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.

"Not really. Go, shoo, try to find your inner calm or whatever," James said, still trying to look nonchalant. "Seriously, how many hours have you worked this week? Too many, I'm guessing."

~~
"I see," Ethan said, although he didn't really. "Well I guess it beats living in gloomy caves at least." He eyed the shadows, not totally sure they wouldn't see him as a threat or something.

Kay looked extra suspicious. [What about the patients?]

----

Jarral shrugged. "I never minded the caves." He told him. When it was all you had ever known, it was just home. Plus he found much light hurt his eyes and the sun burned his incredibly pale skin. He noticed that look Ethan gave. "They will not harm you unless you present a threat to me. You do not intend to harm me do you?"

James rolled his eyes, giving up on his attempt to look unflappable. "Tori and me are here, in case you hadn't noticed."

~~
"Fair enough. Guess people like some odd stuff." Ethan continued to look at the shadows, "No, I'm not planning to hurt you." The urge to hurt people was pretty low at the moment, for which he was grateful. "How does a shadow protect you?" He couldn't imagine how a shadow would attack, he just knew that these looked damn creepy.

[Yes, YOU'RE here.] Kay replied. [After spending the last hour or so goofing off playing arcade games.]

---

Jarral nodded, apparently satisfied Ethan meant it. "I do not believe you want to find out." a few of the shadows that made up his whispering cloak disentangled from the others and poured across the floor, merging with the regular shadows of the bookshelves and walls. "they speak to me, they tell me things, they see a great deal."

James frowned. "I can work just fine, thank you very much. I just refuse to let you boss me around like it's still 2790."

~~
Ethan twitched, and shivered a little as some of the shadows left Jarral. Knowing there were things crawling around that he couldn't see was unnerving. "Great, so now there's three sentient surveillance systems on this ship?" he said wryly, once he was feeling a little less jumpy. "Can't make a move around here without someone knowing."

Jarral tilted his head. "My shadows are not limited to the ship." He watched Ethan, dull eyes barely blinking. He was a spectacularly creepy ghouish looking person.
"three... the ship herself... the insects yes? " Ahh yes, the Swarm and their endless damn questions. His gazed drifted to the ceiling, as if searching for them. "if you do nothing you are ashamed of, you should not fear being observed."

---

Kay grit his teeth. Did James just compare him to a terran android owner? He did didn't he? [Me telling you to do your damn job is not the same as ordering you to do things against your will James, don't ever make that comparison again.] He had a dangerous look in his eyes, James may have just stepped into dangerous territory there.

"Yes. Your shadows, Vestia, and Swarm. Not to mention who knows what else might be watching us, come to think of it." Ethan was pretty much resigned to Swarm and Vestia knowing most of what he did, but he still liked his privacy. "Some of us don't like being watched. Having everything you do be analyzed by someone is creepy as fuck."

~~
James stopped leaning against the desk and stood up, looking annoyed. "And yet you keep giving me orders, and shoving things at me, and acting damn impatient if I have the audacity to ask you to back off a little. If you respected me as a person, you'd show me some damn respect!"
Yeah, James was going too far with the comparison, and he probably should have let this whole thing slide, but he never had had the best control of his temper. Oh dear.

Tori was watching the two medics from a safe distance, pretending to work. Well, this was unnerving.

Kay had murder in his eyes now, definitely. His temper flared. [You have done nothing to earn that respect! ] There was an awful lot more Kay wanted to say, but typing while angry was surprisingly difficult. His inability to scream at James only made him angrier.

---

Jarral shrugged. "Do you believe they are analyzing your every move?" That seemed awfully presumptuous to him, did this man really do anything overly interesting?

"I worked my ass off after the battle at the Guild, AND after the slavers attacked us! When you organics were too tired to keep going, I stayed on duty all night to keep an eye on the patients' condition. What the hell do you mean I haven't earned any respect? Does none of that matter to you?" James didn't shout, he didn't want to freak out the patients any more than they probably already were, but he sounded furious.

~~
"That's just it, isn't it? You don't know what they're thinking. Maybe it's fine, you've got nothing to hide, they have no interest in you. But you can't know that for sure. Maybe they will take an interest. Maybe they'll decide they don't like something about you." Ethan frowned. "It may be hypocrisy since I live on this ship, but I'm not overly fond of placing my trust in random sentient entities."

[Whatever your persecution complex IS James, get over it. I have never treated you any differently than anyone else here, how dare you suggest otherwise. ] Kay looked around ready to hurl something, thankfully the desk was nowhere near him so all he had was his tablet which he was unlikely to throw.

----

Jarral watched Ethan quietly, he nodded. "My shadows and I have far more important things to be investigating."

James glared. "Well if you're treating the other medics like you're treating me, then you should be a hell of a lot nicer to them too. They deserve some respect, they've done their share of the work around here."

~~
Ethan still looked suspicious, but he nodded. "Good."

