Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Three

First topic message reminder :

"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?"

"If it matters to you, then yes, it matters." Starr replied with a smile. "We have enough rooms to pick and choose."

"That's the benefit of being on a giant cruiseship," Vestia said. "Lots of housing options."

Jarral shook his head. "All I require are my books."

"All right," Vestia said. "Follow my lights and I'll take you to a room." She'd lead the way to one that was in First Class, although it wasn't too near to anyone else's rooms.

Jarral nodded and followed the lights, blinking against them. Bright light hurt his eyes and unlike his father, he had no tinted lenses. Even just the regular lights of the ship were a bit dazzling making him half blind.

Vestia noticed Jarral seemed uncomfortable with the lights. Oh that was right, kevali were pretty photosensitive. She dimmed all the lights accordingly, hoping that would help a bit.

He noticed the dimming lights and frowned, then nodded. "thank you." He murmured politely.

"No problem," Vestia replied. Starr and Jarral would probably reach the room she'd picked pretty soon. It looked like all the other rooms in First Class; large and luxurious.

Jarral looked around the room with dim disinterest. A room was a room in his mind, he didn't seem to much care. He nodded, this would do.

Starr smiled at him when they reached the room. "I hope you like it." She didn't mean just the room, but the trip as well.

He frowned a little at Starr and didn't answer. He very much doubted he'd enjoy it. "I shall fetch my things."

"Okay, ask me if you need any directions," Vestia said. Jarral didn't really seem like he wanted the full tour right now.

Jarral nodded curtly to both the camera, which was weird, and Starr and retraced his steps to retrieve his scant belongings. He didn't have a lot. A few books, a pen for making notes.

Starr nodded and would go back to her kid and her people.

Vestia would help Jarral out if he asked for help with anything, otherwise she probably wouldn't try to bother him. He didn't strike her as being terribly conversational, nope.

Jarral wasn't fond of people at all, he was content to settle down on the floor in his new dimly lit room and read awful looking books with twisting, writhing writing in them.

(Should we be timeskipping a bit? I'm not sure what's the next item on the schedule. :) )

(yep, next day to leaving?)

(Okay!)

AUGUST 9, 2800

The repair crew had managed to shore up Vestia's hull pretty well. She still looked like she'd been in a space battle and come out the worst from it, but she was patched up well enough to travel at least. The rest of the damage she could heal from on her own, given enough time.

Ideally she would have wanted to rest longer before traveling, but with her crew at risk of demonic possession, that really wasn't an option. It was better to hurry away, and have everyone cross their fingers that no enemies would attack while Vestia was still weakened.

Now it was time for goodbyes to be said and final adjustments to be made. And then it would be time to get AWAY from that creepy rift that hung malevolently in the distance.

~~
Ethan had gotten himself under control finally, although he still looked even less friendly than usual. At least the itch to hurt people seemed to have died down, yay?

~~
Ellie had caught up on her messages to her parents, family, friends, other friends, and old acquaintances. Although her tablet had continued to chime periodically ever since.

~~
Tala was feeling even better than yesterday, and was actually up to a light workout today. She did love her fitness.

~~
James was thoroughly creeped out by the idea of demonic possession, and kept giving people nervous looks. He kept thinking he saw signs of someone else controlling his friends. Oh dear.

Eva came to big farewell to everyone. She wasn't letting Esk leave without a goodbye which he was especially bewildered by because, as he kept loudly protesting, they barely knew one another and she was being ridiculous and annoying.

She'd cornered him at breakfast and pulled him into a bearhug while he struggled and protested. Just because she COULD touch him didn't mean he felt she SHOULD damnit.


---

Matt wasn't feeling so hot, but he did come to say goodbye to Eva and thank her and her crew for helping and Eva specifically for the uh.. distraction.
Ahem.
But he wasn't really his usual self, subdued and sombre and his smiles all feeling a bit forced.

---

Kay was keen to get going damnit. Was that selfish? Probably, but he was pretty desperate to see Danika and Asher after all this time and sort of fretting about how this would all go.
He kept thinking about messaging them and chickening out.

---

Jarral settled in, he was a strange guy. He slept curled up on the floor, wrapped in his cloak and he talked to himself a lot. Or rather, he seemed to argue with the shadows and see things that weren't there.

