Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Four

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"We could stay here and see if Vestia can start getting some movies on file for us." Shane said with a shrug.

James held out the tablet for her inspection, grinning.

On the screen was a photo of a statue in what looked to be a city park, although there were no plants to be seen in the picture. The statue depicted a cyborg felid holding a laptop in one arm, looking down upon the people in the park with a kindly expression on his face. His free hand was held out, as if offering something to the viewer, although it wasn't clear from here exactly what he was holding.

Clearly the statue was popular, people seemed to have left a lot of small offerings at its base in the form of flowers or scraps of paper which were probably letters.

"Can you believe it?!" James asked delightedly.

Luka stared at it. "Is that... Is that MOURN!??" She burst into laughter. "Is he a hero to the Androids now? How'd they figure out it was him? Who commissioned a statue!??" So many questions. "You haven't shown him?"

"Yeah! It's Mourn, and he's famous!" James half thought it was hilarious, and half thought it was adorable.
"Daniel and Scott, you know, from the Beach Planet, apparently described him and figured out he was the same guy who freed the androids. And then some people who must have been from the Guild pitched in and verified the claim, and then everyone started looking around for evidence and found out that everywhere he turned up, a giant cruise ship had been there at the same time! So he became like a saint to the androids, and they voted to have a statue of him in the city's biggest park."
He grinned, "I haven't told Mourn yet, but ohhh man I want to be there when he finds out about this."

Luka laughed. "Oh he'll love it! A saint! I don't...actually know what that is but it sounds important. " She looked at the picture again, shaking her head. "He'll want to go there, we SHOULD go there shouldn't we? See your people's ... home world I suppose it is? "

"Saints are people who did really important things in some religions. So they got recognized as being super important and people sometimes pray to them for guidance," James said. It wasn't a great explanation, but then, he didn't really know much about any religions that had saints. But he did his best.
"Yeah, we sooo have to visit. I guess it is our homeworld, I mean technically we were built on Mars mostly, but they didn't want to give us Mars." He looked amused. "Regardless of what exactly this planet is to us, we HAVE to visit to see the statue of Mourn. It's amazing."

Starr did what she could, running her 'country' and take care of Luna though she enjoyed the time Armin gave her. She still gave some of her power to Vestia to help her heal. She knew Vestia was still in pain and wanted to help her. Her and her people had tried not to use their telepathy when it wasn't needed because they could feel the pain from the ship. To help Armin feel better, she gave him a title of counselor.

~~~
Shane didn't mind staying with Ellie each night, though he claimed one of the rooms in her suite as his own so he had his own bed at least. He helped where he could with her and Matt, even if all he could do was be there.

~~~
Rigel tried not to embarrass Luka, but he was glad she had relaxed more around him. He worked on the Devil when he could and tried to look up stuff when he had downtime and wasn't with Luka.

Ellie might go to visit Starr. She liked Starr, and of course she also wanted to see Luna. Luna could probably talk by now, and she wanted to see that too.

Starr was in the kid's playground with Luna when Ellie came to find her. She looked to the door and smiled at her. "Hello Ellie."

"Hey Starr," Ellie said with a smile, heading over to stand near her. "How's the monarchy?"

Starr chuckled softly at the question then shook her head "It's ...interesting to be the Queen, especially with this whole vanishing and reappearing thing." She replied then looked back to Luna playing in the treehouse thing they had made.

"Oh, I can't imagine," Ellie said. She reached out to pat Starr's arm. "They're being nice to you though? All the subjects?" She followed Starr's gaze to watch Luna. "Aww, she's getting so big already!"

Armin was stunned and of course deeply honoured to be granted an actual title! How many Vavare could claim that?
He told Starr he would do everything he could to ensure he lived up to such an honour and yeah, made a fuss about it because that was what he was like.
She WAS after all, a living demi-god to his people.

----

Luka didn't really get it, she had next to no knowledge of religion beyond what people around here had told her, which uh.. really wasn't much. The ship was mostly a bunch of athiests it seemed. "So he's.. almost like a god?" She asked. "He'd love that." Granted she didn't know Mourn that well, but he seemed the sort of person who would LOVE that sort of attention.

"Kind of more a spiritual guide than an omnipotent being, but yeah, something along those lines." James smiled. "Heck yeah, I'm pretty sure he's gonna be thrilled. I mean he wanted a statue that was made of gold and really big, but I'm sure he'll settle for a sorta big statue made of bronze."

Luka laughed. "He actually wanted a statue?" Oh dear. "that is... wonderful"

"He totally did. We discussed it a few times. I never thought this would actually happen though, I wonder if he thought it would," James said, laughing. "Want to go find him and show him? It should be fun."

Luka nodded "yes, let's! Maybe we should take something to celebrate." She looked thoughtful. "Can he drink alchohol?" Maybe not. "What does he like?" Fish right? Always fish.

James nodded. "Good idea. I don't think he drinks, but we could bring him something to eat. Tuna maybe, he eats a lot of tuna." He looked thoughtful, "Or we could bring him a box. he loves those." Mourn really was an odd duck, wasn't he?

" A box? What sort of box?" Luka asked, she didn't know Mourn well. Was that a cat thing? Was it racist to think of him as a big cat? Erp.

"Big cardboard ones he can sleep in," James said. "Mourn's kind of eccentric, if you hadn't already gotten that impression." He looked amused.

Luka shook her head. "I wonder if it's just him or if all Felid are so... cat-like..." She mused.

"I have no idea, and someday I want to meet some more felid to find out," James laughed. "I like to imagine that them falling asleep on each others' computer keyboards and stuff. Which might be mildly racist or something, come to think of it." He looked sheepish.

Luka laughed "cute though." She headed for the exit. "Let's go find him some congratulations on becoming a saint tuna or something then"

James cackled. "Yeah, let's do that. To the kitchen!" He headed that way with Luka. Hopefully not all the tuna had been spaced, hmm.

Luka followed along to see what they could find. "So nobody else has become a big shot important figure I take it?" She asked conversationally. "how about Asher? Is he a hero?"

"Well apparently Starr is somewhat popular too, cause she adopted an android and is a goddamn queen, although she doesn't have the fame Mourn has," James said. "Mourn basically performed a miracle, as far as my species is concerned, and that means he's got a special place in the robots' hearts."
He shook his head, "Asher's not as big a name. They like him and I'm sure they'd be thrilled if he ever came back, but he doesn't stand out in their minds so much. Which is probably just the way he wants it anyway." He looked amused.

Luka nodded. "Interesting.. He helped lead a rebellion and managed to sink into obscurity. Lucky guy." She chuckled. Yeah, Asher never struck her as someone who much liked attention.

"He tried to play up the idea that Terrans were victims of corporate deception just as much as the androids were. Which kinda hurts to hear if you're an android." James smiled wryly. "Maybe if he'd pandered to the organics less he'd be more popular now, but hey, his strategy worked even if it was kinda gross."
They reached the kitchen, and James started searching for tuna.