Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Five

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Starr shrugged and looked out the window again. "I don't know. I just want things to be normal."

Starr and Helen both chuckled at Ellie's comments, watching her and Matt worked together.

Ellie let the sprout grow a bit more in her hands, then planted it in the dirt and started growing it in earnest. The sprout stretched and grew into a sapling, then thickened and grew until it was almost as tall as Ellie herself. At that point she stopped, gasping for breath. She sat back, looking kind of pale.

"you okay" Matt asked. This really seemed to take a lot out of Ellie.

Armin came over and put a hand on Ellie's shoulder. "Rest my friend." He looked up to the camera. "Vestia, may we please have something for Ellie to drink?"

Matt wheeled over to the tree, putting his hands out and concentrating on controlling the water he pulled from himself so he didn't drown the tree but watered it. It was a bit tricky.

Starr went to Ellie to hold her gently. "We should have brought snacks for you. Vestia, can you send something for us please?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Ellie said. "It's a tree. I've grown trees before." She watched Matt a bit blurrily.

"Will do," Vestia told Armin. She sent a bot to bring some water for Ellie. "And I'll bring snacks too," she added.

Armin nodded. "We have no doubt in your ability my friend, your power is incredible and you should be very proud of yourself."

"you rock Ellie, try not to pass out." Matt told her as water sprinkled from his fingertips like some sort of extra wierd watering can. it kinda tickled.

Ellie giggled and shook her head, then stopped shaking head because it made her dizzy. "I'm not gonna pass out. Man, your fingers are leaking. Don't dry up."

"You should sit down" Starr said with some concern for her.

Helen frowned at them and made a pair of chairs, one for Ellie and one for Starr.

Matt shook his hands once the tree was watered and the flow stopped. "Yeah, I dunno how long I can keep that up. I mean, I can pull it out the air but it's tiring." He high humidity was good though, he liked it humid. He rolled over. "you think that's enough water for now?"

"The ground is fine for sitting on," Ellie protested. "Besides, if I go sit in a chair, that means standing up first." She stayed sitting where she had slumped after growing the tree.
"Yeah, that's enough water for now. The tree is happy."

Thankfully the bots showed up with water and snacks at that point.

Starr moved to take a seat, smiling at Helen. "The drinks and snacks are here." She said gently.

Helen went to give out the drinks and snacks to everyone, glad there was jersey for Matt to snack on.

"thanks vestia!" Matt called, taking the jerky.

"Many thanks Vestia." Armin bowed his head. He looked to the others. "Shall I prepare ropes then?"

"Thanks Vestia, thanks Helen," Ellie said, sipping the water Helen gave her carefully. "Yeah Armin, ropes would be awesome. I mean there's no rush, but yeah. Whenever is good." She nodded carefully.

Helen smiled and took the other seat since Ellie was staying on the floor. "Do we want a platform or just the branches of the trees?"

Armin nodded and moved away a little so he could start weaving. It was a somewhat complicated process, first he made a sort of hammock to recline into because this would take a while and it was substantially easier to weave strong good thread when you were comfortable. Even just making the hammock would be weird to watch, it looked like a pretty awkward process.

Matt tried not to stare but yeah, watching spider people wave was freaking bizarre.

"I can make the branches be a good platform," Ellie said. "No boards required." She opened a bag of chips and started eating them, watching Armin work. It was pretty impressive to watch. "Spider people, man, how do they do it?"

Armin hummed softly to himself as he spun shimmering silver rope, winding it around one arm as he made it longer.

Matt tried not to laugh. "Why don't you go ask him for an in depth demonstration?"

"Good idea." Ellie tried to get up, but her legs didn't seem to be interested in supporting her right now, so she sat down again. "I think I'll have to admire from afar," she decided.

"Rest up Ellie, eat sugar or whatever." Matt suggested.

Armin glanced over, bowed his head and went back to spinning.

Starr nodded and smiled "Right, we have plenty of time, we do not have to finish today or even this week." Sad as that was.

Ellie ate some more chips. "Yeah, we have time. But it's not fun to wait." She wasn't dumb enough to start growing the tree again though. "Why do star dragons do magic so much better than me or Matt do? No offense, Matt."

"We are both really old and have used magic since we were babies." Helen said with a chuckle. "Starr is 200 and I am 400 years old."
(I think)

"That's pretty old," Ellie conceded. "So if we practice for hundreds of years, we'll be able to terraform planets together someday. Good. Wait, how does the making planets thing work?"

"Will we even live that long?" Matt questioned. "I mean, pretty sure Terrans have like.. short life spans and i'm totally in the dark about how my mixed blood is gonna work out long term. " It was something he didn't often thing about, it was just depressing. "How long do you guys live anyway?" He asked the two dragons.

"Roughly a thousand years, barring murder or sickness." Helen replied then shrugged.

"Man, that's a long time." Matt remarked. "What about you guys?" He looked to Armin. "Do you have crazy long lifespans too?" Seemed most everyone around here did.

Armin glanced up and shook his head. "On the contrary my friend, the average life span for one of my people is sixty years, all going well and no calamity befalling us."

"Sixty years? Shit... sorry man." Matt frowned.

"What for? Our lives may be short by the standards of the universe, but we do not grieve it. It is not the quantity that is important but the quality yes? This is true of all things, even life."

"Yeah, Terrans don't usually live hundreds of years, but we usually don't have magic either, so there," Ellie said. She looked between Armin and Helen, "You guys really are the full range of ages, wow."