Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Three

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"Hey man," James said to Kay, after waiting for a few seconds for the guy to pause his work, and realizing he wasn't going to. "How you holding up?"

~~
"It's my job to care about the books," Ethan said. He tried to look like he had no emotional investment in the state of the library, with moderate success. "Vestia pays me to keep them nice and safe and organized, which they aren't." He watched Esk curiously, "Who put you on janitor duty?"

Ethan smiled lopsidedly. "That makes sense, sometimes it is good to escape for a while. I guess you're probably busy right now, but any time you feel like stopping by, go ahead."

Starr smiled and nodded again. "Yes, we have to move everything that is salvageable to the new rooms and clean up the mess down here."

Luka tilted her head at Dawn's tears, she'd never seen her show emotion like that before. "Are you alright? He's not being an ass again right?"

---

Matt poured Ellie a drink as well and sat up to drink his. Bah. Just.. BAH.

Unless Vestia distracted her more, Eva would turn up.

"That's going to take a while," Ethan said. "I can help you if you want." He felt a moment of annoyance at himself though, he shouldn't be letting himself be friends with Starr, not when him caring about people seemed to result in them meeting unexpected awful fates.

~~
Ellie set down her armful of papers and took her drink. "Thanks Matt."

Vestia let Eva arrive.

"Oh hey Eva," Ellie said, looking over.

"What's with the paperwork?" Matt asked blearily. "and thanks... clothes are... useful."
He raised his glass half heartedly when Eva came in as well.

"Is this a bad time?" Eva asked. Matt looked pretty wasted. Hmm. "You uh.. invited me for drinks?"

"yes, yes I did." Matt turned to face her. "So come, drink with us! tell us your story or... whatever."

"Just... random stuff from your room. Letters, funny pamphlets from Kay," Ellie said. "I didn't look at the letters though." She smiled a little at Eva, "Yeah, come on in. It's cool." Since Matt had said it was cool, anyway.

"oh hey.. letters?" Matt reached out for them. "they're from Web mostly.. scolding me about being shit at returning messages." He snorted. He was very very drunk. "fuck, the std pamphlets survived? don't tell Kay, he'll make copies."

"std pamphlets?" Eva raised an eyebrow

"yeah yeah man.. you... you ever seen an Imperium PSA? they're like.. both hilarious and traumatic. Ellie ellie, show her the pamphlet."

