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.

James headed off. On a whim he decided not to go straight to the holodeck, instead going to see if he could find Matt.

~~
"Vestia seems to think a lot will be staying," Tobias said.

"Yeah, some of them are going away, but I'm pretty sure most of the dragons want to stay with us until they have a planet," Ellie said. "And the androids are staying too, cause they can't leave," she added.

Matt was finishing some lunch, or breakfast, whatever. Food.
He looked up when James came in, wiping his face. "Hey?" He looked a bit tired but in relatively okay spirits.

---

Ivor nodded slowly. "n.. nowhere else to go..." He mumbled.

"Hey man," James said. "Kay told me I should take a break, so I'm taking one. Did you know your brother is a hopeless workaholic and doesn't take breaks when I suggest it?" He looked amused.

~~
"Yep. So here they stay," Ellie said. "Means we get to hang out with cute baby dragons though!"

Matt chuckled "yeah, he is. He stress cleans... and stress files." He shook his head. "And he throws things if you suggest he chills out." He looked serious for a moment. "It's only a week right? Once Asher's back he'll calm down. I think he just really needs a distraction to stop him fretting. He's a major worrier." He put his plate onto his lap and wheeled over to put it in the cleaning tray.
"but I figure it's safer to let him exhaust himself before I suggest a movie or something, I don't wanna get hit with a broom." He grinned.

---

Ivor frowned, he hadn't met the baby dragons, he had no idea how cute they were. "You really like dragons..." He observed. Ellie's thoughts about dragons were probably louder than anything else omg.

"Just a week, yeah. Man, Kay's more stressed about my brother going to Mars than I am," James shook his head. He was worried, sure, just not that worried. "I invited him to the holodeck, but I didn't want to pressure him cause yeah, he's likely to just bite my head off for that."

~~
"The baby dragons are adorable," Ellie said. "And the gown ups are sooo cool, they can shapeshift, sort of like you." She grinned. "And they're sparkly."

Matt nodded. "He's stubborn as shit, but I know him well enough to know when to leave him to it. " He sighed. Kay was just a whole mess of neurosis, it was a bit exhausting, but at the same time, having someone to worry about what what Matt did best. He didn't want Kay miserable, nobody did, but it did give him a sense of purpose and stopped him moping about his own problems. "he doesn't really bite, not even metaphorically. He just glares and throws stuff. But you gotta rile him up pretty bad before he tries to hurl something at your head." Matt chuckled softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thankfully he's got shit aim."

---

"Sparkly is.. good?" Ivor asked, trying to clarify. He winced a little as Ellie thought about baby dragons.

"How'd you get him to throw things at you?" James asked curiously. "Full moon? Seems like normally he has better self control than that. At least, Asher's basically never mentioned him getting mad, and I've only seen him sort of grumpy and bitchy for the most part." Then again, it was hard to really get mad at Asher. The guy's most annoying trait, in James's opinion, was that he was too non-confrontational, and you didn't generally throw things at someone for that.

~~
"Sparkly is amaaaazing," Ellie declared. "Like Jewel is! All the bright color and the glitteriness is just so pretty!" Poor Ivor probably got a nice dose of telepathic squeeing from that.

Jewel chuckled and dipped her head at that description. "I haven't seen the babies, but I think they are bigger than me already."

"oh i'm REALLY annoying." Matt laughed.

---

Ivor cringed, oww.

James snorted. "Fair enough. Gotta love being the annoying brother, right?" He added, "Wanna go to the holodeck with me or something? I'd drag Luka along, but she's off flying spaceships. It's sad."

~~
"Yeah, they grow so fast," Ellie said. "You could probably visit them, the star dragons are super nice, and the babies are too."

Matt laughed. "It's a real talent for sure." He nodded. "Sure, what'd you have in mind?"

James considered that. Jousting was probably out, since Matt couldn't really ride a horse. "They have some neat adventure stories, Star Trek adventures, mystery story adventures, plus there's all the maps you can just explore or build stuff in. Any of that sound good? I'm open to suggestions of course."

"I'm pretty easy." Matt told James, then laughed. That sounded dirty didn't it?

James laughed, yep, that sounded dirty to him. "That's good man, I like easy. We can press the random program button or something, save ourselves some time."

"I like that idea." Matt grinned and wheeled over to James. "Let's do this!"

James matched his pace to Matt's, smiling. "You still have any of those star stickers I gave you, or did Ellie steal them all?" he asked conversationally.

"oh man, probably.. somewhere." Matt rummaged through his pockets. "it's impossible to find anything when I actually want it man."

"You don't need to find them, I'm just curious," James said, amused. "Although your pockets are always incredible. Seriously, how did you even find out you could do infinite pockets?"

Matt laughed. "Well it kinda.. took a while. I mean, i'd pick stuff up and it'd just... go away, and we couldn't find it till i'd reach into my pocket like months later and oh, there it was. Wierder was when it wasn't me, sometimes Web would pull something out his pocket and i'd be all "HEY! I was looking for that!" and he'd be so confused. After you pull a whole fishing rod out your pocket you start to question well, one your sanity, and two, how the hell that's even possible." He grinned. "So we kinda tested it, seeing if we could intentionally disappear stuff. Took a while.. never quite got the hang of any sort of filing system though."

"That's amazing," James said. "So the two of you share a pocket space, that's gotta be fun when you randomly find each others' stuff. Do you like, send notes to each other through it? Wait, do all kevali share the pocket space?"

Matt nodded. "It's the only way we can communicate, given Kevali have like.. no technology." Matt suddenly looked grim, remembering they still didn't know if Web was okay. Damn... He shook his head. "I don't think the others can do it, least... well I never really asked. I never saw any of em pull random stuff outta nowhere so maybe it's just a wierd quirk of our blood." He had no idea. "maybe they can all do it and just never realised, or.. thought to. I dunno man. It's weird."

James frowned at Matt's expression. He'd almost forgotten Web's mysterious and sudden disappearance, but it rushed back when he saw Matt's worry. "Hey man, maybe you should try sending him a message sometime if you haven't already," he said softly. Maybe Matt had, but if not, it was an idea, right?

"Esk made a good point about it... if... if he was gone then i'd be dealing with fate in my head. I'm not so... he must be alive right?" Matt was trying to be positive about this, but he really was quite concerned and frustrated he couldn't just leave to go find his brother.

James nodded. "Yeah, Fate's pretty quick about moving in, right? You'd be sensing her by now." He remembered Jarral from the other universe, the heir there, and tried to hide his look of worry. If there was a Jarral in this universe, Matt might not be the heir any more. Then they would have no way to know whether Web was alive or not. "It'd be good to send a message. I don't know how quickly he finds those, but maybe he would, and then he might send us an update on what's going on."

Matt nodded, looking pained. "I've tried, but it's not a very reliable way to communicate. I .. keep hoping Starr will get a message from the kids saying he's back and he's okay. " He sighed. "I just hope he's okay."

James nodded, reaching out and clasping Matt's shoulder for a moment, trying to be reassuring. "Not knowing where your brother is sucks, man, and I really hope he gets a message to us soon, too. Web's really experienced though, right? He's been leading the sister races for a long time now, and he's got a whole lot of intuition and common sense, from what I've heard. It stinks to not know where he is right now, but he's a smart guy and I'm sure he's handling whatever's happening really well." He smiled weakly. "I know that doesn't help much though, not when you really just want some answers. I'm sorry."

They reached the holodeck.

Matt nodded and patted James' hand. "Thanks man. "