Upon Vestia: Chapter Nine

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Thaila winced, "I...uhm dont remember much but that maaay of been me." He said sheepishly, "Sorry.."

Asher nodded. "It'll be fine. We would most likely have plenty of warning if the cell door couldn't hold, and Vestia could lower the partition doors to slow you down." He thought for a moment, "I wonder, if she were to fly east, would that count as the moon setting, and make you change back sooner?"
Yeah, he was only going to shoot once nonviolent options had been exhausted.

Kay considered that [You know, I don't know. It would probably be faster to leave orbit but, i've never tested any of these things. ] And he really didn't much want to, that level of experimentation was a step too far. He was however thankful for the change of subject away from shooting him. It was progress. [Vestia assures me her partition doors should hold, and she has a lot of them. If she can seal the area, it's unlikely I could get out. ] He looked at Asher oddly. [It's still very strange to be able to discuss this so openly. ]

Asher smiled. "My point is that when I said I wanted to protect the crew, that meant you just as much as it meant the others. Vestia's doors will most likely hold, but if for some reason they didn't, we'd try the creative solutions first."

Kay smiled softly. [Just don't be stupid.]

"Of course not. We're trying to maximize everyone's safety," Asher said gently. "And we have a giant spaceship to help us out."

Kay nodded, yes, yes they did have a giant spaceship.

<thank you> he signed, reaching out to take Asher's hands in his own.

TIMESKIP - THE PLANET
AKA: FINALLY WE GIVE THE MEDICS A BREAK FROM CAUSING LARGE SCALE DESTRUCTION BY BEING ADORABLE

Vestia landed at the spaceport, which was a shiny and chromey and had a nice view of the sparkling ocean, and sighed with relief. Now she could cook the feeling of that awful collar out of her metal skin through the power of sunlight. This would be gooood.

~~
Ellie went to go find her drinking buddies.

~~
Asher glumly looked out the window, feeling a bit sad that he couldn't go see the sights. There was a lot of water out there, but it still would have been a nice change of scenery.

Before they'd landed Heny had told everyone the news about that contract. If had... not gone down too well with several of them. Namely Matt, who in fact had become pretty angry about the whole thing.
How could she let the slavers just go like that? With no repercussions or justice? How could she guarentee they wouldn't find some sneaky way around the magical contract? How could she do this without consulting ANYONE else??
He went off on a bit of a tirade about her being self serving and selfish and stupid and that was the point she punched him in the face and the others had to intervene.
Matt was escorted to his room to "cool down".
He remained there, silently fuming well after they landed.

Kay didn't take the news too well either, he read over the contract and worriedly chewed his lip, thinking about all those secrets the slavers had on them and how there was no way to know what they'd do with that information. But there was no point arguing about it, a deal was a deal and it was done. How he wished this had been discussed but he knew Heny, this wasn't at all unlike her given previous actions. He' just had to hope like anything this wouldn't come back to haunt them.
While he didn't want the slavers dead like Matt did, he didn't much want them free to roam the galaxy and continue their vile ways, but what could they do?

Mourn just sharpened his claws and ignored the whole thing. He didn't really care to be honest, he was just keen to have these people off "his" beautiful ship.

Ellie had been outraged that Heny had let the slavers off so easily. How could you even do that to such horrible people? She yelled at Heny a lot, but eventually decided to go get drunk instead.

Asher had been deeply frustrated by Heny's actions. She had no right to do this without consulting anyone, after all. But it wasn't like he could change anything, so he had kept his thoughts to himself.

Kay went to speak to his brother, who should hopefully have had some time to at least mostly calm down... right?

He knocked gently on the door.

“What?” Matt called sullenly.

Kay knocked again, three soft raps to let him know who it was.

Matt frowned. “Come in then.”

He was pacing the room still and turned to face Kay as he came into the room.

“How could she do that? Just no consultation, oh it's my ship so fuck everyone else all that matters is me?”

Kay raised a hand to stop him.

