Upon Vestia: Chapter Seventeen

First topic message reminder :

Kay always tried so hard to be sensible and pragmatic. Asher had always loved that about him, and he loved it just as much now. He smiled softly. "No, you're definitely not alone in this."
He wasn't going to leave Kay to look after this little dragon alone. He'd gotten the guy into this situation, so now it was his job to do everything he could to help. Did that make him the other father here? Maybe. This was thoroughly confusing and he was going to need to think it over at some point. "If it wasn't already obvious, I'm here for you. Both of you," he said.

~~
Tala snorted weakly. "I do not like that butterfly well." She let Shane help her.

Starr set hers down as well, then the bag beside a chair that she would sit in. "Vestia, can you have a bottle bring some food and drinks for us, please." She asked, knowing how she was with research it might be better to be prepared beforehand.

"Yep, all free, for better or worse," said James. "There's only three of us here. Me, and two guys who look basically the same but actually aren't."

~~
Asher set down his books and started sorting them into piles by subject. Picture books in one pile, books about biology in another, books about culture in a third, and anything else that seemed different in piles of their own.

"Will do," Vestia said. A bot would bring refreshments before too long.

"What does that mean?" Amity asked. Confused.

"How do you tell them apart then?" Hewitt asked.

---

Kay looked over the books. Well those about development seemed the most reasonable place to start.

Starr had the same idea, picking one book to look through from that pile. "Thank you" She said when the refreshments were brought to them.

James laughed. "Free people can do anything. Free people can be scary and hurt people by accident, it gets complicated fast. You can tell them apart because one wears black and hides in the library, but the other wears neutral colors and hides in the med bay."

~~
Asher chose another one about how star dragons developed and started reading that.

Hewitt laughed at that. "Both not very social then?"

---

Kay started reading.

"Not very, no. They're nice guys though," James smiled fondly. "Should I be leaving you guys to rest or whatever? I guess you might want to settle in."

"I would very much like to explore and figure out where everything is." Amity said. "but you should rest sir, it has been a long few days. Would you care for anything?"

Hewitt chuckled and shook his head. "No no, I don't need for much. Perhaps i'll have a nap."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea sir. If you need anything... " Amity hesitated. He looked up to Vestia. "Can you call me if i'm needed?" He asked.

"Oh stop fretting, go on." Hewitt waved the drone away. "Just don't go getting yourself damaged again."

"I will try very hard not to sir." Amity responded with a smile.

"I can call you. I spy on everyone on this ship," Vestia joked cheerfully. "Don't worry."

"I can show you the sights," James told Amity, "what do you want to see? I know where a lot of stuff is. Maybe we'll run into someone too." This AI was so interesting! He didn't want to leave him yet.

Amity considered that. "I'm not sure where to start, this is quite unlike the cruise ship we came from. I will need to charge in around 7 and a half hours though, though i've not seen any docking ports. How do you recharge?"

"We use the electrical outlets," James said, indicating one in the wall near them. He opened the panel in his arm to show Amity his charging cable. "You don't have a charging cable of any type? If you did we might be able to get an adapter for you."

Amity shook his head. "The Felid engineer may have one. The ship had charging ports, we simply click into them and go into sleep mode while we recharge. " He bent down so James could get a better look at the drone, it was far too small to house any sort of cable. The batteries inside it were already about as small as they could get.

The books would tell basically what Starr had told them, the eating meat only for the first few days then the addition of fruits and veggies starting on the third day. That they would need daily bathing or an oil bath to keep their scales from cracking from the quick growth they had the first month at least, then a bath every other day or so after that, though they would be old enough by then to do so for themselves.

It would tell them that the imprinting was a permanent thing, based most on first sight and secondly on psychic strength. Since there were no star dragons without psychic powers, there was no info on if they imprinted on those that were 'silent' like that. In fact the only mention of a dragon being raised by a 'silent' being resulted in the infant's death from refusal to eat, and that would be in the book written by the slaves.

The books would tell them that in ancient times, the blood from a kill was enough liquid in the infant's diet, but in modern times, they had to learn to drink water in addition to the meat they needed for growth since most meat in modern times was cooked instead of raw.

The books would tell them that Frankincense, from Terra was actually the best oil to use if the infant couldn't be bathed daily since there was no fauna that had survived after the planet was destroyed.

