Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Nine

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Ivor was pretty thankful for Tala's quiet thoughts, if her unshielded thoughts were anything like her speaking voice, he'd have had a headache already.
He nodded slowly.

Shane looked over to the two again then shrugged "Right now we are boyfriend and girlfriend, that's basically hanging out together to see if you would make good mates." Very simplified definition

Tala nodded. "It is wise to test a relationship before committing to one. Especially when reproduction is possible. Boyfriend and girlfriend are silly terms though, you are not friends, you are trial run mates!" Her ears wiggled.

--pair-- --bonding-- --in-- --other-- --races-- --seems-- --needlessly-- --complicated-- --and-- --overly-- --dramatic.-- Swarm observed. --but-- --perhaps-- --if-- --the-- --captain-- --and-- --the-- --pilot-- --finally-- --have-- --spoken-- --they-- --will-- --stop-- --being-- --so-- --awkward-- --around-- --one-- --another--
or they could be more awkward, who the heck knew?

---

Kay considered that. [Do we have rebreathers?] He asked. They probably did somewhere around, but they DID make things really awkward.

---

Silence tilted her head. "It different?" She looked confused.

Ivor shrugged, he had no idea, he'd never had any sort of relationship or even thought about anything verging on romantic in his life. He was pretty emotionally stunted as a result of living most of his life in an asylum after all.

"Shifter have many partner, not at once, but sometimes no work out, find new partner, new mate. " Silence shrugged, that was what she understood of it anyway, from all her mother had ever explained about how it all worked. "It normal. People grow apart, want different things, become different people. "

"l.. like our father?" Ivor asked.

Silence nodded. "He want fly away, mother want stay. He leave, she remain. "

"Yeah, it's always complicated and messy," James agreed. "One of the reasons why I don't date, other than the fact that it doesn't sound appealing to me."
He laughed, "Yeah, the awkwardness between those two is too high, I hope whatever they talked about helps them out. If it doesn't, we'll have waaay to much blushing and muttering to deal with."

~~
Asher nodded. "We got some rebreathers for when we visited Vavaren, I'm pretty sure they're still in good working order. I checked them after we left the planet, and knowing the engineers around here, someone else has probably checked them since." He looked amused, it was always a scramble around here to see who could fix anything that needed fixing first.

Kay nodded, wincing a little at the reminder of Vavaren. That had been a... dramatic trip.
[I can meet up with James, it makes sense to have at least one of us who isn't reliant on technology to function in that environment. ] And he felt somewhat obligated to be involved in all this considered Armin had come to them specifically for help. Sending the relative stranger that was Tori just didn't seem right.

"That sounds like a good plan. I'm sure James will be happy to help, he likes Armin and is pretty concerned about him," Asher said. "Vestia, can you send a bot to get a rebreather please?"

"Sure thing," vestia said.

Asher smiled slightly at Kay. "Be sure to reassure Armin he's not an inconvenience if he starts apologizing. That guy is polite to a fault." Heck, he made even Asher look unapologetic and rude by comparison, and Asher wasn't exactly either of those things.

Shane chuckled and shook his head a little "She is my first girlfriend, so I'm kind of learning as I go along with her. For us so far, it has pretty much just been hanging out and watching movies or going to look around the planets we land on together."

Kay nodded. [I will] He glanced at the clock again, watching the time.

---

Silence looked a bit bewildered.

Shane shrugged at the look, he wasn't sure of what else to say to try to explain without getting into too much depth for his own liking.

Tala looked pleased. "You will understand more as you grow older," she told them. "Love and temporary enjoyment are glorious things."

~~
Asher followed Kay's gaze to the clock. "I guess we should probably call James over now, the time is getting pretty close."

Kay nodded, he looked a bit anxious. He really wasn't sure how all this was going to go.

Shane smiled a little and looked to Tala "I think that's where we got the terms mixed up the other day. Temporary enjoyment with no intention of staying together is called 'hooking up', at least by most people."

One of Vestia's bots rolled in, carrying the rebreather.

Asher wheeled over, wanting to get a good look at the thing before Kay used it.

(Would you like me to play the vavare doctor, or do you want to do it, by the way? Whatever you prefer sounds good to me.)

~~
"Not all temporary enjoyment is hooking up,"Tala said. Some people date temporarily too, with no intention of marriage or a life together, which is good too for some." She wiggled her ears, "It is just that we do not know if Ellie would lay eggs." She still found that one funny, oh dear.

