The Mirror: Vestia

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Asher nodded. "I'll be careful. Stay safe, and don't let anyone be too stupid." He'd head for the bridge.

Starr looked to Esk then nodded at Matt "Yeah, you can go and talk to her and see what she would like to do." She said then looked to Web again "There will be no leaving him alone while he is alive."

~~~
Shane frowned then sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair to rest a little "Might as well get comfy, until she wakes up anyway"

"I'll guard him." Esk said. "Don't worry, I won't shoot him unless I get told I can. I'm not THAT bloodthirsty." He smirked at Matt.

Matt frowned. "you're enjoying all this a bit too much. It's creepy."

"What can I say Matt, getting to kick the shit out of assholes who look just like you guys has been extremely therapeutic. We should do this more often. "

"yeah only YOU could actually like this universe." Matt muttered, shaking his head. "I'll let you know what she says okay?" He headed off.

Esk looked to the guards. "Any of you guys know how to play cards? It's gonna be a long and boring few hours otherwise."

Starr waited for Matt to leave then looked to Esk, moving closer to get his attention without touching him "If he does anything, don't wait for 'permission' alright? I want to keep our people safe more than stop a possible war." She said before turning to leave.

Esk nodded. "You got it princess." He spoke seriously. Hey, this princess was surprisingly level headed. He appreciated sensible people.

Starr chuckled softly and turned to leave "I was an assassin and I am from your universe Esk. I have done this a time or two before" She left on that note, leaving him with the guards, who did indeed have a deck of cards thanks to the efforts of the mirror people to teach them games.

"Wait... you're our starr?" Well damn this was getting hard to keep track of. He shrugged. "Well, see ya later."
He'd totally play cards with the guards, poker or something probably. He had a really damn good poker face.

--a few hours passed and both sedated people started to stir.--

Esk looked up from his game as Web groaned and sat up, blinking blindly around.

"Welcome back." He spoke flatly.

Web looked around, realised he was handcuffed AND in a cage and threw himself at the bars.

"Yeah that's not gonna help" Esk stood up. "Bars are pretty damn solid and the whole thing's warded against magic. So you're kinda stuck."

"Release me this instant!" Web demanded.

"Or what? You'll glare at me?" Esk folded his arms. "Hate to say it your highness, but you're not really in a position to make any demands right now."

---

Kaliyani stirred and opened her good eye, jerking upright and almost falling from where she'd been laid.

Asher was heading toward the corridor where the skirmish had happened so he could get to work fixing the pipes and cameras, when a horrible thought struck him. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked up at Vestia’s closest camera, fear in his eyes.
“Vestia,” he said quietly, “I never asked for your permission before I implemented my plan, did I?”

“No,” the ship answered, even though they both knew he hadn’t because they both had photographic memories, “You didn’t.”

“Oh no.” Asher let out a slow breath, feeling a crushing sense of hopelessness taking shape inside him. “It hurt you, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Asher tried to suppress his hopeless feeling before it turned into panic, with little success. He’d done it again, ignored someone else’s right to choose what happened to them, in the name of the greater good, and he hadn’t even noticed this time! He’d just done it, not thinking of the horror of what he was doing, not even thinking to ask if it was okay before carrying out his plan!
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to stop it, the mistakes just kept happening. Was he deluding himself thinking that he could change? Was he really just getting worse, heading ever faster down an inevitable path to the point when he wouldn’t even know what right was, and would eventually cease to care?
“I’m so sorry,” he said. He wanted to make excuses. So many excuses. But that would be unfair to Vestia. Better to take the blame himself. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. I should have asked, let you decide if you wanted to try it or not. It wasn’t my place to choose for you.”

Vestia’s camera tilted to watch him inscrutably. “People have chosen things for me all my life, I’m used to it.”

Asher winced. “People chose for me all my life too, I know it’s not right, and I shouldn’t have done it to you.”

“True.” Vestia had picked up quite a bit of Asher’s backstory thanks to her constant eavesdropping on everyone on her decks, and she knew that he thought very highly of personal freedom. “You certainly did ignore your personal values once again. Still, there’s no reason to have a panic attack about it.”

“I’m not panicking,” Asher protested weakly. No, he was just being consumed by despair as the inevitable became more and more clear. He was never going to make be a good person, he was always going to be a terrible person who meant well, and he could only hope that once he had managed to free the androids, he’d be able to retire to somewhere quiet and far from anyone he cared about, and spend the rest of his days not hurting anyone.