[the other medics actually have work ethic.] Kay wrote back. [They don't wince at the sight of blood, they don't moan about doing things and they sure as hell don't fuck off for hours to play games out of spite. Grow up James, just grow up.] He turned away from him, unwilling to continue this.

----

Jarral nodded and went back to browsing the stacks, picking up books and carefully examining them.

"I never made a fuss about it when it really mattered," James said. "When people were in danger, I did my work and I never complained about it. You just don't care about that, do you?" He added, "And I wouldn't fuck off for hours if you weren't being a dick, so there you go."

~~
Ethan went back to gluing his book, glancing up at Jarral occasionally. The guy seemed okay, but something about him and his shadows made Ethan kind of twitchy.
Then again, a lot of things made Ethan twitchy, so what was new?

[You're a fucking child James.] Kay told him.

---

Jarral seemed fairly content to just read books. The shadows whispered to him, strange insubstantial sounds barely at the edge of comprehension and he spoke back to them in the same rasping incomplete language as he carefully and gently flipped through a battered paperback.

"Just go take a break," James said. "Please." He was so frustrated right now, but he was starting to realize that he'd probably gone too far, and would probably need to apologize later. Fun.


~~
Ethan finished repairing the book, and would get it set to dry. He watched Jarral for a bit, since apparently the guy didn't mine being watched. "What are you doing?" he asked after a while.

Kay glared. He was exhausted certainly, but he was angry and indignant. He looked to Tori. [Can you take over?] This wasn't James winning, oh hell no, this was more.. him storming out. Yes.
that's what he was going to tell himself.

----

Jarral glanced up. "Your books are strange." he remarked. He wasn't used to stories like this. Myths sure, legends of course, but romance stories? adventure tales featuring robots and half naked people? All very odd.

Tori looked up from pretending to not listen in, to read Kay's request. "Okay, no problem." She tried a smile but it kind of failed. Watching the two medics fight made her pretty nervous.

James looked slightly relieved, but he was kind of sad Kay was taking the time to leave the med bay in Tori's hands. So this wasn't a victory.
Ugh. He should have just followed Esk's advice and ignored Kay, shouldn't he?

~~
"Are they?" Ethan asked. He saw which section Jarral was in and made a face, "Yes, I guess they are. Which one did you pick up?"

Kay shot James one last glare, then headed out of the medical room, still irate and disgusted with the other man.

----

Jarral looked at the cover. "Captain Future and the Bikini space babes from Mars." He read, um... what? "I am not certain I understand." He shook his head and put the book back.

James watched Kay go, glaring.

"Let's get back to work," Tori said tiredly.

James nodded, and got back to work. He'd kind of sort of won maybe, but it didn't really feel like a victory at all. And now Kay was gone, he was definitely starting to regret comparing the guy to a slave owner.
Sigh.

~~
Ethan snorted. Well, that explained Jarral's confusion, certainly. "Some the crew really like those kinds of books, so I stock them for them," he said. "I guess books like that are wish fulfillment or something,"

Kay didn't really know what to do with himself now, he had no appropriate outlet for anger. He went for a walk to clear his head.

---

"Curious." Jarral shook his head. "Even after all these years, aliens bewilder me."

James considered texting Esk, but he didn't really want to admit how the fight had gone or that he should have listened to Esk, so he decided against it.
He was also tempted to text Asher about this, but he didn't want to bring Asher into his squabbles after all these years. It seemed unfair.
He focused on his work.

~~
Ethan nodded. "Every species has their quirks I guess. I take it kevali don't have much of a market for written entertainment?"

Jarral shook his head. "most of the Kevali are illiterate, it is only the Scribes who are taught to read and write. They have a rich oral tradition of stories, myths and legends, stories to explain to children why things are the way they are, history, that sort of thing, but.. .nothing quite like this."

Ethan frowned a little. Literacy, access to knowledge, was one of those things he thought everyone should have. Then again, he wasn't part of a cave-dwelling species that had to focus most of its energy on survival, so that made things a little different.
"No, I don't suppose your legends and myths would include many bikini babes," he mused. "I guess a culture has to collectively have a certain amount of free time before stories for the sake of entertainment become practical."

Jarral nodded. "you may be right. There is little time for entertainment below the sands. " And it wasn't a habit he'd really ever gotten into.

"What sort of things do you read?" Ethan asked. He made a point of trying to find out what people liked, it was kind of his job. "Not that kind of book, I assume."

"I research." Jarral told him dully. "Translate, seek knowledge, as is my Lord's will." He looked around. "Right now I am researching the demons, though their texts are difficult to find and their books... whisper. " He frowned, whispering books would freak most people out surely, but for Jarral he just found it mildly irritating and distracting. "It is claimed many go mad trying to make sense of their writing, perhaps I was already too far gone for that." He spoke constantly in such a detatched, almost airy manner, he made Esk seem emotional.

"Whispering books, sounds fun," Ethan said dryly. He continued to watch Jarral, there definitely was something off about the guy. "You sure the books aren't driving you crazier? You could switch to reading books that don't whisper for a while, maybe it'd do you good."