(hey if you wanna play em, go for it! Otherwise i'll do it.)

---

Silence looked thoughtful. "Terrans mammals no?"

Ivor nodded. "I t.. think so.. so.. they'd have babies.. not eggs..." He frowned a little.

"Shifter marsupial." Silence nodded. "Have pouch."

Ivor looked uncomfortable with that declaration.

"Half breed take after mother. If she no can shape change, cannot change way body reproduce no?" Silence reasoned.

"T.. that is of course... assuming you even can reproduce..." Ivor pointed out.

"Half shifters rare. Most die. " Silence nodded.

Ivor lowered his head.

"Maybe.. safer no have babies?" Silence told Shane. "Can have fulfilling relationship with no babies still."

(Might work best for you to play him, heh. I'm not sure I'd be quite as good at playing a vavare realistically)

(alright lol. *boots up swedish name generator*)

(they are named Leija Den Lakare - I'm putting this here so I remember lol.)

[Vestia, can you tell James to meet me at the ramp?] Kay asked. [And if Armin is still sleeping, please wake him.]

Asher would check over the rebreather very carefully, checking every connection, and the readouts on the display. He did NOT want Kay getting another oxygen overdose, once had been more than enough. "It's all ready for you to use," he told Kay.

"Right, I'll do that," Vestia said to Kay.

~~
She notified James. "Kay wants you to meet him at the ramp for Armin's checkup," she said.

James sighed dramatically. "Guess I gotta leave you now, Swarm, duty calls. Find me some fun gossip while I'm gone, guys!"

~~
Vestia checked in on Armin to see if he was awake yet.

Kay smiled softly to Asher and took the rebreather, nodding. [I'll let you know how it goes] He would head for the ramp to meet James and the doctor, not sure what to expect from a vavare medic really.

---

--we-- --will-- Swarm told him. Some of them would come along of course, as far as they could. They wanted to know what was going on.

---

Armin was just getting up and begining his morning ritual, carefully wrapping an offering for the alter.

Asher smiled back, then went to find something to do in the med bay while he waited for news. He wished he could help more, but he really couldn't do much. Best to make himself useful where he could.

~~
James smiled at the bit of Swarm that followed him, and went to the ramp to wait for the doctor. "Good morning, Kay," he said when he saw the guy.

~~
Vestia waited for a moment when Armin didn't look to busy to say something, not wanting to interrupt him while he was doing something religious. "Hey Armin, just so you know, the doctor's scheduled to arrive pretty soon," she said.

Armin smiled weakly to Vestia and bowed his head. "Thank you." He rose from before the Alter and got changed into some clean clothes, combing his hair so he at least looked a little presentable. It didn't help much, his colours were dull and his hair was starting to fall out in clumps. He looked at a lock of shed purple hair and sighed, at least, he supposed, he could have fun dying his hair again.

---

Kay nodded to James. [Hope I didn't interupt anything important with work.] He smirked.

"Just Swarm and me discussing the private activities of the people here," James said brightly. "Nothing that can't wait." He went to lean against Vestia's airlock. "So you decided I'm useful enough to bring along? I thought I was like, the worst medic around."

Kay frowned a little, looking around for Swarm but he couldn't see them. [Gossiping? ] He shook his head. [You are, but from what I understand, this process shouldn't involve any blood and requires a steady hand, which you have. ] He looked James up and down. [You'll be fine.] It was Armin he worried about. Still, he doubted James could do much to screw things up with an actual doctor present.

James nodded. "Gossiping, yes. Swarm really does know all sorts of interesting tidbits, they usually have something fun to tell you if you ask them." He nodded. "Fair enough. I like Armin, if he needs my help, I'll help him. No blood? Well that's good at least." Whew, he was relieved about that.

Kay looked grim. [How much do you know about Vavare biology?] He asked.

"Uhh, not a whole lot. I know they have two brains, and that they lose their exoskeleton every few years. And that bleeding is really dangerous for them," James frowned at that, right, that could be a problem during a molt, couldn't it? "I don't know the procedure for assisting a molt, and I don't know how to read a vavare's vitals very well."

Kay shook his head. [Neither do I, least, not with any confidence. I just hope this doctor knows more and is willing to guide us.]