity used the time to swim as far from the edge as possible. Those plants were reaching towards them from the supports, many thousands of little tendrils. They left her with no doubt in her mind what would happen if she got too close.

She imagined her last feeble screams as they wrapped around her, adding her mind to the slowly-rotting mass that was the First Witness.

"Speak," came the command, along with a brilliant flash of light. The sphere lit with it, filling the room with white. It threatened to consume her, or at least overwhelm her ability to think.

A shell of magic formed around her, leaving her in sudden shade. Enough to think clearly. Alright, Felicity. You only get one shot at this.

"We come not just as your growing subjects. We come as diplomats and messengers. We're here to negotiate your surrender."