Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Two

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(Starts on day 15 at the Guild, I believe)

"you just aren't looking for the right sort of hobbies." Hewitt sniffed. "A great many noble pursuits of the mind don't involve moving." Ahh yes, the Aketi weren't exactly a physically active species.

"Maybe not," Asher said diplomatically. "I can't say I've ever been especially interested in the more scholarly types of hobbies, my interests have always been more related to building and fixing machines." He looked at Hewitt with a slight smile, "I guess you may be right, perhaps I should try something different."

Hewitt snorted. "Not even chess? I thought robots were supposed to all be excellent at logic games." He shook his head. "you could take up coding." He sounded disdainful. "or make smaller machines you can make sat at a desk." He nodded. "you'll find something i'm sure. "

"I do know chess," Asher said. He looked amused, "I'm even good at it sometimes, when people aren't picking fights and storming off. Want to find a board and play a game?"

Hewitt laughed. "but surely a battle of wills and opinions across the board is part of the appeal?"

"Depends on who's arguing, and how upset or drunk they are," Asher said. "Friendly debates are fine, but I'm not fond of the other kind, they're too distracting."

Hewitt cackled. "That, my dear android friend, is somewhat the POINT."

"Oh." Asher chuckled and shook his head. "I'm going to lose this game, aren't I?"

Skye led the way to her room to drop off the stuff then headed for the ramp to head for the city

James followed her.

(To the city!)

Hewitt smirked. "Well I would hope so, i DO have several hundred years on you."

Asher grinned. "True enough. Should be fun to be tragically defeated by you and your intimidation strategies. Want to play here, or go to a rec room?"

Hewitt closed his eyes, tendril-like roots waving a little in the moist air. "Go get a board."

Asher nodded and went to get a board. He had some time before he had more work to do, he guessed, so hopefully this was okay. He decided to go to the med bay and tell Kay where he was though, because, you know, he didn't want to seem like he was running off on his first day back on the job.
So he went to the med bay before he got the chess board.

Kay had finally made his way to the medlab, with a cup of coffee. he was currently sipping that while Matt talked at him.

Ellie was sort of giving Matt and Kay space to talk, she was playing some game on her 'com, that seemed to involve shooting down unicorns so that they turned into candies, which in turn turned into baby unicorns when you tapped on them super fast. It was keeping her very busy.

Asher went into the med bay and smiled in greeting to the group. "I swear I'm not shirking my duty," he told Kay apologetically, "Really. I just got in a conversation with Hewitt, he seemed bored."

Kay tilted his head. The professor? Hmm, well it probably counted as taking it easy. [Don't worry about it Asher.]

"You're hurt man, you can TOTALLY shirk duty!" Matt grinned.

"Well since I'm back on duty because I insisted, it seems kind of wrong to immediately slack off," Asher pointed out. Why yes, he was going to hold himself to his normal standards as best he could, legs or no. Sort of. "Still, I think it would be good for Hewitt to spend time with someone since Amity is out of service, and Hewitt has taken to annotating astrology books from the library out of boredom. So I promised him a chess game." He still looked apologetic, this felt sooo wrong omg, but he also wanted to play a game of chess now! He was so conflicted.

Kay looked amused. [You're going to play chess with a moody, argumentative old man?]

"Awww, you go keep that old plant dude company man." Matt laughed.

"He says he's going to use his years of experience and distraction--or maybe it was intimidation--tactics to win," Asher explained. "I couldn't say no to that."

Ellie looked up from her game and snorted with laughter.

Kay smiled. [Have fun. Don't let him bully you too much.]

"Kick his butt!" Matt cheered.

"It's okay, he might be meaner than me, but even with this" --Asher patted his wheelchair's push rim-- "I'm still faster than him. If he's too mean I'll just run away." Asher looked genuinely pleased for a moment, not just like he was forcing a smile to make his friends feel better.

Matt laughed, the image of Asher fleeing in a wheelchair just really amused him okay?

Even Kay cracked a smile. He nodded. [have fun.] Maybe playing chess against an old man would be good for Asher, take his mind off things and all that. Kay couldn't help it, he'd seen too many people come to terms with being wheelchair bound, or worse, as well as too many shell shocked soldiers. And even though it was likely temporary for Asher, Kay still fretted about the mental state of his lover.

"I'll try. And if I don't have fun, I'll come back here and complain to all of you about," Asher said. He headed for the door. "All of you had better behave while I'm gone, or Kay might revoke the star stickers!" Oh yes, he'd noticed James's new method to encourage good behavior. He kind of approved.

Matt put his hand over the stickers on his shirt and made a face at Kay. "He wouldn't dare!"

Kay looked to Matt and rolled his eyes, waving to Asher.

Ellie got up to sit protectively between Matt and Kay, to better protect Matt's stickers.

Asher waved to Kay, smiled brightly at Matt and Ellie, then left them to their antics. He picked up a chess set from a rec room, before returning to Hewitt's room and knocking on the door. "Hewitt? It's me again."

Hewitt looked up. "Come in then, come in." He got up and set up two chairs around a side table.

--

Matt hugged Ellie from behind. "Yeah, you gotta come through my guard terran!"

Kay shook his head. [The sooner we get you out of here, the better.] He decided, standing up and picking up a medical scanner.

"You aren't gonna hit me with that right?" Matt looked suddenly wary.

Kay rolled his eyes again and indicated that Ellie should scoot to one side so he could scan his brother.