UPON VESTIA: CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

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Ethan nodded. "I guess that makes sense. Do they execute the ruler, or do they have to keep them alive?" He probably had too many questions.

~~
"Oh, I know that feeling," Vestia said sympathetically. She watched Amari snooze. Aww.

Asher opened the door and wheeled part-way into the room. "If you're busy, I can come back later," he said apologetically.

"Just passing the time with a game" Dawn said with a soft smile "What's up?"

Esk looked up at Asher suspiciously. What the heck did he want?

---

Silence nodded slowly, but she still looked uncertain.

----

"Well first of all, welcome back," Asher said, smiling at the two. "I'm here about a new passenger on board. Are you two aware of the two arran who we rescued while you were gone?"

~~
James looked sympathetic. "Yeah, it's gotta be weird to have some people around you that you can't here. I'm sorry we can't change that."

Dawn shrugged a little "I think something was said before." She said softly.

~~
Skye was quiet at that, she didn't know what to say, you really shouldn't apologize just for being yourself. They couldn't help that they were silent.

Asher nodded. "We rescued two people a few weeks ago. One of them, Marcus, was a former employee of Matthew the slaver, while the other one, Amari, is the son of Marcus. We've been keeping them separate from the crew, because obviously we have good reason to distrust Marcus, and because we were led by Marcus to believe that Amari might be extremely feral."
Asher went on to explain how Amari wasn't as feral as he had first seemed, why Marcus wanted Vestia to take Amari in, and why Asher thought they should. Basically reiterating all the information he'd told the others earlier.

Silence nodded slowly. "Find Ivor." She said. Now, where the heck was he?

---

Esk listened to all this without looking up from the game, he moved a piece and shrugged. "So you wanna take in a kid who's probably seriously damaged, potentially really dangerous and basically all kinds of fucked up?" He smirked. "Sounds almost normal for this crew."

Dawn tilted her head and moved a piece before looking to Asher again "Basically like the rest of us, only you have a history for him already."

~~~
"Vestia, can you light the way please?" Skye asked when she saw how confused Silence looked.

Asher looked sheepish at Esk's remark. "Pretty much, yes. In our defense though, taking in badly mistreated people hasn't always turned out badly. I mean, look at Ethan, he hasn't hurt anyone yet."  Yeah, he still thought that was kind of a miracle. He nodded to Dawn, "I'm going to get all the information I can about the species, Marcus has promised to write up everything he knows for us. We aren't going into this completely blind."

~~
"Right, follow the lights," Vestia said, blinking her lights helpfully in the right direction.

Silence slowly lumbered after the lights.

---

"can you trust this guy Marcus not to make shit up or conveniently leave things out?" Esk asked.

Asher thought that over. "No. I think he wants his son to be safe, so I think he'll tell us what he can, but it's definitely possible he'll leave something out, or lie, if there's something about Amari that might scare us away." He sighed. "I'm going to be doing as much of my own research as I can as well, the arran being a species that's been enslaved for millenia, I suspect there's a lot of information about them out there that will prove useful." He'd read books by slavers in order to learn more about star dragons, so he'd do the same thing for arran as well. It was common sense to arm yourself with all the knowledge you could find, even if you found the source unsavory.

Skye smiled and followed them to find Ivor now. This was interesting, or at least distracting.

~~~
Dawn remained quiet, thinking about it for a bit before she shrugged "If you like him, he's bound to at least be good. Be sure to get medical history, in case we need it later."

James followed along too until they found Ivor, wherever Ivor was.

~~
"Yes, I'll be sure to find out everything Marcus knows about his medical history," Asher said. He'd learned a bit already because he'd been handling the boy's medical care for the past few weeks, but anything they could learn would be good.

Esk nodded. "Fine, but as always, he ends up a threat, i'll shoot him in the head." He paused. "they're not crazy hard to kill right?"

--

Silence could move pretty fast for such an unweildy looking creature, she finally made it back to Ivor's new room and paused at the door. She didn't knock, she just stood there for a moment.

Ivor pulled the door open, he looked disheveled and slightly pained. He stared at Silence, blinked a few times and then noticed the other two. "Is... she in trouble?" He asked worriedly.

"No, I don't think they're unusually hard to kill," Asher said, frowning at the rather unpleasant question. "They're agile and fast, but they don't have immortality or high speed like Shock, as far as my reading has shown."

~~
"She's not in trouble, she just got a cool new toy," James said brightly.

Esk nodded and moved another piece. "good." he looked pretty disinterested. "And the slaver? What's your plan for him?"

---

"look!" Silence declared, craning her neck so Ivor could see her necklace.

Ivor's eyes widened. "W... how?!"

"It's a trinket Kay had, so those of us that can't hear telepathy could hear his, well now her voice" Skye said and smiled "I'm Skye"

~~~
Dawn glanced to Esk then moved a piece at random, this was just to pass time after all, she wasn't really in it too win.

"We'll leave Marcus at a space station, he can fend for himself I think," Asher said. "There's no way this crew would ever let him stay, and I'm not going to try and convince them."

Esk nodded. "Matt wanted to throw him out an airlock." He smirked, Matt was pretty damn bloodthirsty.

---

Ivor rubbed his eye, nodding. "i.. Ivor.. My name is Ivor..." He looked at Silence, yeah it was weird hearing her talk. What was stranger to him was how silent Skye was. "You... are quiet." He indicated her head.

"Silent mind." Silence told him.

Ivor nodded slowly. "A.. are.. many of the people here like you?"

Skye shook her head at that question "No, I think I'm the only one besides the androids that can't speak telepathically, though some of the others can block, so they might be silent too." She said then shrugged a little

~~~
"That would be gross" Dawn said with a frown before taking her move.

"Matt does have valid reasons to want to throw slavers out of airlocks," Asher said diplomatically, "I'm relieved he was overruled in this case though." Asher would probably have been fine with looking the other way if they'd rescued Matthew by accident. But Marcus was a father, and a medic, and not directly responsible for the crew's suffering. Because of all that, he deserved to be treated as semi-innocent until proven guilty, in Asher's opinion.
"I should leave you to your game. Thank you for your time." He smiled softly.

~~
"There are a lot of androids on this ship. Eight of us now," James said, "So you're going to be running into a lot of telepathically silent people. But not many artuvians like Skye."

"I dunno, it's a pretty clean and efficient way to get rid of people." Esk shrugged. "no blood, no cleanup." He nodded to Asher. "So you're what, going around talking to everyone? No meeting this time? I thought you guys loved meetings."

---

Ivor nodded his head slowly. Telepathically silent people were weird, but in a way it was kind of a relief to not hear their thoughts all overlapping one another.

Asher smiled softly. "No meetings this time, just a lot of conversations. It seemed like it would work better to discuss Amari this way, and the crew is going pretty sick of meetings anyway."

"I'm one of two Artuvians on this ship, the other is a hummingbird named Jewel." Skye said then frowned "My sister is safe with the other kids, but she will be back soon, I hope."

~~~
Dawn chuckled softly then shrugged "We have a lot lately."

Esk snickered. "they've been sick of meetings for a while." He glanced up. "What's the general attitude from people you've talked to then?"

---

"All... artruvian... " Ivor struggled with the word. "are all of your race silent?"

"The attitude isn't entirely hostile. I don't think anyone's thrilled to have Amari stay, they're all concerned about the risks, but nobody I've talked to has flatly opposed having him on board," Asher said. "Which is about as much support as I hoped for."

Esk nodded and went back to the game. He didn't really seem to care much either way.