[This doesn't solve anything]

“I don't care if it solves anything, i'm pissed off and i'm entitled to vent my damn rage!”

Kay shook his head. [All you'll do is get yourself sent to the brig. Let me check your nose please.]

Matt huffed and slumped onto the bed so Kay could look at his bruised face.

“She's the most insufferably self centered person i've ever met. She keeps pulling this shit, doing whatever suits her and not thinking about anyone else. It's like she resents us all being here, why'd she even hire us if she hates us all? “

Kay smiled sadly and patted Matt on the shoulder. [She doesn't hate us, she's just very stubborn and used to being alone, it means she's not used to working with a team. But I believe her heart was in the right place, they can't come after us now. She included all of our names in her deal, that's got to count for something.]

“You can't be okay with this.”

[I'm not, i'd have rather seen them face justice. The thought of them being free to get back out there and continue to capture and enslave people is highly upsetting but they aren't the only slavers out there, taking out one crew won't stop it from happening across the universe. And killing them would only corrupt us, we don't need any more blood on our hands. Mattias, YOU don't need any more blood on your hands.] He looked at his brother sternly.

Matt's eyes narrowed. “When did you get so high and mighty? “ he snapped. “I mean I get it, you're a medic, that means no intentionally killing people but Kay, seriously? You can't tell me you wouldn't have stabbed those scary ass claws of yours straight through any of their faces to escape.”

[Self defense is one thing, what you want is outright murder. Matt, you're better than that. ]

“no, i'm not. I'm really not Kay.”

Kay looked pained. [Please stop moving so I can set this.] He gestured to Matt's nose.

Matt glared but sat still till Kay was done.

[Please Matt, you have to get a handle on this anger. It will consume you. We all got away, we're free. ]

“No we aren't. We'll always be hunted. The Family will come knocking soon enough, that slaver asshole will find some new and fun way to fuck us over. Just you wait, this will come back to bite us in the ass and it'll be HER damn fault.”

[Matt please, come back. This isn't you.] Kay looked pleadingly into his brother's eyes.

Matt looked away. “Just tell me when they're off the ship. “ He spoke flatly.

Kay nodded. [It's going to be okay. Isn't that what you always tell me? It'll be okay.]

“Yeah... “ Matt sounded defeated.

Kay sat down beside him, putting an arm around his shoulders.

[I know i've been a lousy brother Matt. I've been so wrapped up with my own problems I completely failed to notice you needed help. But i'm here now, all this anger, it's not you and you know that. What happened back there with the Family, it's over, it's behind us. We have to move on. You said yourself, we can't let them win, you can't let them get into your head.] He was deeply worried for his brother.

Matt lowered his head. “I don't need you help Kay. No offense, but you suck at this and you really can't begin to understand the mess my head is in right now. “ He closed his eyes. “You know, there's two things that have always terrified me. Do you know what those things are?”

Kay shook his head.

“Confinement and losing someone I love. “ Matt pulled his arms around himself. “They made me watch him die over and over and over again Kay. And even now, I wake up in the mornings and I have to take a moment to realise that we're here, he's here, and we're safe and it's not some delusion or cruel dream. I keep expecting to wake up any moment and find myself back in that cell. He has nightmares, but me? I'm not sure i'm even actually awake. “

Kay wasn't sure how to respond to that, he'd never even considered Matt was THIS traumatized. He'd always projected such a wonderful mask of stability.
[You aren't dreaming.]

Matt shook his head. “What happens when they come for us again? We can't fight them, we've got no hope.”

[There's always hope Matt, you yourself have always insisted that. Every time any of us have wanted to give up you've always told us there's hope.]

“yeah well i'm full of shit. “

Kay smiled softly [No you aren't. You're an idiot sometimes, but for a moron you have a great deal of wisdom. ]

Matt frowned. “See? you suck at this.”

