Upon Silver Devil: Chapter Three

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[I can't say i've ever seen him drunk actually. I haven't seen him in nearly ten years.] Hmm that'd be interesting. [He got tall.] He smiled oddly, trying to make light of what was clearly pretty awkward and difficult.

"it's going to be okay." Luka whispered to James, forcing herself to stay optimistic.

James didn't look much like he believed her, but he didn't really want to argue about it until they had the news.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:
Esk frowned. "I feared he'd do somthing like that." He sighed and tried to get up, wincing in pain as he moved. "What about James?"

Dawn shrugged and used her air power to help him without moving any closer "Do you want to come to the meeting I had called?"

Esk nodded. "We need to work this out." He was at least ever pragmatic. He took a breath. "I'll catch up."

Dawn nodded and sighed softly, turning to leave "There are plenty other creatures, I figured we could talk to Vestia about making a ranch on one of the levels to be able to not have to buy fresh meat."

"You want to start farming?" Esk looked bemused, he followed slowly. He still hurt. "just keep Matt away from them, he gets annoyingly attached to animals, especially hooved ones."

Dawn shrugged a little then nodded "Not alone of course, but why not?" She said, going to the main room where the others were

James looked up as Dawn came in, looking scared. "What's happened?" He asked, not bothering with pleasantries.

Tala watched with interest.

Dawn looked around then held up the note "Acus has left the Silver Devil." She said then read the note aloud to them all.

"Oh no," James said weakly. He looked around at the others, then looked at the ground because it wouldn't be angry with him. "I'm so sorry about this. I never meant for it to happen."

Dawn frowned in confusion and looked to James "What do you have to be sorry about? He chose to leave us all here."

"I accidentally lead him on, and then I rejected him when I found out he had romantic feelings for me, and he tried to be nice about the rejection but I know it hurt him, and now he's left us and it's my fault," James said hastily to the floor. It wasn't fun to talk about this, especially not to the entire crew of the Silver Devil.

Dawn looked around at the others to see if they would say anything. "James, no. Sometimes people do incredibly stupid things when they are hurt, but that doesn't make what they choose to do anyone's fault. We all knew he has been depressed since Avia, and in a way before even that tradgedy. If you start to lay blame, then you could lay some at my feet, and Esk's for losing (forgot her name, pretend Dawn remembers) to the slavers. She was a kind of counselor for him. For all we know, he got it in his head to go and find her and plans to find us again someday."

Esk leaned against a wall, arms folded. He shook his head. "He wanted to get away, we wouldn't go with him. "

"James this isn't your fault!" Luka pulled him into a hug.

"She's right, it's not." Esk agreed flatly.

"You can't control other people's feelings, sometimes.. sometimes no matter how hard you try, you can't stop them." Luka continued, sniffing and holding back the tears in her eyes.

"Maybe he did go to find Silv, or Vicky, who the fuck knows?" Esk shook his head. "What about his other property?" He indicated the letter. "he mentions the ship, does that include everything connected to it?" He glanced to James meaningfully.

"He said he wanted to leave but... I didn't think he meant alone!" Luka shook her head, tying to make sense of it. Leaving his ship? His crew? Everything? Maybe he really had felt like he didn't belong any more.

James sighed and sort of hugged Luka back. "Yeah, maybe, I don't know." He was still going to blame himself for this, he felt so awful for making Acus miserable after that nice day they'd had just yesterday. It all felt so sudden, and what he'd done felt so cruel.

"James is no longer amongst Acus' possessions! He informed me yesterday that he has declared James free!" Tala proclaimed. "We must assume he has taken his monetary funds, for he has not left his bank account information in our hands, but the material possessions we shall use as our own, as he did not state otherwise." She nodded sagely. This sounded sensible to her.

Esk looked skeptical. "Will just declaring an android free be enough?"

Luka glared. "He belongs to HIMSELF."

"yeah well, sadly we can't do that yet. Not till they have legal status as people. " Esk shrugged.

"Could have Mourn change the files." Swarm suggested, they weren't sure what to think. They'd watched so much of this happen and not really understood what was going on, now some of them were wondering if they should have tried to stop Acus or tried to talk to him more. Hmm.

Esk shrugged. "So with the captain gone, that leaves an important question that needs answering. Who's in charge now?"

James frowned. That was a good point about his ownership, hmm. If he got picked up by the Terran police at some point, he'd need someone in his owner file for them to talk to. He looked around the room. "Yeah, someone here will need to be put in my owner info," he said thoughtfully.

"We need a captain who is experienced enough to command a crew!" Tala said. "I suggest myself or Rigel!"

Esk nodded in agreement with Tala. Rigel had more diplomacy, but Tala took no shit so hmmm.

Luka frowned. "Maybe we should... have a vote, like... a secret ballot." She glanced to James. "We'll talk to Mourn, he can sort out your files right? He did with Ethan."

"You can put me as your owner, if you want James" Dawn said softly then shrugged "Not like I would tell you what to do before you get declared legally free anyway."

Rigel raised his head at the mention of his name then shrugged "Fine by me." He said about being named acting captain. "He said to use diplomacy to decide what to do anyway."

James nodded. "You as my owner, or Rigel, or I guess whoever gets to captain this ship. It's not like I have the Three Laws any more, so nobody can make me do anything even if they're in my file." He looked at Tala and Rigel, "I won't publicly declare my preference on the grounds that the other candidate might smash my head in," he said.

Tala wiggled her ears. "There is no one in this room who would smash your head, James. If there was, I would stop them!"

Dawn chuckled softly "Maybe we should let Tala and Rigel leave, since they are the candidates then vote among the rest of us? That way no one feels intimidated or pressured?" After all, both could do as James said one way or another.

Luka nodded. "That sounds reasonable."

Esk shrugged. "whatever."

"We shall vote!" Swarm happily declared.

"Come, Rigel! Let us leave the people to speak their will!" Tala declared. She headed out of the room.

"We don't have any third party nominees, do we?" James asked.

"Throwing yourself into the ring?" Esk asked with a smirk.

James snorted. "I wasn't even thinking of that, but you're right, I guess this is the perfect chance for Captain Bond to take command." He didn't actually want to lead though, come to think of it. At least not right after his former owner and captain had left because of him. It just felt wrong.

Esk rolled his eyes. "Let's get this over with."

"So.. how do we do this? Show of hands? " Luka asked.

"I guess we should, like, discuss it. Talk about the merits of the two options, so we have a better idea of the candidates?" James said. "I want to be an informed voter, since I've never voted in an election before."