Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Eight

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"Cause Esk is lazy and he wants someone to wait on Dawn, even though he has a massive crush on her and could wait on her himself," James grumbled. "At least that's what I assume was his motivation," he amended. "Your brother is weird. So Dawn's probably okay and not infected, that's good at least."

Luckily for Vestia he would have to eat many pounds worth to over dose. For now amari laid there sprawled out.

"I'm not that young," Ellie said, "But I am very enthusiastic." She was still too tired to bound along, but she wanted to.

Ethan disposed of the catnip down a garbage chute, and headed down the hall. He saw Shane and Hytar and Ellie.
The heck? Was that Esk's father, Hytar?

"Crap, it's the mean librarian!" Ellie said.

~~
Amari was too big for Vestia to move, so she sent a bot to put a blanket on him to keep warm.

Hytar smiled pleasantly to Ethan. "Your crewmate issss giving me a guided tour." He explained.

"You're Hytar, I assume. I didn't know they'd let you on board," Ethan said. "Has she angrily grown plants at you yet?"

"I only do that sometimes!" Ellie protested.

Shane waved to Ethan, though he had stayed pretty quiet for the tour, letting Ellie ramble on and keeping an eye on Hytar.

Hytar laughed. "ssshe hasss not." Ahh there was the hostility he'd expected.

Ethan probably would have seemed slightly more friendly if he hadn't just had a vampire child rubbing himself against his leg like a cat, but he had, so that didn't help his attitude at all. Although that scornful glare of his would have been there regardless. "Does Esk know you're on board?"

Ellie rolled her eyes. "It's a guided tour, man! It's fine!"

"If Vestia has told him, yes, if not, no." Shane said with a shrug then tilted his head a little. "You alright?"

"I doubt that'sss a good idea." Hytar remarked. "Unlessss you particularly wissssh to watch him wave a gun in my face and threaten to ssshoot me." He smiled, apparently that sort of amused him. Esk did it so often, it just wasn't threatening any more.

"I'm fine, just don't go down that hall," Ethan said sourly, pointing down a hall. "Amari's taking a nap down there." He frowned at Hytar, "Why hasn't Esk shot you yet? I heard he's tried, but it's not that hard to shoot someone in the head."

"I haven't told Esk you're here, no," Vestia said mildly.

Hytar shrugged. "That isss an excellent quessstion. Perhapsss deep down he doesssn't really want to kill me?" He didn't look a gift horse in the mouth of course. "Perhapsss you sssshould asssk him." He smirked.

"And have Esk shoot me before he goes to shoot you? No thanks." Ethan knew Esk had a temper, and he didn't want to set the guy off, no thanks. "I'll guess it's either something psychological, or you have a magic shield. Not gonna ask him which."

Hytar chuckled. "you could fill a library with that boysss psychological isssssuesss i'm afraid." He wasn't about to divulge anything about whether he did or didn't have a shield.

Ethan smiled oddly. He'd kind of noticed Esk was messed up when they'd talked. Oh well, he wasn't one to judge. "I can imagine."

Ellie started bouncing in place. "Come onnnn, I wanna do the tour!"

"Guess I'll leave you guys to it then," Ethan said. Tours didn't sound all that appealing right now, especially not tours led by Ellie.

Hytar chuckled at Ellie's enthusiasm. "Of courssse my dear, where to now?" He nodded to Ethan.

Ellie sped away. "Next stop, the library and the cafe!"

Ethan sighed. "Don't mess up the books," he called after Ellie, "I'm watching you." He headed off toward his room.

Hytar followed along

Ellie cheerfully led the tour along, providing slightly inane commentary about local culture, former crew members, and current crew members, including her latest hypotheses about who might be hooking up secretly these days. She really did have a motor mouth when she wanted to.

Hytar listened into all of this, rather enjoying how much Ellie chattered. She was clearly terrible at keeping secrets. "Sssecretly hooking up?" He asked.

"Yeah! I'm really good at predicting who's going to announce that they're hooking up, it's amazing," Ellie said. "Like Armin and Starr, they always hang out together, and you just know they're secretly hooking up. Also my latest theory is Ethan and Sawna because they both... never mind. And Vestia's totally got a thing for Mourn!"

"Hey!" Vestia protested.

"See? I am so goood at this!"

"People she thinks are going out but usually aren't.  She has got it right a couple of times though." Shane said with a shrug. He shook his head about the couple's she mentioned. "Starr isn't hooking up with anyone Ellie."

"The ssship?" Hytar raised an eyebrow, looking up at the camera. Well, he wasn't going to judge.
"And why isss that?" He asked Shane when he mentioned Starr.

Ellie gave Shane an annoyed look. "I'm usually right, Shane." She nodded to Hytar, "Even smartships fall in love, man. And she loooves Mourn."

Shane dipped his head then shook it. "She isn't the type to simply hook up with anyone." He said after a pause.

Hytar chuckled. "And you don't believe ssshe could be ssseeking anything more than that?" He was enjoying this, these people were terrible gossips weren't they? "Who isss Mourn?" He asked Ellie. For that matter "and Armin?"

"Okay, maybe I'm wrong about Starr, but not the others," Ellie said. "Mourn is an engineer, he calls Vestia 'Beautiful Ship', and she uses different colored lights to communicate with him since he's deaf. And Armin is a vavare tailor, he's very nice."

Shane shook his head again then sighed. "It's not like the others would let her choose a mate that isn't a dragon anyway." He said with a frown