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."

Danika looked to Kay then nodded. "It would be good to know where to go." She said then smiled.

The dragon nodded and would lead them to the suite the other kids had picked out.

<You're going to have to make some modifications to the drone, I suppose,> Zara signed, looking thoughtful. <You said the drone is designed to talk to a computer wirelessly, but does it have the bandwidth to send all that sensor data to a remote computer, and also receive commands from it?>

Kay followed along but Jarral at some point along the way slipped off into the shadows.

Kay didn't even notice.

---

Mourn grinned, he was liking this new girl already. <not yet, once get him working i'll build new drones, better drones.> He nodded. Bigger, better, stronger, with tasers. That was his usual tactic wasn't it?

<Multiple drones, meaning he could control more than one at once?> Zara grinned back. The idea of a computer controlling a fleet of drones was fun.
<What sort of better drones were you thinking of? I hope you're planning to give some of them holograms like his original has.> Maybe she was biased, but she thought illusions were awesome. Especially if you didn't need to keep them secret.

Danika glanced back after Jerral left but said nothing, figuring he had had enough socializing. He hadn't liked it much as a kid either.

The dragon paused at the door to the suit and looked at the pair again, smiling. "Here we are, the others are inside with Ellie."

"Thank you" Danika said and dipped her head.

"Anytime." The dragon gave a half bow and smiled in return before moving on.

Mounr nodded. <holograms good, easier to talk to> He grinned at Zara. <bigger, better, stronger. Then we see how much adaptive programming can evolve yes?>

----

Kay nodded thanks to the dragon and half waved, looking somewhat awkward. All the bowing was kinda unfamiliar and wierd to him and he didn't know if he was supposed to return it or what.
He looked to the door and knocked.

<So he has a hologram clear enough that you can lipread it?> Zara asked, to be sure she understood correctly. If Mourn wasn't in practice with signing, and the drone could take on a friendly, organic-looking form to interact with organics, then that seemed to be the logical conclusion here. But she'd never seen a hologram outside a holodeck that could achieve that level of detail before, and it hardly sounded plausible to her.
<You're going to weaponize the new drones, aren't you?> she added, amused.

~~
Ellie had been snoozing with Danika's kitten in her lap, still sitting on the floor. She woke up at the knock. "Wha-? Who is it?" she asked, trying not to be too loud because she didn't want to startle the kittens, but also trying to be loud enough to be heard through the door. Since she was still kind of waking up, she probably ended up a bit louder than intended, whoops.

Mourn nodded. <as good as anyone else.> After all, aketi anatomy was pretty wierd but at least they had lips. Kind of.
He cackled at her other question. <Then maybe not get damaged so much>

---

Kay paused, yeah, he couldn't really call. Damn doors. He looked to Danika.

Zara looked impressed. <I didn't know anyone could fit hologram technology like that in something so small. I mean, even lipreading flesh and blood beings is a bitch, let alone something that isn't physically there.>
<I'd like to help with that. Giving someone the freedom to adapt, and giving them guns, sounds fun,> she added with another grin. Potentially dangerous, but hey, sometimes you had to take a few risks to give someone their rights.

Mourn's grin broadened and he got to his feet. <Plant technology very advanced.> He told her, glancing back at the drone. If his lenses worked he could show her, bah. <we'll get him fixed, then you see.> He considered for a moment, then made a decision and unplugged Amity from his computer and picked up the tiny drone. "I find someone fix."

<I definitely want to see that,> Zara signed. Her mom would have warned her not to act too excited about things like this for fear of seeming suspicious, but Zara couldn't help it, she'd always loved light and the things that could be created with it.
<Let's hope someone in Engineering can make lenses.> She snagged her tea thermos off the table, no need to waste tea by leaving it behind.

Mourn looked up at her, he really was remarkably short now he was standing.
"you come yes?" He asked. He didn't much care either way, beyond someone who seemed to share his enthusiasm for tech projects.
Most of the people around here just either looked blankly at him or smiled and left him to it.
"We find lenses."

The art of Mourn that Zara had seen had always depicted him as unusually tall, or at least average in height. It was odd to realize that actually, he was several inches shorter than she was. Huh.
"You bet I'm coming along, I want to see how this project goes," she said. "A talking drone that makes holograms! Not many people get to see something like that." She looked pleased.

"Danika and Kay" Danika replied through the door.

"Sis" Kerr said and smiled as he lifted his head then yawned. "Open the door."

"Oh! Kay and Danika!" Ellie grinned. She considered getting up to get the door, but the kitten was still waking up and she didn't want to startle it. Instead she called, "Come in, guys!"
...Which probably startled the kitten a little too. Oh well.

Kay looked grateful as Danika spoke, usually he just had to keep knocking till the other person got annoyed and opened the damn door.

He pushed the door open and nodded a greeting to everyone, tilting his head questioningly at the kittens.

----

Mourn cackled and gestured she follow. "good, good, yes, we go." He kept forgetting to actually look at her, he was too accustomed to dealing with hearing people and ignoring them.

Zara missed a couple words because Mourn's head was turned away and her hearing just couldn't pick up everything, but she got the gist of what he was saying. She paused to grab her tablet off the table before going to walk beside Mourn as they headed for the airlock.

Danika walked in with Kay then stopped, staring for a moment before covering her mouth to not squeal too loud. Once she felt she could control herself she went over to Ellie, dropping beside her and reaching over to pet the kitten "We get to have the kittens!?"

Kerr chuckled and shifted back to his human form, nodding "We each got our favorite and the supplies for them."

Ellie grinned. "Yeah, kittens! I was babysitting yours, you can hold her now," she told Danika. "It's so good to see you! And oh my gosh, you look so much like Kay, it's adorable!" The dragons and Kay could probably hear that telepathic squee of hers, oops?

Kay came into the room and stood a bit awkardly to one side, watching the kids and the kittens silently and trying very hard to ignore the high pitched whine of Ellie's thoughts.

--

Mourn led the way to Unity, even though he had no idea where he was actually going.

(Mourn and Zara head to Unity!)

Danika probably had a hard time hearing Ellie over her own squealing for having the kittens here. "Thank you" She said, gently taking the kitten and petting her.

Kerr flinched a little before putting his guard up to block the sound. "We just put your things in your room, you have to set it up and put it away." He said

"What's going on?" Vela asked, raising her head and looking around "Hi Kay."

Kay forced a weak smile and nodded greeting to Vela as she addressed him. He was rather bewildered by WHY everyone was so over happy about cats.
They didn't have any vermin that needed controlling right?
Pets were somewhat of an alien concept to him still. Sure kittens were cute, and soft but maybe he was just too grumpy to appreciate that right now.

"We can totally help you set things up in your room when you want to," Ellie told Danika, "If you want help, I mean." She looked over at Kay, "Wanna come pet kittens with us? They're sooo cute."

Kay frowned slightly. [Where did they come from?] He asked at last.

"There was a lady that had a queen cat, she wanted others to be able to have the kittens, and mom said we could get one. It's funny calling a cat a queen, but that's the term they used." Kerr answered with a grin.

Danika nodded and smiled at Ellie. "I would like help, thank you."

Ellie giggled. "Cats are basically royalty, so it makes sense that they're called queens, I guess." She looked at Danika gain, "Great! We can totally work on that when you want to. Or maybe you and Kay should, I bet he's good at decorating."
She didn't really think Kay was good at decorating, but you know, father-daughter reunions and all that.