Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Eight

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"Cause Esk is lazy and he wants someone to wait on Dawn, even though he has a massive crush on her and could wait on her himself," James grumbled. "At least that's what I assume was his motivation," he amended. "Your brother is weird. So Dawn's probably okay and not infected, that's good at least."

"It's for all the crew, but the idea came because of Esk's particular needs." Shane said with a shrug. "It's fresh meat even in the middle of space, fresh blood for those who need it. and a calming place for the rest of us to go if we want to."

"Blood?" Hytar raised an eyebrow. "My you do have an eclectic crew."

"Very" Shane said with a nod then a shrug. "We all get along well enough, so it works for us."

"You get used to having vampires around," Ellie said cheerfully, trying to skip ahead of Hytar and Shane even though she was still tired. "They only drink the blood we tell them is okay, so it's cool. Maybe you'll meet them! One is nice, and the other is a little odd, but maybe nice too, I dunno."

"Don't let her hear you calling her a vampire, that's practically a curse to a Carpathian." Shane said, though he was chuckling too.

Hytar listened, taking mental notes of all this as he followed.

---

Elsewhere on the ship Ivor paused, frowning. "The man is here..." He mumbled to Silence.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the minds. She nodded.

"Has he come for us?" Ivor asked worriedly.

Silence shrugged, she didn't think so.

"I don't want to go back." Ivor fretted.

----

Esk was sketching in an observation room, quite contentedly oblivious.

"Okay, I won't call her that to her face then," Ellie said brightly. She kept leading the way to the farm. "Ta-dah!" She spread her arms, showing off the green pastures and animals. "I grew that grass!" She added proudly.

Shane paused at the door to the ranch when they reached it, looking in then to Hytar "Here we are, first stop, the ranch."

"you grew the grasssss?" Hytar looked to Ellie for clarification on what she meant. He looked around, it was pretty surreal and rather impressive. He was slowly starting to understand why Esk stayed with these people, aside from being moronically trusting, they did seem to have a fairly comfortable lifestyle.

"Yeah, I'm the horticulture expert here. I'm such an expert, I spontaneously developed plant magic! Isn't it great?" Ellie looked proud.

Hytar looked curious but quickly hid it with a polite smile. He nodded. "that is... quite interesssting yesss." He looked her up and down. "you're Terran aren't you?" The t-shirt was a bit of a giveaway.

"Yeah, I'm Terran! I mean some of my family have cool party tricks, but none of them are like me. I'm special and rare, like Terra itself," Ellie nodded sagely. "My magic's like the opposite of Esk's. And maybe yours too? Do you have magic?"

Shane listened and watched, seeing the look of interest Hytar hid and wondering about it.

Hytar chuckled. "Magic? I ssssuppposssse." He shrugged. "Ssstellan inherited my abilitiesss, jussst none of the sssself control or disssscipline neccisssary. " He sighed. "He hasss too much pride that boy, rather contradictory you would think for one with ssssuch low ssself essteem." He shook his head, tutting. He found Esk's crap rather tedious to be honest.

"You can control it? Really?" Ellie looked fascinated. "Why can't he? It isn't that hard to control magic, as long as you're awake, I mean. You just have to kinda focus." Ellie couldn't sleep with too many plants in her room, or they'd drain her energy in the night.

Hytar shook his head. "I'm not entirely ssssure. My theory isss that he'ssss sssabotaging himssself on a sssubconcioussss level. He expectssss to fail, and so he doesss. " He waved a hand. "Hisss mother wasss not, from my underssstanding, overly nurturing or ssssuportive. I did offer to take him off her handssss when he was young, once I learned of hissss exisssstance but sssshe threatened to ssshoot me if I went anywhere near either of her ssssonsss." He looked amused. Olin had been a ferocious woman. "A pity, perhapssss had he had sssupport in hissss youth he'd have learned disssipline."

"That's so..." Ellie tried to remember the term, "Friedian!" She probably meant Freudian, whoops. "Poor guy. So you had someone to teach you to not drain people's life force?"

"Freudian" Shane said when Ellie hesitated, though she spoke at the same time. He went over to give the goats some feed, listening to the conversation

Hytar shrugged. "not officsssially." He didn't much like to talk about his childhood though. "but I grew up with my own race ssso... " He shook his head. "Ssso what other wondersss doessss thissss sssship of yourssss hold?" He changed the subject deftly.

-from ottawantreal- Mourn and Ethan returned from the city.
Mourn cackled and grinned up at Vestia's camera. "hello ship!"

Ellie made a face at Shane. Darn, he knew too many things. Where had he learned so much?
"Your race must be really strange," she said to Hytar. "Do you guys like, accidentally drain each other's lives out?" She headed toward the door. "Let's see, there's a library if you like books, but the librarian's a jerk. The cafe is nice..." She started walking as she talked. "We'll see the cafeteria next, just in case you move in."

~~
---Hello, what are you guys doing back so soon?--- Vestia asked.

Ethan pulled the little bag out of his pocket. "Catnip."

Vestia's camera tilted in curiosity. ---That sounds interesting---

Hytar shook his head. "no, we're immune to our own ability." He chuckled. "Wouldn't lasssst very long if we weren't." He raised an eyebrow at that last remark. "Move in?"

---

Mourn shrugged. "Robot think it smell nice, we see. Just look like leaves."

"Oh. So it's like... Magnets! They attract things that are different but don't attract things that are the same." Ellie nodded, pleased with her analogy. "Hey, you never know. We've let some really sketchy people live here before."

~~
---You're trying to drug Mourn?---

Ethan snorted. "It's just catnip. We don't even know if it works on felid, might just smell like plants to him. It's not like I'm going to feed it to him by the bucketful or something."

---Okay. Just be careful.--- Vestia liked Mourn, she didn't want him hurt.

"Of course." Ethan headed into a random room and tossed the bag lightly to Mourn.

Just in case, Vestia did a search to see if this was going to poison Mourn.

Hytar laughed. "Ssssketchy?" Well there was a term.

---

Mourn opened the bag and sniffed the contents curiously. It smelled weird, a bit minty. "What I do with?" He asked.

Vestia's research would suggest that much like cats, some were very very effected by Catnip and others were just flat out not interested.

Ethan frowned. Hmm, that wasn't promising. "You could try chewing on a leaf I guess, but it might just not work on you," he said.

---Looks like it doesn't work on all felid, just some of them,--- Vestia said.

"At least we didn't buy much," Ethan said.

Mourn shrugged, picked out a leaf and gave it an experimental nibble.
Breaking the leaf seemed to do the trick. He blinked, sniffed at the leaf again and looked bewildered. Plants weren't supposed to smell nice were they?

Ethan watched Mourn try the leaf, noticing his change in expression. Maybe he'd spoken too soon.
"You all right?" He asked.