Upon Vestia: Chapter Fourteen

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(Cause the old thread won't split.)

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:"aww poor little green mouse." Luka laughed. "That trap is ridiculous."

Ellie captured one of Starr's pieces. She had no grand strategy, she just tried to capture everything. "So does the princess have any cool stories from her past?" she asked curiously.

Starr frowned a little and captured a different piece from Ellie then shook her head a little "I don't think you would call any stories from her past 'cool'."

"Aww. She didn't have any fun princess slumber parties?" Ellie said sadly. "If I was a princess, I'd have slumber parties."

Starr frowned in thought at that and closed her eyes, going through the mirror's memories. "No, no slumber parties, but she did have tea parties and balls. She doesn't have many friends either, her parents kept her away from others to try to keep her safe." She said after a bit.

"Helicopter parents," Ellie grumbled. "Did she have pretty dresses at least?"

Kay looked distinctly uncomfortable at this line of questioning and threw himself fully into trying to remove what appeared to be an ice cream from the electronic patient's head.

Luka smiled gratefully to Ellie and waited patiently for her turn. "oh little yellow mouse you're going down." She smirked at Asher, it was his turn.

"yeah probably wise." Esk mumbled. He motioned vuagely for Ethan to come over. "It's weird talking to someone who's lingering in a doorway." How'd he know that? he hadn't opened his eyes.
"Regretting leaving your universe yet?"

Asher pretended to quail at Luka's threat. "Don't hurt me! I didn't do anything to deserve this!" He rolled the die and ended up on the chopping block.

James smirked.

~~
"Doorways are great to linger in. You can escape quickly when things go bad," Ethan said. But he came into the room. He didn't really consider Esk to be a threat for some reason. "They have water beds here. Fucking water beds. What sort of a place has those? So yeah, I'm having second thoughts."

Esk smirked. "Cruise ships for rich assholes." He opened his eyes to look at Ethan properly at last. "You don't even need a bed though." He looked bemused. "At least there's plenty of places to get some peace and quiet if you want it."

"It's the idea of it that I object to," Ethan said. "Such a rich person idea, filling a mattress with water. Shows you want people to think you don't give a crap about water damage." Although they always secretly did. Always. Bah.

Starr nodded and chuckled, looking to Ella then back at the board. "Yes, very pretty dresses, but from my perspective it explains why she didn't connect with people, she didn't know how."

Ellie nodded. "I guess that would make you lonely, being all by yourself like that. At least she has you and all your dragon memories to help her out now." She glanced at Asher, "She even has a son, sort of!"

Asher winced and fixed his gaze very firmly on the game board. Not just a son, since she had Kay's memories as well. Ugh.

Starr flinched a little, though she tried not to show her reaction to the reminder of those memories. She was getting better at it, but she still reacted when they were brought up. *sigh* "Yes, she has my memories of some very nice dragons that helped raise me. Some would call those dragons bad though, since they taught me to fight and to kill." Yay for dragons teaching her to be an assassin so long ago then sending her to that group to be trained when she was old enough. They had known she would need that information and had kept her secret safe for so long even without knowing she was a princess. She missed those dragons and wondered if they were still alive. That made her wonder if she could get to the Mariposa Empire for help now...hm. Yay for distracting thoughts.

The buzzer went off. "Well dang." Matt remarked, taking the tweazers and trying himself.

Kay chewed his lip.

You okay? Matt thought loudly at him.

Kay nodded jerkily.

Yeah figured, Matt thought, talking about stuff? Kay? Nah.
He set the buzzer off as well.

"Stupid brain freeze." He huffed.

Kay took the tweazers back.

Well things suddenly got awkward. Luka frowned, confused by the sudden tension in the air. What had Ellie said wrong?
Yeesh.
She rolled her dice and moved her mouse forward.

--

"Man, bursting one of those things would make a real mess." Esk mused. "With Matt around though, water damage isn't such a problem. He just absorbs it before it can seep in and really ruin stuff." Esk reached for the glass of water sitting on the table, hissing in pain at the required movement. Yeah, he was sticking to beer next time, wine seemed to hurt more. Eugh.

"That's awesome," Ellie told Starr, completely missing the discomfort of her friends. "They knew you'd need to protect yourself, so they helped you do that."

After a moment Asher for his emotions under control and resumed playing.

James looked from his brother, to Starr, to Kay, and back. Wow. There was something going on here, which he totally didn't know about. Kinda unnerving that saying something wrong could get such a reaction from three people, omg.

~~
"I doubt our Mattias ever helped anyone clean up water, useful that yours does," Ethan said, watching Esk. "How much did you drink? You look barely functional."

"Yeah he's found his calling being a janitor." Esk snickered and winced. "I think I lost count about the third bottle of wine. Matt just... brings them out of nowhere and takes them away again so it's very difficult to keep track." Esk waved a hand weakly. "I'll be fine, I just need more painkillers and I can't quite summon the energy to get up. I hope my brother is also suffering, it's his damn fault."

---

Kay managed to extract the ice cream and looked pleased with himself.
Matt grinned.

