Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Six

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Ellie frowned a little at the question. "Yeah, I've talked to them. They're glad to know I'm okay. It's so strange how much older they are now, though." In the photos she'd seen, they both had a lot of gray hairs she didn't remember from before.

~~
Ethan looked amused. "The library's always open. You can stop by any time you want, as long as you don't get sugar on the books."

Kerr paused then sheepishly looked down to his feet. "Neither" He said quietly. Oops, he had just been talking about the three he had known the last 10 years and himself.

"Oh," Ellie said. "You meant in your family, then?" She smiled softly at Kerr.

Kerr nodded and glanced up to her again. "Yes" He said then shrugged "It wouldn't take long to ask the others though."

"All right, I guess we should ask them, then," Ellie decided. "Just in case. Who do you wanna ask first?"

"If we get mom to ask, she can ask everyone of the dragons at once." Vela said then shrugged "A lot easier than we can."

"Good plan, let's do that," Ellie said. "I mean, just have her ask the dragons on board though, don't make her ask millions of them at once if they have cat allergies," she added hastily, laughing at the thought.

Kerr chuckled softly at that and nodded, looking like he was concentrating for a moment before nodding. "Mom's asking. She was busy reding stuff though."

"Awesome," Ellie said. "I hope we aren't distracting her from anything important though, if she's busy reading stuff." She frowned a little. Starr had so much to think about these days, it had to be hard work.

Ivor shook his head. "No.. no.. " He hugged himself. "You.. your thoughts are not... not bad thoughts... " He frowned. Some people had pretty violent minds he'd found, even on this ship. It occured to him at last that he hadn't actually introduced himself. He forced himself to look up at her and smile weakly.
"I.. i'm Ivor..." He told her, making no move to come any closer though.

Kerr shrugged a little "Mom likes to help people. It makes her feel good."

Zara watched Ivor carefully, she'd rarely seen anyone act this scared. Whatever had happened to this guy before he came to this ship, it must have been bad.
"I'm glad," she said, "I don't want to hurt or freak anyone out. I mean, not unless they try to hurt me first. And I'm pretty sure you aren't planning to do that."
She hesitated a little when he introduced himself, she liked to get names right, and this one was unfamiliar to her. "You're Ivor? My name's Zara," she said.

~~
"Sometimes I think your mom is overworking herself a bit," Ellie said, "Don't get me wrong, I have so much respect for her, but she should probably, like, take a month off to relax and sometime. Like, seriously." Ruling millions sounded sooo hard, omg.

Kerr shrugged, he didn't know what to say to that.

Ellie would wait for Starr's reply, or they could go talk to someone else if it was likely to take a while. She didn't know how long asking every dragon on board would take.

Kerr tilted his head then nodded "Mom says we can go look at the kittens while she's asking, if we want."

Ellie perked up at that. "Okay, let's go!" She wanted to see kittens, oh yes. "I haven't even seen a kitten in ages," she said, "Not since Heny's..."
She frowned a little at the memory, yeah, she was pretty sure that kitten had met a bad end during that battle with the Family.

Vela caught up and took Ellie's hand when she became sad. She didn't speak, just held on while Shane and Kerr followed them out.

(To Unity!)

Ivor nodded, forcing a weak half smile, the best he could manage.
"Z.. zara... yes?" He tilted his head, curious. "are you... staying with us now then?"

"Yes, Zara," Zara said, smiling back. "I'll be staying here for a while, probably a few weeks or so, then I'll be moving on."

Ivor blinked, frowning a little "Why?" He asked simply, staring into her face perhaps a little too intently, his wierd mismatched eyes focused on hers.

Zara shrugged, meeting his odd stare as she replied. "I like to travel and stay on the move. Meeting new people, working on new ships. There's so much to see out here, you know?" She'd told this lie a lot of times, pretending to like regularly moving from crew to crew was way better than saying she had secrets she wanted to keep from everyone. "It's much better than settling down somewhere."

Ivor didn't look like he totally believed her but he nodded and didn't pry further. "It is... a much larger universe than I ever imagined.." He agreed.

Zara noticed skepticism in Ivor's expression. Darn, it was hard to keep secrets from someone who was literally hearing her thoughts. She was glad he didn't seem to want to pry further, at least.
"It really is an amazing universe, there's always something new to discover," she said. "What sort of planet did you come from? I don't recognize your species," she added curiously.

Ivor hesitated. "I... i'm Hexenfolke..." He told her. Well it was half true and to be fair, most of his life had been all he'd known.
He mostly looked Hexenfolke sure, the right hair colour, the ruddy complexion, the lanky elongated limbs but his eyes were wrong, very very wrong.

Zara had some idea of what Hexenfolke looked like, she was pretty sure they didn't usually have eyes like that, and she'd never heard of one with telepathy. Maybe he was half Hexenfolke... or three quarters... or something. Hmm.
"You're from the Imperium then?" she asked. "Like the red haired guy who writes?" She hadn't asked Kay's name earlier. Darn.

Ivor nodded. "y.. yes..." He brightened slightly, realising who she was talking about. "yes, like him." He and Kay had rather more in common than just being from the Imperium after all. Silence even said they smelled similar, which was.. wierd. More from his perspective because it was freaking bizarre to smell people but eh.

He looked at Zara warily, he got the impression she didn't entirely believe him.

"You and him are friends?" Zara guessed, watching Ivor's expression. "You must have a lot in common, I know the Imperium has a... really strong culture." That was one way to put it, anyway.
She noticed his rather suspicious wariness, but decided against prying about his lineage. Hey, if Ivor had secrets he was keeping, he wasn't the only one.