“You didn’t realize what you were doing, did you? You’d been making out with your boyfriend for… far too long” they both knew exactly how long it had been, she didn’t need to be precise “it was pretty obvious you were still trying to get yourself together after that. And he didn’t protest your idea, so probably neither of you had much past experience to work from. If he’d thought it was going to hurt me, he would have told you.”

Asher lowered his head. “I should have thought of how it would hurt you, anyway.” Vestia was right, he had been shortcutting his thought processes like crazy, trying to figure out how to help Matt while his mind was still loaded down with sensory information and layers of warm, fuzzy emotion. But he should still have taken the time to be more careful.

“Yes,” Vestia agreed, “But I’m not going to hold this against you, so you shouldn’t either. Do better next time. Maybe don’t make a habit of drugging yourself up on sensations you weren’t designed to handle. Fix my plumbing and cameras, and we’ll call it even.”

The fact that Vestia genuinely seemed to not be holding this against him steadied Asher’s nerves somewhat. “I really am sorry,” he said again, “I won’t make this mistake again.” He headed toward the hall where the damage was to start fixing things.

“Good.” Vestia’s cameras turned to follow the android as he walked. “For the record, if I had wanted you to stop, all I would have had to do was sound scared for Kay. I had options, I just didn’t take them because your idea seemed worth trying.”

Asher nodded slightly. He wasn’t entirely convinced, and he was certainly going to try even harder to be a better person in the future, but his panic had calmed somewhat. He got to work repairing cameras, silently vowing to himself to stop using that programming to numb his mind. The chance to escape his pain just wasn’t worth it, if it only caused more.

"It's okay," James said quietly to Kaliyani, not moving from his own couch so as not to scare her, "You're safe."

"Yeah, you are safe" Shane echoed gently, looking to her then over to James again

Matt headed toward wherever they'd taken Kaliyani, looking up at Vestia's cameras briefly. "Thanks for the help by the way." Still hadn't even occurred to him that would hurt her, he was oblivious to how her systems worked. He just smiled cluelessly and headed to where Kaliyani and James were.

Kaliyani stared at James. "Wh.. where is my Lord?" She demanded, her voice trembling. She noticed Shane and lowered her head self consciously, tugging at her hair.

"Glad to help," Vestia told Matt, voice following him as he walked. She saw no reason to enlighten him about the fact that it had hurt. What was done was done, and besides, he mopped the floors sometimes.

~~
"He's locked up, they were able to catch him," James told Kaliyani.

"Yeah, he's not going to hurt you anymore." Shane added then smiled a little "You know, we have a couple people that can heal those scars if you want"

James shot Shane a suspicious look. This guy was waaay too interested in Kaliyani's looks in his opinion. It was creepy.

"Locked up?" Kaliyani's eyes widened. "You imprisoned the Ishvara!?" She looked simultaneously horrified, angered and impressed.

Matt came in.

"Oh good, you're awake."

Kaliyani bowed her head. "Kanistha... " She looked nervous.

"Just.. Matt will do... " Matt told her.

She cringed at Shane's attention, hiding her face with her hair. "They are a reminder of my failure and transgressions..." She mumbled.

"No they're a reminder that your Lord is a raging lunatic." Matt shook his head. "Kaliyani... listen... we have a serious situation here and I need your help."

She stared at him in confusion. "help? What... could you need me for?"

"Hey, you belive in fate, right. So why not think that fate brought you and us here to help get that healed so you don't have to hide?" Shane asked then looked to Matt "Maybe fate did bring us here to fix some things in this universe."

James glared at Shane. "Dude, would you please stop obsessing over her appearance?" He said quietly.

Shane blinked and looked to James "I'm not trying to obsess over her looks, but I know that is part of why she is hiding like that. Appearances can make you more confident or less because of how you think people see you. Right now, she sees herself as damaged in part because of the scars, I want to help her to at least see herself as not damaged." He said to James, trying to be as quiet, though he probably wasn't successful "I want her to be able to go wherever she wants out there and not have to hide away all the time."

Matt shrugged. "Certainly Web would claim so.. our. universe's Web... not this crazy guy. I dunno how much I like to believe in predestiny, it kinda... takes away all free will if you think everything's preordained you know?"

Kaliyani frowned.

Matt shook his head. "But oh.. right.. yeah.. Fixing things. So... Kaliyani... you said the Ishvara had an heir?"

Kaliyani nodded.

"What's he like?" Matt asked carefully.

Kaliyani frowned. "He is young, he is sick... and he is terrified of his father. " She told him. "W... why do you wish to know about him?"

"Okay... wait.. sick?"

Kaliyani nodded. "I do not know what ails him, I am no medic. He has never thrived like the other children. If cut he bleeds too much, the shadow of death lingers around him. He is unwell but Fate keeps him alive."

