Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Two

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James went into Armin's room. "Hey man, watcha working on?" he asked, seeing that Armin was sewing.

"I'm sure the kid will be a rule-breaking prodigy, just like you," James told Matt. He saw Matt's look of concern and added, "You okay, man?"

Matt nodded "Yeah, just.. it's hard being so far away you know? I just.. hope everything's okay. I mean, it's not like this is a straight forward situation. Thalia's... a keeper and i'm... fuck knows what, a bizarre hybrid. " He shook his head "It'll be fine right? She'll be fine. " It wasn't like they'd had any scans done before the war broke out now was it? He changed the subject "Did you know we're both twins?" Man, there better only be one kid, he wasn't sure he could handle two at once. Yeek.

James nodded sympathetically. He hadn't put much thought into it, but biologically the child was descended from three massively different species, which made things potentially a lot more complicated. No wonder Matt worried. "Thalia is a keeper though," he pointed out, "which is a big plus here. I mean, in our medical files there's a record of a half-avian keeper. Avians aren't even biologically mammals. So compared to that, you guys are super similar."
"Oh yeah, she had a twin too. Man, a lotta twins on this ship, aren't there?"

"Right? Was there something in the water?" Matt managed a laugh. "I really hope we don't get any more, trust me, twins are a nightmare" He paused, oh great, now he was thinking about Web. "I hope he's okay..." he murmured. Eugh, not knowing sucked. He shook his head. "Let's find somewhere and i'll teach you coin tricks!" distractions yay!

James patted Matt's shoulder. "He'll be okay, he's a smart dude, everyone says." He nodded, "Yeah, let's go do coin tricks."

Matt nodded "yeah... and Fate's protecting him right?" He sighed. "Esk said he has to be alive, or else i'd be having visions so.. I guess there's that." Yay for being next in line huh? least as far as he was currently aware.
"Yeah, coin tricks. Okay, so..." He handed James a coin and would go try to teach him a couple of really simple tricks.

James nodded in agreement. He wondered if Jarral existed in this universe, nobody had mentioned the kid to him, but if Jarral was here, then he was the heir instead of Matt, right? He didn't mention that though, he didn't want to bring new, depressing possibilities to Matt's attention.
He'd follow Matt's instructions carefully, and would probably catch on with the simpler ones fairly quickly. He had fairly good dexterity and a good memory, after all. It was a good distraction, trying to get the tricks right.

Matt was a pretty patient teacher, and of course James' ability to keep up helped.

"right, so you keep practicing that till it becomes like... instinctive or whatever." He flipped his own coin in the air and caught it. "amaze your friends." He snickered. Yeah, distractions were awesome, he loved distractions.

James cackled. "Now I have new ways to show off. Thanks, man!" Yeah, James did love being the center of attention.

"No problem. Use your new powers wisely" Matt grinned "or you know.. use it to win bets"

"Probably the latter. I'm not known for my wisdom." James looked amused. "We could become an unstoppable team. With our talents, we could change Vestia's politics forever."

Matt snorted "Hey, you gotta do the politics for me, i'm shit at politics."

"Me too, that's why we do politics together," James said with a grin. "I mean, I don't know what Vestia's politics are, but I bet we could change them."

Matt shook his head. "Nah man, i'm happy being a janitor. No huge world weighty responsibility." He grinned back at James. "But you man, you can totally run for president of the ship or something."

"I could," James agreed. "I could be the figure of authority this ship needs. Forget Starr and Vestia, I'm clearly the best person to be in command here." He tried to look commanding, with moderate success. "You're sure you don't want to run as my VP?"

Matt laughed "nah, being a Prince is quite enough thanks." He made a face. Royalty did NOT suit him

"Ohhh yeah, good point." James considered that, "I think in the election, we should disallow all royalty from running for office. I'm not actually sure I could run a successful campaign against Starr. Pretty sure her approval rating is around ninety to a hundred percent."

Matt laughed "good plan, we have way too many royals around here." He nodded. What was that all about?

"Our politics are so rigged here. We need some representation of the common folk, advocates for the different species." James was clearly getting a little too into this idea now. "Also do we actually have any policy on how species-specific neighborhoods are handled? Cause if we do, I haven't heard about it."

Matt just laughed, this was amusing to him seeing James get worked up with his fantasy. Ridiculous man. He shrugged, he had no idea what james was even on about.

"I mean really, if people are separating into different areas of the ship based on species, that could cause problems," James said. He was half amused, but it also looked like he was kind of serious about this too. "The star dragons totally have a nicer floor than the androids do. And what about the minotaurs?"

Matt shrugged. "If you're president, you could have any room you wanted." he reasoned. Not that they already couldn't just pick random rooms, vestia really didn't seem to mind. "oh! have you seen first class? Why aren't we staying in first class!"

"I'm going to need to work out some details about this policy," James decided. he nodded, "Yeah, first class is amazing! Not sure why Vestia gives us rooms in third class by default, I mean, it's not like anyone else is using them."

Matt shrugged "I dunno, maybe because it's closer to the food? and the medlab?" He had no idea, just that the main floor they all lived on seemed mostly convenient.

"They must have food and med labs up there though," James said thoughtfully. "I mean, rich people don't want to commute to the poor people levels, right? Then again, I might be wrong. That wasn't something I looked for."

"Wanna go check it out?" Matt grinned rougishly. "Maybe they have some nice stuff to swipe."

James snickered. "Heck yeah. Let's liberate the upper class from their fancy stuff. They'll be better off without it, anyway. I mean, they would be better off without it, if we actually had an upper class here."