Upon Vestia: Chapter Eighteen

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(Starts on day six at the Guild of Scribes.)

Oh, now that reaction made her more curious, but she headed for her room anyway.

Kay examined the mug, shaking his head. Dawn was being weird, this mug was weird.

What is going on? He asked Danika, not expecting an answer at all.

He set the mug to one side. He was pretty sure James couldn't write in runes, so that ruled him out as a suspect. It wasn't an Asher thing to do. So... Matt or Esk? He wasn't sure which was more likely. In the meantime, it could stay on the desk.

Usually Amity would go into sleep mode and charge, but as that wasn't currently an option due to a lack of docking port, he was stuck hovering about and struggling to come up with things to do that would further aid his one remaining guest.
Hewitt had already told him to 'stop hovering over him' and 'stop staring at him', that he was 'perfectly able to look after himself thank you very much' and to 'stop fretting.'

Preferences logged, that meant leaving the Professor alone until he requested his presence or until he required it. Amity's code insisted the Professor was perfectly safe in the library and was unlikely to cause any trouble there, at worst he'd go on a rant about how the book was wrong about something.

So what was a host drone with no guests to care for supposed to do? His code wasn't prepared for this eventuality, they weren't supposed to be at a loose end. It was strange and confusing. He latched onto a single idea. Mapping out the rest of the ship, to better provide a proper tour for the professor when he got bored of the library and wanted to see more. Yes, that was what he'd do. He'd map out the facilities of this cruise ship.

So that's what he was doing, floating about with his projectors off, quietly exploring.

Moone was in one of the rec rooms. She had arranged it with help to be a playroom for the chicks. She looked up from watching them play to see Amity there. She waved to the robot and smiled "Hello"

Amity's projectors flickered back to life, projecting his usual image of 7 foot tall plant person. He smiled broadly. "Forgive the intrusion." He looked around. "What is this room?"

"It used to be just one of the rec rooms, but we turned it into a playroom for the chicks. " Moone said, looking at his projection. "I'm Moone. " She said then introduced the chicks

Amity stared at the chicks. "They're very small." He remarked and in lower tones. "What's wrong with them?"

"They lost their home, ending up here. As far as I know this is their normal size for their age." Moone said and tilted her head then shrugged a little. "They are healthy and eat well anyway."

Amity stared at them, absolutely bewildered. His designers had never bothered to include much in the way of detailed galactic species knowledge and certainly never thought to include anything about infants. All his programming could come up with was a few bird species but no detail beyond 'bird people'. He looked back at Moone. "You are like Skye and Orel? But they aren't?"

Asher had promised Kay he'd charge for an hour today, so he went to his room, plugged himself in, set his timer for 3,600 seconds, and switched to power saving mode.
He woke up an hour later, and unplugged himself. His battery had topped up nicely, he had about 22 hours of charge now, which was plenty to get him through the day. If Kay thought otherwise, Kay was mistaken. Hah.
Asher changed his clothes because Kay might have drooled on him, made sure his hair was in order, then headed off to the med bay to do his job.

~~
Tala looked to Sawna. "I am considering going to the holographic deck for amusement. Do you see fit to come?"

"Right. Orel, Skye and I are from Artuvia. We usually don't have magic and come in many types of birds. The chicks are from (what was the name of that world?) And they often have magic, I am not certain what they are going to do, but they are a big part of the reason we came here."

Sawna smiled at that and nodded "Sure, that sounds fun." She said, getting up and waving to Ellie and Shane.

Shane waved back then looked to Ellie. "What are your plans today?"

Kay had two mugs on his desk. The one he was sipping coffee out of, and a prettily decorated one painted with little swirls and glitter and Satare runes.
He looked up as Asher walked in.
[Feel better?] He wrote.


---

Amity processed all that, then nodded. "You are Moone yes?" Skye had mentioned Moone hadn't she? "They are Avian?" He moved to get a better look at them. Hmm, they didn't seem very mobile. "Are all Avian quite so dependent?"

Moone giggled and nodded "I am Moone, and they are baby Asians. They are less dependent as they get older. That is the same for both our species and many others. Babies usually are not independent. "

Amity looked confused. "Babies?" Nope, not a clue.

Tala looked pleased, and lead the way toward the holodeck. "Your smell is most fascinating," she informed Sawna conversationally.

~~
Asher smiled. Feeling better wasn't really something that charging caused, but hey, it was a nice question. "I'm feeling well," be said cheerfully. "How's Danika today? And where did the mug come from?" He eyed it curiously. Hmm, satare runes. Weird.

~~
"I got a lesson with Flora later!" Ellie said cheerfully. "I'm gonna learn to grow ATTACK PLANTS."

