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?"

Kooshie wrote:Ellie smiled at that idea. She had nearly forgotten about the ranch, she'd been so distracted lately. "I like that idea. Let's go see what all those animals are doing," she said. She glanced to Hewitt one more time, then headed toward the door, still holding Shane's hand.

Shane gave a small smile at that and nodded, walking with her to check on the animals and plants on the ranch.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:Armin nodded. "if you desire Miss Starr." He looked thoughtful. "It is nice to be underway again. I hope those we left behind can forgive our absence."

"I believe they can and will, it was not our fault after all." Starr said with a soft smile. "I am glad to be getting together once more."

Armin nodded. "It will be strange to see how everyone has grown." he mused. "But I look forward to everyone being together once more. " the ship had become like home after all, these people family.

---

Jarral went for a wander. He'd not been given an official tour, but that didn't much bother him. He prefered less formality and to just wander and see what could be seen.

Ellie smiled when they reached the ranch. "It's so pretty here. It's almost like being outdoors." She reached down to touch a blade of grass.

~~
James might find Esk as he wandered. "Oh hey man."

Esk glanced over at James, stuffing some chips into his mouth as he nodded a vuage greeting. "You look irritated." he observed.

"Your brother's kind of a dick," James said. He knew Esk didn't like Kay at all, so it was okay to be blunt about it. "I'm taking a break from work out of spite."

Esk snorted in amusement. "Kay?" He assumed, he was the dickish one after all. "What'd he do this time?"

"Yeah, Kay. He started trying to boss me around, so I started working slower, and then we got in an argument and he kept trying to boss me around, so now I'm rubbing in just how little I care about his orders by being lazy." James shook his head. "There is NOT that much work to do right now, let me tell you. And none of it is super urgent."

Esk looked bemused, he shook his head. "He's a workaholic, he'll make work even when there's none." He paused. "you actually got in an argument with him? Shit man, he's not worth that energy. Just ignore him, let him have a hissy fit. " Yeah he really didn't have a high opinnion of Kay did he? He smirked. "So you're looking for ways to slack off?" He ate another handful of chips. "you know this ship has an arcade?" Hey, he liked the idea of helping James slack off just to annoy Kay, anything that annoyed Kay amused him.

"I'm not good at ignoring people who are being annoying, and being bossed around annoys me," James said. "You will notice, however, that I didn't keep arguing with him after he stormed off." Okay, maybe the guy hadn't stormed off exactly, but James liked the way it sounded.
"An arcade, huh? Now there's a good place to waste some time. I like the way you think." James paused, "Well, sometimes I don't like the way you think. But right now I do."

Esk shrugged. Sounded like Kay needed a reality check, but that could wait. Maybe he'd piss off the wrong person and get punched instead. He'd deserve that.

"Come on then." He led the way.

James followed Esk, looking kind of smug now. "Think we should send Kay a picture of me playing a game? Just to make sure he knows?" Asher would have told James not to be so petty about this, but Asher wasn't here right now. So HA.

Esk smirked. "Why not? Live stream a video to him. " Was winding Kay up when he was stressed a good idea? oh for sure not, but Kay needed to find a better way to handle stress. Being a dick to people was just going to make other people be dicks back.
Besides, Kay wasn't really much of a threat. He was small and grumpy but the worst he did was throw small things.

James snorted. "I'm not sure I can put on a good enough performance for a whole livestream. Maybe a short video though, 'Wish you were here!' or something." He paused for a moment before adding, "You do think he's okay though, right? Not about to go on a murder spree or possessed by a demon or anything?"

"possessed?" Esk shot James a weird look. "nah, he's just stressed. Probably worried about Asher and Danika or whatever, who the fuck knows. " He waved a hand dismissively. "At worst he'll glare at you and throw a pen."

"I was talking to Jarral yesterday, he told me a lot about demons. It creeped me out and it's been on my mind ever since," James said. "But yeah, I guess you're probably right. Presumably demons would be a little more subtle than Kay's being."

"We're away from the rift now." Esk shook his head. "We don't have to worry about those things." He was going to tell himself that, yep.
"What'd he tell you that's got you so spooked? You listening to ghost stories?"

"It's not ghost stories... well, I don't think Jarral was just messing with me, anyway..." James frowned. Jarral hadn't struck him as being the sort of guy who would prank you with creepy stories, but then again, it could be hard to tell.
"Apparently the demons are really sneaky. They can get into your brain and hide there, and nobody will be able to tell until they start using you as their puppet to destroy things." James shivered. "And once they're in, you have to torture or almost kill the person to get them out again. It's horrible."

Esk frowned slightly, but shook his head. "They've got no reason to weasle into our heads." He smirked at James "And you don't even a brain so.." He kept walking. Yep same ol' Esk, a dick as always. "that sounds like a problem for my sister, not us."

"Oh come on, you can't imagine any reason why a demon would want to infiltrate a crew like this? Look at us. We have the entire android species and the Guild of Scribes in our debt, we've survived some insane magical phenomena, and we have the queen of a species that can create stars living with us." James shook his head. "This ship is a goldmine for invaders from other universes, man."
Yeah, he was probably being paranoid right now. But after some of the things James had seen, he figured he had every right to be paranoid.

"i'll give you Star Dragons, but what do they care about the rest?" Esk shrugged. "Pretty sure they have bigger plans than a cruise ship."

James frowned, thinking about that. Yeah, he wasn't totally sure what a demon might hope to accomplish by possessing Kay or Ellie or someone like that. "They might think of some use for us, even if we can't figure out what it is," he pointed out. "All I'm saying is, keep your eyes open for anything unusual, okay?"

"I always do." Esk replied. they reached the arcade.

James nodded. Things were going to be fine, he told himself. There were lots of people on this ship who were a lot smarter than he was, they would be able to prevent anything bad from happening, right?

He could hope.

James looked around the arcade as they went in, trying to shake off his worries. "Right. I guess we need to pick a nice, photogenic spot to take a picture of me for Kay," he said. "Gotta make him jealous."

Esk nodded and looked around. Hmm, lots of machines and games. He noticed the horse riding game and pointed "that seems you." It had stupid little plastic horses you rode on.

"Oh yeah, that should get across my level of laziness well," James said with a laugh. He went over to the horses, eyeing them thoughtfully as he tried to decide if they could hold his weight.

Esk came a bit closer but evidently he was dubious even of fake horses. That or he didn't want to be too close when James broke it.
He took out his tablet to take a picture though.
"maybe don't sit fully on it?" He suggested.