"No, he's sweet." Dawn said, shaking her head ten wiping er eyes and putting the letter back in it's envelope. "Thank you for giving this to me."

~~~
Starr smiled then shrugged "If you want to help, sure. There's plenty of work to get done. Some of this trash can be recycled, though some is simply trash at this point."

Luka looked incredulous. "sweet?" not a word she'd ever use to describe that guy but hey, Dawn seemed to like him. "Okay Dawn, if you say so." She smiled. "no problem. " Damn now she was really curious what he'd written to get that reaction out of Dawn. Maybe he DID write love letters, damn.

Ellie set down her drink to get one of the pamphlets, which she handed to Eva. "They're great. I mean, STDs normally aren't something to talk about while drinking, but these pamphlets are like... the best. I dunno, maybe we should let Kay photocopy these, they're too good."

~~
"I'll help," Ethan said in spite of his common sense screaming in his mind for him to stop caring about people. He'd start collecting stuff to throw out.

"there's videos too." Matt slurred a little. "they're traumatic..."

Eva read the pamphlet, or what she could of it, laughing. Really she could only look at the pictures. "you should get them translated into common."

"Oh maaan don't give Kay ideas!" Matt whined.

Dawn noticed her reaction and tilted her head a little "It is a 'goodbye' letter for if he died back then." She said again. "It's not uncommon for more feelings to be shown than normal in such a letter. It's sad and sweet that he would entrust this to me."
~~~
Starr would finish gathering her salvageable things and packing tem for the move before gathering the garbage too. There really wasn't muc tat could be salvaged, maybe the desk, but that was about it. Everything else was either gone, broken or bolted down.
~~~
Shane chuckled softly, though he was worried that Matt had a bit too much to drink.

"He likes you." Luka reasoned. "like.. a lot." Dawn knew that right? She had to know that, she liked him back. "It's sweet. I mean it's weird but... it's sweet." She frowned, something occuring to her. "Dawn? How does your species whole... one true love thing work? Do you ever like.. date prior to getting hooked up for life?" She was curious and all this reminded her okay? Plus maybe a teensy bit worried about her given her own attitude toward Esk and her doubt he was at all a functioning person with real feelings.

---

"Maan, now I want to see the videos," Ellie said. "I mean, satare movies are great, so their PSAs must be too." She grabbed her drink and swigged it.

~~
Ethan worked quietly. He didn't know what to say now, so he was just going to be useful and hope he wasn't accidentally annoying Starr or something.

"Maybe.. maybe we can get Jess to send some... " Matt paused. "Oh fuck.. Jess!" He hadn't even thought to check up on his sister, man he was a terrible brother! "I should message her!" where the hell was his tablet?

Dawn chuckled at that question. "Yes, we can date and have friends. It is supposed to be very recognizable when we are with our true mate."
~~~
"You have had a lot to process." Shane said gently. He would help set up the wifi if Matt needed the help.
~~~
Starr wasn't annoyed, though she did ask for calm music from Vestia while they worked.

"Oh yeah, we should be like, contacting people," Ellie said with a wince. She still hadn't contacted her parents either. Crap.

~~
Vestia would play some nice peaceful music as the two worked.

Ethan didn't exactly have much experience with peaceful music, but he didn't complain. It was... nice enough he supposed. Maybe sort of calming.

Shane nodded, though he didn't have anyone to contact.

"Recognisable? How?" Okay now Luka was just curious.

---

"I dunno what to say..." Matt sighed. "hey sis, I know we haven't talked for ages but i'm not dead after all?" He made a face.

"Perhaps that's a conversation better had sober." Eva suggested.

Dawn shrugged a little "Just a feeling, a desire to be with that one all the time." She said then shrugged again. This wasn't that comfortable of a subject and it was one that she didn't know well herself.

"Yeah... solid point. Maybe you shouldn't write to Jess drunk," Ellie agreed. She swigged more of her drink. "My parents might not want my drunk ramblings either. I mean, I might tell them about aliens or something and then they'd just never stop begging me to go home."

"How about something more simple, like 'We are back, we were in some kind of time tunnel, will write back when we know more about it'?" Shane said.

Luka frowned, that sounded like a regular relationship to her but what'd she know. She shrugged. "okay, well.. i'll um.. I gotta get back to stuff." Awkward yeah? "You had a chance to check your room yet?"

----

Matt laughed "yeah they would NOT like knowing you slept with aliens." He started to laugh drunkenly but it didn't sound like happy laughter.

Eva frowned a little.

"I was heading that way to check it." Dawn said and shrugged a little again. She didn't expect much to be left.

Ellie blushed a little. "Yeah, that does sound bad, doesn't it?" Sleeping with aliens, even in a completely platonic way. Her parents wouldn't be into that. She frowned at Matt's tone of voice though, and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "We'll figure out what to write later."

Luka nodded "you uh... want to do it alone or... have company?" She didn't know.

---

Matt nodded. "yeah.. I need to contact Web too.. I don't even know how... " Would he be checking for letters after all this time? probably not.

"Jarral can send a message." Eva pointed out.

"I keep forgetting about the kid..." Matt shook his head. "Is he really Web's kid?"

Eva nodded "As far as I can tell, yes. but no, I don't know the full details. Web doesn't talk about a lot of things."

Matt tilted his head. "you actually chat to him?"

Eva laughed. "Sometimes. We worked together, trying to find you all. But his duties keep him away most of the time. " She looked at Matt thoughtfully. "You two are so alike...."

Matt snorted and poured another drink for everyone. "I'm usually more fun."

Eva chuckled. "Is that so?"

"I don't mind company, but I won't keep you if you need to go somewhere." Dawn said wit a smile as she put the letter away.