They would learn that the first shift, right at an average of one month of age would be to the most common form taken by the parent and would be spontaneous, resulting in a child that *in Terrans* looked to be about 10 years of age. There was a special note in the slaves' book about other species appearing younger than that.

Well it answered a few questions then. Kay looked down at Danika in his pocket. He looked for anything about imprinting on the second parent and what happened should something mean their primary imprinted parent wasn't around. Would they accept being raised by someone else or did they need to stay with their 'mother'?

They had raw meat usefully, because Matt tended to prefer his steak raw and bloody. So that was helpful.

The second parent was seen the same as the first, though they didn't imprint as strongly on that one. The infants would eat and interact the same for the most part, though they would always prefer the one they saw first upon hatching, even if that one happened to be the male of the pair.

Some males in their culture only stayed around for that one month, moving on once the babies were old enough to take care of themselves but providing food for the babies and the mother during that time. The only time that was different was the few times that the female was not there for the hatching, where the infant would stay with the father more than the mother even as they aged.

They learned from both and would accept food and love from both parents.

Well, Kay decided, it was going to be a bit complicated but once she was old enough to understand things should simplify. A lot of kids were raised by people not their biological parents right? And a fair few must be raised by grandparents alongside parent and other such mixes. Vavare had three fathers and seemed to be perfectly fine with that. Danika would just have to get used to her unusual family.

Still, Kay couldn't help but hope she'd come to view Asher as something more than just her father's partner. For whatever reason it didn't feel quite right for Asher not to have an active role in this.

Weird, Kay mused, he'd never expected or had any desire for children nor much want for that sort of family unit, but now that it came down to it, if he was going to raise this little girl, he didn't want to do it alone and he wanted the man he loved to be beside him.

The only book that would have information on non-dragons parenting the infant star dragons would be the one made by slaves, and Asher wasn't sharing that one so far, not that it had much different otherwise.

The books Kay and Starr read only mentioned bathing and oils natural to her homeworld.

Starr set her book down, pausing to take a drink before picking another book to red through

[We'll need to find alternatives to these oils then. Sonata must know.] She'd raised a baby star dragon after all. Without really any of this information. If Cassie was fine, there had to be ways to do this.

"I think she just bathed her every day" Starr said, glancing over to Kay then looking back to the book she had picked up

[Good thing we have plenty of water.] Kay smiled softly.
He flicked through a couple more books, trying to take in as much as possible but damn, there was so much. It was a bit overwhelming.

"Not that they would take much to bathe them at this size" Starr said and smiled at him "This is a lot to take in, isn't it?"

Kay nodded. [It is. And such an enormous responsibility. ] He chewed his lip. she already trusted him so completely, he was terrified he'd manage to do something to betray that trust.

James frowned, "Yeah, we'd better talk to Mourn about charging you. I'm sure he can help."

~~
Asher read curiously and mostly let Starr and Kay do the talking. He didn't have much to add, really. "I'm sure we can find some oils here to use if needed," he said, "it would be sensible to be prepared for anything." He smiled reassuringly at Kay. He was right here. It was going to be all right. Somehow.

Amity smiled and straightened up. "That would seem prudent. Much as i'm certain the professor is safe here, my programming will not allow me to leave him until he has safe passage home. I'm not certain how long we should wait for an ungarbled response from the company, there's no way to know if the message even got through in such a way that they can understand it. " He looked troubled. "not many ships seem to leave this place once they arrive, I fear we may be stuck here indefinitely."

Asher would see the extra information about slavers keeping star dragons, it would tell him that a dragon could be raised by non-dragons if they were psychic and had some basic knowledge of the dragons. Though if raised away from their kind, they lacked some knowledge that was taught directly from parent to child. His also had the information on the alternative oil in it.

"Yeah, I dunno man," James agreed. "This place is like a black hole I think, you never really get out. Come on, let's harass Mourn."

~~
Asher was relieved that the book wasn't as horrible as he'd feared. He'd wanted to protect the babies from any psychic projections about depressing stuff. He told Kay and Starr what little new information he'd found.

Amity chuckled. "I don't particularly mind it here, it's very different to everything i've ever known though. But the Professor may start going mad if he has to endure much more magic. Aketi really don't like magic and this place is overflowing with it." He followed along toward Mourn's room.

---

Kay made notes on his tablet.