Matt looked startled at that, but clung to the last bit. "yes, yes she did. Fate keeps him alive! She guided your hand to protect him when his father tried to hurt him, your.. your scars, they're not a symbol of your failure! they're a symbol of your heroism Kaliyani. You sacrificed yourself to save the heir... what.. what if that's all part of Fate's plan? She works in subtle ways right? What if the Ishvara's obsession with his brother is to be his downfall? What if you were supposed to save the heir so he could take power?"

Kaliyani frowned. "He is only a child... he would need someone to act in his steed until he was old enough to take the throne himself."

"Yes, yes he would. Someone to act as a moral guide, to... to teach him to be a good lord, a compassionate lord. What about the elders? Would they accept him?" Matt continued, getting a little excited now. Maybe this would work? maybe they could save all those people!

Kaliyani considered that. "I.. I do not know. They.. they could not deny Fate's prophet... but he would only become her emissary if his father were dead."

Matt nodded.

"You... you intend to kill the Ishvara!?" She rose to her feet. "You cannot! He will smite you all in retribution!"

"Didn't he kill his father before him? No divine retribution there. Perhaps he was lead here because Fate no longer recognises him as her prophet, what if... what if all that has happened here was her plan? If.. if he's really ordained by Fate, then we wouldn't be able to capture him, imprison him, we sure as heck won't be able to hurt him right?"

Kaliyani shivered. "Such... such talk is blasphemy." She mumbled.

"He's not a god." Matt reasoned. "he's just a man."

"You don't even know her, you can't go psychoanalyzing someone you've barely met," James muttered to Shane. "It's her choice to make, you don't get to go guessing at her thoughts and pressuring her about it." He tried to keep his voice low to not disrupt Matt and Kaliyani's conversation. "Look man, it's just super disrespectful okay?"

Shane sighed and looked over to Matt and the woman "Yeah, so long as she knows there's a choice though. I doubt she knew as much given her reaction."

James nodded. "It's good to tell people about their options. Just as long as you aren't pressuring them or telling them how they feel." He smiled a bit at Shane. The guy did seem to mean well, even if James didn't approve of his methods.

Matt glanced at the other two guys and shook his head.

Kaliyani looked uncertain.

"Kaliyani... you don't have to DO anything okay? Just... we don't want a war with the star dragons. If Web goes back to Adhakara'a, that's exactly what will happen. He can't be reasoned with, i'm certain of it. He's convinced i'm my double and i'm in league with the Star Dragon empire. If he goes home, millions of people will die pointlessly for this ridiculous vendetta he has against his brother. Unless we can find my double and make him see... "

Kaliyani shook her head. "The Kanistha is long gone, he will not return."

"I don't like this any more than you do, but... we can't let Web go home. If we can convince the elders and the people themselves that he and his brother killed one another, that he sent you back to ensure his heir's safety? I dunno, politics and schemes aren't my forte."

Kaliyani looked at him. "The Ishvara was right... " She mused. "His brother would conspire to replace him... just.. not the brother he believed it to be." She smiled strangely. "Fate works in strange ways... "

"Yeah... " Matt looked awkward.

Shane looked back to James again then shrugged a little "How do we know Fate didn't have a hand in bringing us here? Even with free will choices, she could have taken the opportunity provided by bringing us to this point and having healers like those two Carpathians here too, if there is 'a reason for everything' then why not use that to help others? Maybe she's meant to take one of the Carpathians home to heal the boy so he can be the leader his people need once he's old enough, how would we know? You and I likely won't be here that long anyway, we have to get back home to the kids on our ship eventually."

James facepalmed. "Dude, are you dating one of those guys?You're obsessed with them." He still tried to not talk too loudly.

Shane frowned and shook his head "I'm not dating anyone, but their magic is amazing." He said then shrugged "Besides, if I was dating it would be Ellie, I like her." He looked down at the floor a moment "I know we dragons can get a bit obsessed with learning about a people or magic that we haven't seen before. We focus on that learning until we have learned all we can then we move on with that knowledge to learn other things." Yeah, he had noticed that about him and the other dragons.

"wait.. you think they could heal the kid?" Matt looked at Shane thoughtfully.

Kaliyani frowned.

"What do you think?" Matt looked back to Kaliyani. "Can we trust you and the elders to protect the heir and try to keep him as sane and as just as possible?"

She nodded. "I serve Fate's chosen... I will see her will be done. Whatever that may be."

Matt nodded, looking grim. It wasn't easy to talk about killing his brother like this, even if he knew it wasn't really his brother.