Kay shrugged. [Point is, you've never let me or any of the rest of us wallow. So YOU are getting up, you're going out and you're distracting yourself the way you always do. You are going to live your damn life, free and happy and if you want to believe it's all a dream, well, make it a good dream. And never ever wake up.]

“are you telling me to go get drunk?” Matt looked bemused.

[Well perhaps take it a little easy if you're going to be taking painkillers as well. ]

“Sure thing doc.”

[You know full well i'm no doctor. ]

“yeah but sure thing nurse doesn't sound nearly as good.”

Kay smiled. [Welcome back. ]

Matt pulled his brother into a bear-hug. “Yeah, thanks man. Maybe you're not so terrible at cheering people up after all.”

Kay struggled a bit till Matt let him go.

“I thought I was on house arrest or something though?”

[Medic's orders, you need sunshine, water and company. ] Kay nodded matter of factly. [You know this is a beach resort right?]

“Ocean?”

Kay nodded.

“Well that certainly improves the situation.” Matt smiled awkwardly.

Kay felt relieved, he nodded again. [I'll send Ellie or Shane to come get you when everything's ready. In the meantime, maybe get yourself cleaned up. Take some painkillers and well.. you know the drill with broken noses by this point.]

Matt nodded. “Yeah. I really need to get better at dodging.”

Kay smiled and patted him on the shoulder as he stood up. [Next time you need to talk, please come find me. I may be psychic, but you my brother are very very hard to read.]

Kay left, going to find Ellie.

Starr headed for the room Matthew was in when they landed. She didn't understand why he was going to just go free instead of at least going through the justice system. Everything he had done to her personally kept replaying in her mind. She stopped outside his door and took a breath then went in to get him, Lei then the rest of the slavers and get them off of Vestia.

Shane and the hawk girls were in their rooms, recovering from the shock of learning that the slavers were free with only a contract to keep them from coming after them again.

((FYI Starr, Matt2 and everyone is out on the Beach Planet thread right now. I totally forgot to do a "to the planet" post, oops))

-- To beach planet!--- (done! HAH)

Ellie returned to Vestia, looking for Matt.

Matt was still in his room because he'd been told he wasn't ALLOWED to leave, gah. Stupid captain and her stupid crap.
He'd gotten himself cleaned up and changed though, and pocketed the painkillers Kay had brought him as he waited for his medically appointed escort. This was ridiculous. Needing an escort ffs. What'd they think he was gonna do?

Ellie knocked on the door to Matt's room. "Yo buddy, I hear the doctor ordered you to get drunk. Come on, let's get wasted! Except not you, you can only get sorta drunk. But I'll get wasted."

Matt opened the door. "Yeah.. How often do I get a medical get drunk note?" He was doing a pretty remarkable job of looking okay, despite the bruised face. He forced a smile. "So am I gonna have to carry you back to the ship?" He joked.

"Depends," Ellie said with a grin, "Booze might be expensive on this planet, and that would limit me a bit." She grabbed Matt by the arm, "Let's get Shane and go party!"

"Sure, why not?" He shrugged and let Ellie drag him off.

Ellie lead him down the hall, looking for Shane. "You must be excited about all the water here. It looks amaaaazing."

Shane was in his room, reading quietly on his tablet.

"Yeah, Kay said there was ocean! I've never actually... seen a proper ocean. This is gonna be awesome. " Ellie had a knack for cheering him up, maybe because she was just as cheerful and carefree as he usually was.

Ellie knocked on Shane's door. "Hey Shane! We're gonna go party and see the ocean, wanna come along?" She looked up at Matt happily. "Oh man, you won't know what to do with so much water. It'll be like... water overdose!"

Matt chuckled. "Yeah, I dunno. But we are SO going swimming."

Shane put his tablet down and came to the door. "Is it safe now?" He asked, folding his arms unhappily.

"Yeah, they're gone. Otherwise I wouldn't be allowed out." Matt rolled his eyes. "Kay totally told me to go get drunk though, so we should do that. Well... you can have beer still right? "

"Yeah, I can have beer." Shane said and smiled at them both.