Moone tilted her head "You don't know what a baby is?" Ok, that was odd. Hm...She turned away to find the computer to look up a 'safe' site to show him what babies were, like a life cycle chart.

~~~
Sawna chuckled softly. "I imagine so, it seems my kind are a minority here." That wasn't good, but she hoped to return home eventually.

~~~
Shane chuckled at that and nodded "That sounds fun, maybe you should take some candy or something with you so you can 'recharge' quickly if you need to?"

[She's sleeping again.] Kay looked down at the snoozing dragon. [She was fairly determined to spend the day with me.] He shook his head at the mug. [One of my brothers I suspect.] He turned it around so Asher could read it. It said 'Universe's least worst mom' with some pretty flowers around it. [I don't think Matt's quite this artistically talented though.] Kay rolled his eyes.

---

Amity shook his head. He followed her to a computer to see what she was looking up. "It would seem there is a great deal about the world outside my ship I don't know." He sounded cheerful though. "I would speculate that the company simply didn't think it was relevant to my role. I haven't really spent much time around animal species."

Esk had a woodland program up and running and had spent a lot of time just wandering around, trailing ungloved hands across tree trunks and being weirded out by how docile and unfrightened the animal life was.

He was currently sitting cross legged on the dirt track with one hand outstretched, sort of scowling at a squirrel but not moving to stop it taking the acorns from his hand. He seemed to be trying to decide if he wanted to make a grab for it, or just let it eat.

"You are far from home," Tala said, "I know how that is. I too have few of my kind to see and it feels most odd at times." She was still feeling kind of existential, apparently.

~~
"That is a BRILLIANT idea," Ellie said, grinning at Shane, "Flora said I should focus on like, spiritual awesomeness or something. But candy is better."

~~
Asher smiled fondly at the lump in Kay's pocket, "It's a very good thing she's so well behaved at least." He laughed at the mugs writing, "Someone really put a lot of thought into that thing. It's rather impressive."

Moone moved so he could see when she found what she was looking for. "Yeah, it's a bit different from one species to another, but this is an Artuvian life cycle, it works the same for Avians, egg, baby, youth, adult which lays the egg and goes on to be an elder. With mammal type species they have live births instead of eggs."

~~~
Sawna nodded then smiled softly. "Yes, being far from home and loved ones is not easy anyway, no matter who you are."

~~~
Shane chuckled then shrugged "Why not Both? Candy makes you feel better and gives you that sugar rush"

Kay nodded. [I can't decide if it's insulting, or complimentry. Which I presume was the intention. Either way, once I make sure it's not laced with anything toxic, I think i'll be using it for coffee out of spite. ] He smirked. No, he wasn't going to let his brothers win. He was going to own this mug much like he was going to own the name tag James Constance had made.
He took that out and pinned it to his shirt on the opposite side to where Danika was sleeping. There. [Funny, we both have brothers who express themselves through passive aggressive arts and crafts.]

---

Amity watched this. "They expel smaller creatures from themselves? " He tilted his head. "They are infants then yes?" He pointed to the chicks. "they will grow?"

Asher pulled his own nametag lanyard out and hung it around his neck. "If they want to express their feelings through art, I support them fully. It's a very wholesome way to let out emotions," he said, trying to look serious. He couldn't stop himself from grinning again, "Hey, it's a free mug, custom made. How could you not love it?"

~~
"But spiritual stuff is pointless because I'm already so awesome," Ellie said sagely.

~~
Tala nodded. "We shall be reunited with the ones we love, young one." The reached the holodeck.

Kay smiled back. [good point.] He shook his head at the lanyard. [I think we need to add Good Cop to yours.] Having it say robot just felt a bit rude to him.

Asher looked at the nametag, amused. "James is a jerk. I think when you mentioned I wasn't going to pin anything to my clothes, that gave him ideas." He considered it thoughtfully, "I'm not sure I can imitate his wonderful penmanship well enough, hmm."

Kay looked thoughtful. [He does have remarkable penmanship when he actually cares enough doesn't he? ] He shook his head. [I think the only reasonable retaliation is to change his name on the pay roll.] He reached out for the sign James had written about condoms, looked amused and put it back. Okay, that was actually amusing.

Moone nodded "Yeah, they will grow into youths then adults." She said and smiled a little
~~~
Shane chuckled then shrugged and nodded "You are pretty awesome on your own. So, when will she get here, or are you going to meet her?"

~~
Sawna nodded and smiled. She didn't mind being called 'young one' by Tala. She looked into the room after opening the door to see Esk there with some squirrels? Huh, weird day.