---

Armin was still making himself as useful as possible to Starr though he had taken the time to message home and get news about his neices and nephews which was nice, along with gossip about the rest of the family. They were almost fully grown now, which was such a strange thought. Berit still hadn't taken a second mate, their mother lamented this at length and then interrorgated Armin on whether he had found anyone yet too. He had to keep explaining that he hadn't just not contacted them for 10 years, he'd skipped forward in time, but she didn't seem to want to pay attention to that. Maybe it was just too difficult to wrap her head around. It was easier to just believe her son was useless and too distracted by adventure to phone home.

ahh family.

----

Luka helped Rigel work on the Devil.

---

Mourn had managed to recover some of his data from the computer and resumed working on the terran united code. He'd have to rewrite a fair chunk but he was probably gonna have to do that anyway right?
eugh, stupid united code.

---

Silence asked Vestia to get a message to her mother when Ivor suggested it, but that was probably easier said than done. It wasn't like she had any electronic devices and Hytar was gone, so tracking the shifter woman down was not a straightforward process. She could be anywhere.

Shane mostly stayed with Ellie, checking in on Matt and trying to cheer him up when he could.

~
Skye was glad to be leaving this place and going to her sister. She certainly had no reason to want to stay. Jewel stayed with Skye, a bit spooked by everything but calmed by being with another of her species.
~
Starr enjoyed time with Armin and Luna, though she did her best to keep up with her people as they checked in on her and reported what they could. She would give Vestia another boost of healing energy when she went to bed that night, just because she wanted to have her healed as much as possible.
~
Dawn was quiet, working with the patients as much as she could and staying close to the medical room.
~
Rigel was content to work on the Devil with Luka and try to get the old girl up and running again.

Tala would go to tell Eva goodbye, she liked the woman and was grateful for what she had done for Vestia.

~~
Vestia would try to help Silence to send a message to her mom. She ended up searching all over the web, trying to find any way to contact her. They probably didn't have much luck, but Vestia promised to keep searching for the shifter.

~~
Kay would receive a message from Asher:
[Dear Kay,
I hear you guys are going to be traveling soon. I'm glad, I'm looking forward to seeing you again.

Do you still like the same sort of books? I don't know if time travel has any odd side effects, such as changing book preferences or not. If not, then I have some books to recommend to you that I think you'll really like.

Love,
Asher]

~~
James was with Dawn, working in the med bay. He kept giving people odd looks whenever they did anything even mildly out of the ordinary.
Was Dawn being quieter than usual? Hmmm...
Yeah, he was paranoid.

Kay smiled sadly at Asher's reply and worked up the nerve to write a reply [We're about to leave, I don't know how long it will take. Of course i'm still the same, I look forward to your dramatic readings.] It felt weird though, only a few months for him, 10 years for asher. Was Asher still the same man? Who knew? this worried Kay, a lot.

Anxious, he returned to work and told Dawn to take a break, she looked like she needed a break.

---

Eva bid everyone farewell and then left the ship. Jarral didn't come to say goodbye but he was like that, she was used to it. "Good luck!"

---

"your people must be excited to hear you again." Armin observed, bowing his head to Starr.

Dawn went to James when Kay returned and frowned a little at him "What's up with you? You are acting so strange and staring." She asked curiously.

~~
Starr would go to see Eva and say goodbye to her too. She looked to Armin with a smile at his question and nodded. "They are very excited to be able to speak to me again, though they say they could feel that I was alive."

Armin nodded "that is most curious, though also reassuring in a way. They did not grieve, knowing you were lost not really gone." He rested a hand affectionately on her shoulder. "is their news good?"

Asher wrote back, [Oh good. Good that you'll be on your way here, good that you still like the same books. :) ]
He had so much he wanted to tell Kay, but he felt like that should wait until they met in person. But at the same time, not talking to Kay until then wasn't something he wanted.
It had already been ten years, ugh. He felt like every day they didn't talk increased the chance that this wasn't going to work out, and the idea scared him. The thought that he and Kay might not be right for each other any more was horrible, the thought of all those years of waiting, all the hard times they'd been through together, coming to nothing. But he wasn't going to tell Kay that.
Didn't stop him from thinking it though.

~~
"To you as well!" Tala told Eva as she left.

~~
James looked at Dawn a little uncertainly. "I... talked with Jarral yesterday about demons," he said. "Apparently they can possess anyone almost, they can hide themselves so they're impossible to detect. It's freaking me out."

"A lot of news, my people are free and have formed an army of sorts to stop slavers and free slaves." Starr said and sighed "Quite a few have gone to the Mimosa Empire to live there safely, waiting for my return to decide on a place for our world again."
~~~
Dawn frowned again at that and rested a hand gently on his arm. "Try not to freak out too much, maybe this is something everyone should know about, so we can keep an eye on everyone together?"