Upon Vestia: Chapter Twelve

First topic message reminder :

"Yep, all alone on a desert planet with a weird bird." Ellie scowled, "False gods. So gross. I hope all immortals die soon." She paused, "Umm, well, I hope the immortals I like stick around for a while longer though."

"I'll get Vestia to send over a few bots, so I don't look so alone, and I'll tell everyone my dad story," Asher said. "And just think, all this because you deprived your faithful colleague of a day off."

Kay shook his head. [You're adorable when you're being ridiculous] He told him.

Asher smiled. With all the excitement of the day, it was good to be goofy for a bit. "Thanks. I think."

[Thank you, I needed cheering up.] Kay smiled and lightly squeezed his hand, a brief, very small gesture of affection.

"Glad I could help," Asher replied, smiling softly

[I'm afraid there isn't much work to do today. I already sorted all the new stock and filed all the receipts. Unless someone injures themselves in some idiotic and spectacular manner, we've got some free time.]

"You're too efficient. This is terrible." Asher shook his head in mock horror at Kay's impeccable work ethic. "Might not be a good idea to head back to the space station so soon before we're scheduled to depart. There's always the holodeck, I suppose."

[We're BOTH too efficient. Maybe we really do need to take more breaks.] Kay smiled at Asher. [You could always disappear off to do some engineering if you'd prefer. Though i'm not sure how much needs to be fixed around here either, there's just a general problem with everyone being too efficient at their jobs. Which is funny given how little most of them seem to actually work.]

Asher sighed. "I already fixed everything. Unless Vestia has a sudden emergency, there's nothing actually worth adjusting or replacing right now. The few who have jobs here, are very efficient in general. It's terrible."

[Looks like we're stuck with one another for the day then.] Kay feigned horror at that. [What a terrible ordeal.] He broke into a grin and indicated Asher follow him. [Let's wander about and find something to do while we wait for someone to hurt themselves.]

---

Matt decided he'd had enough moping, moping was freaking boring. Also, he wanted to talk to someone about this pool party idea. Drunk people around water, what could go wrong!?

He distracted Thalia with a stack of wedding magazines and a notepad telling her to jot down ideas and make a mood board they could go over later. Make it pretty, make it huge, hell, here's a whiteboard and markers, go to freaking town baby.
And he FLED the wedding planning.

He went to find Ellie or Shane.

"It's too bad we can't stand each other," Asher said gravely. "This will be miserable."
He happily followed Kay.

~~
Ellie was scowling at the same plant she had been staring at when Asher and Kay stopped by earlier. Apparently bigger plants took more skill to grow, because she was having zero luck.

Matt knocked on the nearest planter to get her attention.
"Hey.. Ellie?" What the heck was so interesting about the plant?

---

[Definitely, we'll both hate every moment of it i'm sure.] Kay smiled back, reaching out a hand to him. There was nobody around right now after all, hah.
Sometimes it was really nice to have such a huge ship and so few people on board.

Ellie looked around quickly, panting like she had just sprinted to catch a bus. "Oh hey, Matt," she said shiftily.

~~
Asher laughed and took Kay's hand. "Maybe you'll give me a day off just to get away from me."

Kay squeezed his hand gently. [If only to stop you stealing all the pens.] He teased.

---

Matt shot her an odd look. "Uh.. you okay?"

"Hmm," Asher considered that for a bit. "I need those pens though."

~~
Ellie nodded. "I'm fine. Just, uh, busy. You know how it is." Because everyone looks out of breath after staring at a tomato plant, right?

"I had no idea hydroponics was so physically demanding." Matt smiled at her, yeah he didn't believe her.
"you want me to leave you to your uh... plant watching?"

---

[not ALL of them. ] Kay told him. [Unless you think it's necessary to switch pens for each form you fill out, but i've seen your paperwork.]

Ellie hesitated, then shrugged and picked a seed from a sprouting tray. "Might as well show you, I guess. Promise to not tell anyone?"

~~
"But then you do the paperwork when you get bored," Asher pointed out sensibly.

[I play solitaire or read when i'm bored, I do paperwork when i'm stressed or annoyed. Or when it actually needs to be done] Kay told him. [And I ran out of terrible books to read. I really is quite terrible.] He smiled and shrugged.

---

"You're gonna show me a seed?" Matt shrugged. "You have my word, I won't tell a soul!" He noticed she looked super serious and frowned. "Seriously, I won't tell anyone. What's going on?"

"True." Asher smiled, "We can split the pens, sixty-forty. You could always write a novel," he suggested.

~~
Ellie squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the seed, which slowly, so slowly, split open and peeked out a bit of green leaf.

Kay wrinkled his nose. [I'm not very creative. My brothers got all the artistic ability] He shrugged.

---

Matt watched, his eyes widening as the plant sprouted. "Ellie!" He burst into loud excited laughter. "YOu.. you're doing that?!"

"I hear it takes practice," Asher said. "Not that I've ever written anything either." He laughed, "Maybe we just need more passengers to get hurt."

~~
Ellie opened her eyes again, grinning up at Matt. "Yeah! Isn't it awesome?"

[We shouldn't hope, some tragedy will occur and someone will like sever a leg or something. ] He shook his head. [I didn't get much time for hobbies growing up, there was always something that needed doing. We still goofed off, but more the climbing trees, going swimming sort of goofing off. Or fishing, we went fishing a lot. Most of my non medical skillset revolves around staying alive in the wilderness, though once we have that medicinal garden fully up and running I can kill time preparing things for use. That should take a little time.] He cheered up at that thought, yes, drying herbs and preparing tinctures, powders and teas would definitely provide a distraction. Nice practical work, exactly the sort of thing he liked to do.

Matt nodded eagerly. "You know what this means though? You're ONE OF US!" He pulled her into a hug. "Congratulations, I always knew you were special." He laughed.

"Sounds like a good plan," Asher said. "Your knowledge of herbal stuff is far, far better than mine, or maybe even Ellie's." He added, "I have plans to see if I can poke around the Silver Devil a bit at some point. She looks like she might have some repairs left."

~~
"I wasn't one of you before?" Ellie teased. She hugged Matt back, hard. "THIS IS SO GREAT."

[You may have to get past the lieutenant first, I believe she's ex Fleet and they're weirdly possessive of their ships. ] He shook his head, fleet... they always were the most eccentric and superstitious. Also far more rowdy than infantry.
[The crew seem to be decent people though. for the most part. ]

---

Matt laughed. "One of us, but not one of US. Congratulations Ellie, you're officially a freak, and I mean that in the best possible way." He grinned at her. "How'd you figure out you could do this? What else can you do?"

"I'll be sure to ask her then," Asher said. "Yes, most of them seem like good people. Strange, but that's to be expected. We're lucky to have them aboard."

~~
"I had this dying rose plant for, like, your wedding, and it was sick. So I kept it nearby and it started getting happier! And then I thought, what if my willpower is just that good? So I tried growing a seed, and it WORKED. I don't know how much I can do yet. Currently all I've done is sprout seeds and perk up sick plants." Ellie looked proud.

"That's still pretty cool! Before long you'll have a whole army of plants are you command! You can totally get that man eating triffid to guard you now!" Matt clapped his hands delightedly. "maaan, everyone's coming into magical wanginess. Thalia learned to set fire to shit and shapeshift when we didn't think that was possible, you're learning to do plant... stuff.. It's awesome."

---

Kay nodded. [I should speak to Stellan at some point, we've both been avoiding one another. ] He shook his head.