UPON VESTIA: CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

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Ethan nodded. "I guess that makes sense. Do they execute the ruler, or do they have to keep them alive?" He probably had too many questions.

~~
"Oh, I know that feeling," Vestia said sympathetically. She watched Amari snooze. Aww.

"Sounds pretty good," Levi said. He watched Mourn work.

The code installed pretty normally. If there were any problems, they weren't immediately obvious upon install.

Amari shook his head coiling away, "S-scared" was all he managed to say. The poor thing was scared of if he was freed would he be treated worse, or would end up like his previous master.

"It's going to be okay. I know it's scary to imagine, but if you were free, people would still help you. No matter what, people do care," Asher said gently. "You don't have to even think about freedom until you're ready to, okay?"
He could sympathize with Amari, being free had been pretty scary for him, too. It still scared him sometimes.

He nodded, saying nothing for the moment being. Beneath that "predator" shell he was nothing more then a scared child.

Asher hadn't even been asked by Marcus or Vestia about the possibility, but mentally he'd pretty much already adopted Amari. How could he not feel super protective of Amari, when he saw so much of the misery he and his siblings had been through in him?
Yeah, Kay had raised some valid arguments. But having an actual conversation with Amari made Asher think that Amari wasn't nearly as feral as they'd been led to believe. He was just a sad, scared kid who'd been through way too much pain already.
"Hey," he said softly, "Really, it's going to be okay. Do you want me to tell you a story I read in a book once? It's a fun story, my brother used to love it when we were younger."

"W-whats a story...?" He asked curiously, his ears flicking forward like a cat.

"A story? It's like I'm telling you about something someone did, except the person I'm telling you about doesn't have to be real," Asher said. He wasn't sure how to explain this, it wasn't the easiest concept to explain "People tell stories because it's fun, or it makes them happy, or it teaches them something."

Amari blinked, "So it a lesson?" He slightly pouted.

"Well, sometimes they are. But this one isn't, it's just supposed to be fun," Asher said.

"Okay...?" He said warily but curious.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:Armin kept his head lowered. "you honor me Miss Starr. Thank you."

---

Mourn cackled happily and started the program.

Starr shook her head a little at that "No, you honor me. This is really good work, I'm sure she will love it after she hatches." She really needed to think of a name for the egg-child soon.

Asher smiled reassuringly at Amari, and started telling him the story. It didn't have a lot of plot, just some kids living together in a little shuttle that didn't fly any more, and helping each other, making friends and meeting a nice old man who turned out to be their grandfather.
He figured that if this kid had never heard a story before, he should start with something not scary.

Amari listened, laying there like a attentive cat in the process. He wouldn't say a word before or after Asher finish, it was clear he was intrigued but wasn't sure how to put it to words.

"you are certain she is a girl now?" Armin smiled behind his mask. "How wonderful."

---

The program would hopefully do what it was supposed to. Mourn watched Levi and the screen, gaze flitting between the two.

Asher was relieved to see Amari looking calmer now. His near-mental-breakdown state earlier had been pretty worrying. "You should get some rest now," he suggested. "It'll help your injuries heal." He didn't mention that it'd be good after that much stress, but Amari might realize that was what he meant.

~~
The program would install correctly. No problems detected.

"Should I test it now?" Levi asked Mourn.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:"you are certain she is a girl now?" Armin smiled behind his mask. "How wonderful."

Starr nodded and smiled "Yes, I am sure of that now" She said, going over to place the plush near her bed so it would be ready when the little one decided to hatch.

Mourn nodded. "yes yes, test now, see if work!" He was clearly very excited.

---

Armin nodded. "She is most fortunate to have a mother as doting as yourself."

Levi started the program to seek out unneeded memories for destruction, and it busily trundled through his memory index, flagging them for deletion. The process didn't take too long.
He checked over the selected memories just to be sure they were okay to delete, then started the deletion process, and then without warning, crumpled to the ground.

Mourn's computer, which Levi had still been plugged into, displayed a single message

> ERROR: UNEXPECTED CLIENT COMPUTER SHUTDOWN

Moriah gasped and hurried over. "Levi!"

(Sorry had a calf born today)

Amari nodded, curling up like a kitten, "O-okay..."

Mourn frowned, that was unexpected.
What had gone wrong?

He started frantically trouble shooting,trying to figure out what in his carefully calculated plans and coding had been overlooked.

(Ooh, cute baby cows! <3)

"Want me to ask Marcus to stay outside while you rest?" Asher said. "I can make some excuse." If Amari thought of Marcus as his master, then he couldn't feel very safe with Marcus nearby, Asher guessed.

~~
It was hard to tell what had gone wrong, the code all looked like it should work fine. It looked like Levi's system had crashed, it might be a good idea to boot him into recovery mode and see if his system logs said anything useful about what had happened.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:
Armin nodded. "She is most fortunate to have a mother as doting as yourself."

(whoo)
Starr gasped softly and sat on her bed, closing her eyes to focus more on what she had felt. That wave of elation tinged with fear because they were fighting. "They are freeing the dragons" She said, remembering that Armin was there with her.

"P-please..." he muttered shyly though it was clear he was doubtful asker had the 'power' to do it.

Mourn did just that, trying to reboot the android into recovery. "Help move" He told Moriah. "We reboot, see what happen."

---

Armin looked at first worried as Starr gasped, reaching out to her. When she explained he couldn't help but pull her into a hug. "that is wonderful news! "

Asher smiled softly. "I'll see you this evening, Amari. Sleep well." He left the kid alone, struggling a bit with the door before making it out into the hall.

~~
Moriah would help. She fidgeted nervously as she watched Mourn work.

The crash logs, being the crash logs of an android, were extremely lengthy and complicated to read. But the gist of the error messages seemed to be that the android didn't have admin privileges, and thus couldn't delete his own files. This had been avoided with Daniel because he'd only selected the files to delete while Mourn had done the actual deleting, but Levi was supposed to be deleting them himself, so his system had completely freaked out and shut down.

He'd boot up just fine when Mourn tried to boot him up, looking around confusedly as his memories loaded up again. "What just happened?"

Marcus would be leaning on the wall across the door, "Did he speak...?" He would ask noting Asher shut the door behind him.

Starr hugged Armin in return, happy with what she felt going on out there. "Yes, it is wonderful news." She agreed.