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?"

"You're assuming my brother isn't an absolute moron." Esk replied cooly.

James laughed. "What can I say? I've always been an optimist." He eyed his tablet a little nervously though, he wasn't totally convinced that Kay wouldn't try to fire him or attack him.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:"you live so long." Armin mused. "I will be fortunate to see sixty years out." He shook his head.

Starr frowned a little then sighed and reached to hold his hand again. She didn't know what to say to that, it was sad, but just a simple fact.

Kooshie wrote:"I used to have a dog," Ellie said. "They're pretty great. I know some of the crew have reasons to not like dogs though." She frowned. Between Mourn and the people from the Imperium, dogs weren't exactly popular here. "We could get a pet hamster. I like hamsters."

Shane nodded, there were a lot of reasons to not have a dog on this ship. "Hamsters? Where would we even get a hamster from?"

"I don't know, but I bet we could find one. There must be like, space pet stores, right?" Ellie looked thoughtful. "Or we could buy an alien pet! I bet there are some cute alien pets out there."

Shane chuckled then shrugged "We will see what we can do." He said with a smile.

Ellie nodded. She liked the idea of having pets around. "Did your boss ever have pets?" she asked curiously.

Shane shook his head "No, too easy to kill pets and cause the family to go into a non-secure location." He answered.

Ellie blinked. "Wait, how could they make the family go somewhere not secure?" She wasn't totally sure what that meant, she didn't really understand security stuff.

"He said the pet could be killed and left on say the patio to make the family come outside where they could be shot. Things like that." Shane answered.

Ellie frowned. "I wouldn't have thought of doing something like that. You guys really had to worry about things like that?" It just seemed so unlikely to her.
Then again, she did know that people did do bad things. She dimly remembered hearing something about Heny having a kitten that had gotten eaten. Hmm.

Shane shrugged then nodded "We were told it would happen, so no pets. True or not, it was the excuse used."

"He probably just didn't want to pay for pet food," Ellie said, petting one of the goats. "Another reason why I'm glad you left them!"

Armin squeezed Starr's hand. "Forgive me, I did not mean to trouble you"

---

there was a long delay before Kay replied, but finally the tablet chimed. [Fine James, be a child.]

Maybe it was a good thing they were far away from the medical room right now.

James considered his reply. He wanted to reply, even though Esk would probably advise him not to. He liked getting the last word, okay?
[Fine Kay, be a dick.]
Okay, so it wasn't a great comeback. James sent it anyway.

Esk smirked. "Is he gonna come down here and throw pens at you or what?" He looked around for another game to play.

"I almost hope he does, so that I can tell him he's the one being childish," James said. "I mean he already is being pretty childish, but that would really be going over the line into immaturity." He picked out a side-scroller superhero game to play next. Maybe he'd be better at that than the racing game.

"That's how he handles most arguments it seems, he throws things and storms off." Esk shrugged. "it's pretty ineffective but I guess he's pretty non threatening. I mean what else can he do? Yell into your head? Only works if you're organic." He shook his head. "And he stopped resorting to that after he made Web fit one time." He leaned against a machine to watch James play.

James snorted. "I mean he could be dangerous. He could shapeshift and claw the heck out of me. But you know, I have trouble imagining him doing anything that violent even if he is in a terrible mood." He winced, "Poor Web."
The superhero game seemed to suit James better than the racing game had. He'd picked a winged superhero avatar, and was gliding from building to building, shooting what looked to be his own feathers and endless masked mooks.

Esk shook his head. "nah, for as much of an asshole as my brother is, he's terrified of hurting people. I mean he's really fucking GOOD at hurting people, but usually because he's just a massive fuckup. Even really riled up I can't see him actually trying to stab someone or something, if he ever did you can bet he'd mope and angst about it for the next fucking century." He shrugged. "Best thing to do with him is probably to just ignore him. He'll calm the fuck down and stop being a prick eventually. Well, as MUCH of a prick. Maybe. He's probably fretting about Asher and Danika and whether they still love him or some shit, once we get to Unity and we have a big happy stupid reunion he'll go back to his usual annoying self." Right? Probably. Eugh, big happy reunions.

James nodded. "Yeah, he never struck me as being a violent person. A dick sometimes, yeah, but not the sort of person who would physically harm anyone." He frowned, "He couldn't be worrying about whether they still love him, could he? I mean baby dragons are like, unconditional love incarnate. And Asher waited ten years for him, which you don't do for just anyone." Although James did privately suspect that his brother might have developed feelings for Nova, hmm.

Esk shrugged. "it's been ten years, that's a long time to think about a person and remember their flaws." He had no idea really, romance was one topic he really didn't understand, no matter how perceptive he was. "and you forget how fucking neurotic that guy is." He rolled his eyes. Relationships, eugh.

"Good point. Kay is reeeeally neurotic sometimes," James mused. "And there are definitely some bad things to remember about him." He shook his head. "Relationships, man. We're lucky to not have any ourselves, they seem like such a pain."

Esk nodded. "Yeah. Just a real pain in the ass." Eugh, he couldn't help but think of Vicky. Crazy bitch. "I dunno why people do it to themselves. All that stress, no clear gain."

"Yeah, I don't get it. Seems like it's nice when it's working, but when it isn't, it just turns into a nightmare." James whooped as he cleared a level in his game, then paused to look at Esk for a moment before continuing. "There's a lot to be said for being friends. People say 'just friends' like it's a disappointment, but I dunno, a good friendship can mean a lot too. Certainly it's better than the sort of loony people who want to marry you a week after you start dating."

Esk shrugged. "Friendship is wierd too. Caring about someone other than yourself. It's inconvenient." He looked away. Yeah, he gave a shit about other people, but it annoyed him because he didn't really understand WHY he cared. Bah. "things are easier when it's just you."

James blinked. "I mean yeah, maybe you're right about it being more efficient to be alone. But it's fun to have other people around sometimes. And it's nice to know someone's got your back when you need help." He shrugged, "You have friends, right? I mean I assume not me, but like, Dawn or someone?"