Earth was but a tiny blue dot in the distance from the tiny window of my officer cabin. I stretched my legs until my feet touched the wall my bed was embedded into and my arms backwards reaching out for the pipe sticking out of the ceiling. I held onto it to stand upright and let go of it to fall gently on my feet onto the floor. I sighed. I never knew space travel could be this boring and melancholic, even more so being just a legal representative; a mere ambassador of the Department of Defense. I set out to open the sliding door by pushing the blue button right beside it, then stepped out into a dull metallic hallway of many inside the Taxcaatl. I walked towards the meeting scheduled every 3 days, where no doubt even duller reports awaited me.

Right outside I found the rest of the ship's officers; the bosses of every micro-department up here, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from their real seats. I sat beside one of the administration and human resources bosses. In front of me sat the biology and armamentistic nerds. Behind a modest screen glowed a map of the space between Earth and the Moon showing our current location. The ship's captain, one Ximena, went over one more day of inactivity to make more time to work the labs on board.

Luckly there was no extra meeting for me since no foreign ship approached our perimeter. The Captain dismissed the meeting quicker than usual. I was already passing through the exit door when a soft hand touched my shoulder from behind. 

- Hey! I'm Marina, you know... Chief of the Biology Department... I wanted to show you something-. She said as I passed her by. Her voice sounded pretty insecure.

- Heyyy girl. Stop right there. I think you're mistaking. I'm the Delegate of the Defense Department. I have no business with this ship's labs.

Marina frowned, thinking.

- You don't remember? No matter. Well, you've got nothing else to do anyway. I've seen you wandering around the ship like some kind of Yokai. It'll be quick, promise -. Marina's voice then acquired a higher pitch by the end of her sentence.

- Mnh... alright. As long as you don't use the Tlanex on me.

I followed her through the increasingly narrower hallways of the Tlaxcaatl as she tried to walk by my side only for them to force her to walk in front of me time and time again. We got to the Biology Department wirh the Tlanex inside of it.

When we passed through the unusually wide sliding door, I was surprised by how little the lab looked like one. The biggest windows I had seen in the entire ship where everywhere, showing Earth in it's entirety and the concentric lines where the non-essencial warehouses of the ship were. Though there was something partially obscuring that sublime sight, something that reacted to mine and Marina's presence: climbing plants, young floral trees and bamboo plants moved their stems towards Marina. While we approached the central desk, the stems moved in a more refined way towards her right wrist, where she wore a blueish jade bracelet with the 4 fundamental runes carved carved armoniously into it. I recognized it as a Tlanex channeler. 

Marina then turned towards me and tried to whisper something to me. I couldn't make it, so instead, she lifted her bracelet to my eyes getting it in between us.

- You gave me this bracelet years ago. The day I graduated from my biology career. I remember you were working with Ship Defense Systems engineers and missed my graduation ceremony... you said something special back then. I know you couldn't remember it. But I've had you on my mind all these years...

- ... "You'll flower like a beautiful bugambilia. You'll raise high the name of Tlayenaco, and I'll be absolutely proud of you",

The words came out of my mouth spontaneously. I remembered young Marina talking to me for hours about nopal hybrids and fruit trees. I remembered her smell of flowers and the piercing stare that she glared at everything with. I remembered the time we met, when she broke into one of the armamentistic nerds' tests to protect a growing flower field...

Why did I forget her?

Marina's eyes opened wide. She ran and hugged me hard. Her momentum softly pushed us backwards, towards the closed lab door.

The trees and plants in the lab reacted to Marina's excitement. Their stems started to grow resoundingly until beautiful purple and pinkish flowers came out of their ends. The air was filled by an unbearably sweet smell. I recognized one of the floral trees while Marina and I began to cry on eachother's shoulder. It was a majestic bugambilia tree.