"You're getting better at this."

[dumb luck sadly.]

"Hey I LOVE dumb luck" Matt laughed. He'd opted to just ignore the awkward. "It's nice to know you've got something like a family out there Starr. You still in contact with them?"

Starr glanced to Matt after playing her piece then shook her head "I can't contact them from here. I would have to be inside the empire to send a message to them, though they know the name I use now and could send me a message if they need me. I do not want to put them in danger by letting my enemies know where my friends are." She frowned a little and looked away in thought. "They might help though, with the Family and all now." Hm...maybe it would be worth trying to get a message through.

"Good for him. Most people never find their callings," Ethan said dryly. He didn't volunteer to find Esk painkillers because the idea honestly didn't even cross his mind, "Maybe the ship can help you get painkillers or something," he said. "Binge drinking wine is an incredibly stupid idea."

~~
"Perhaps we should go to their empire after we leave the Guild," Asher suggested. "We need all the allies we can get."
His mouse got trapped at this point, kicking him out of the game. "It's up to you now, Moone," he said, "You have to defeat Luka for us!"

James grinned. "Asher's out! Asher's out! Yaaay!"

Moone giggled again, finding it funny that both the androids lost the luck game first. She looked to Luka, since it was the other female's turn now.

"Yes, yes it is." Esk agreed. "Lesson learned, i'm sticking to beer."
he closed his eyes again and made himself comfortable.

--

Luka laughed. "aww poor yellow mouse, free from the turmoil of this madness." She rolled and moved then handed the dice to Moone.

"Go Moone! Beat all the grown ups!" Matt laughed. "you can do it!"

Kay nodded to Starr [We should know more about where we stand once we've spoken to this guild.] He looked wary and uncertain. [But honestly any and all allies are likely to be neccisary here. ]

"yeah, the whole universe verses a few overpowered assholes." Matt made a face. "Well, a fair fight's not so interesting right?"

Kay smiled sadly. He wasn't at all sure about this guild. All they had was Vanessa's word it was safe and honestly, at this point, how much did he really trust Vanessa? And how much could have changed in the time they'd been gone? If the guild hadn't moved on the family yet, why would a group of strange misfits showing up and asking nicely make them change their mind? It was anxiety inducing, he hated uncertainty and this was about as uncertain as you could get.

"Kay? It's your turn man." Matt gently roused his brother from his sombre musing.

Kay nodded curtly and looked at his card.

Ethan chuckled. "I'll leave you to stew in your alcohol-induced misery then," he said, heading toward the door.

~~
James grinned at Luka. "It looks like everyone's rooting for Moone," he said, "Should I switch sides and cheer for you then?"

"I'm Team Moone!" Ellie called.

"Yo Tala, Join Team Luka!" James said to the cow lady, "Crew loyalty and all that."

Tala snorted happily. "Your loyalty is a joy to see, Slave," she said teasingly.

James facepalmed.

"I will be loyal to my crewmates," Tala said proudly. "We celebrate the exploits of your small rodent in battle, Luka!"

Esk waved. "Yeah... "

---

Luka laughed. "Thank you Tala, but it's not really battle it's more... cowardly running away. Stupid mice, if they just stopped circling that cheese, look at the pile in front of us! come on mice, here's your cheese."

Matt looked amused. "Who the hell decided mice liked cheese anyway? In my experience, they're far more interested in bread and grain."

Kay nodded [and cakes, they really liked cakes.]

"Oh hell yeah, little buggers kept getting into the larder"

Ethan wandered off. He wasn't much good at goodbyes. He'd head up a flight of stairs heading away from the main levels, not really going anywhere in particular. He wasn't avoiding anyone, he was just looking around. There was a lot to see.

Starr nodded at Kay's words and played her piece then looked over to the mousetrap game and smiled softly. If they could keep kids like Moone safe, then it would be worth it to have to stand in trial for Merith, if they got him off on good behavior and got his corruption thing fixed. She sighed and fell into her thoughts.

Moone rolled the dice, grinning when she got out of the way of the trap on that roll "Your turn Luka" She giggled and handed the dice back over. "My little blue mouse will win."

"It is a battle, for there are competitors, even if they are foolish competitors," Tala said. "Therefore, we take sides. I take Luka's side!"

Asher smiled and handed his mouse to James for safekeeping, then stood and went to root in the closet for something.

"You okay, Starr? You look like you're thinking," Ellie said. "You're not supposed to think right now."

"I agree with Ellie, thinking is bad!" Matt declared.

Kay rolled his eyes.

"What ya lookin for Asher?" Matt asked curiously.

Luka shook her head and rolled the dice, moving her little mouse forward and around the loop again. 2 spaces from the trap again.

Ellie smiled proudly at Matt. That guy was sooo her type. Platonically, of course. He understood the importance of not being too serious so well!

Asher reappeared carrying a small, sparkly, homemade trophy. "For whoever ends up winning," he said.

James blinked. "Does anyone know where that came from?"

"I had some spare time on my hands last week so I made trophies," Vestia said with a laugh. "Well the bots did, technically. I just told them what to do."