Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ivor was pretty thankful for Tala's quiet thoughts, if her unshielded thoughts were anything like her speaking voice, he'd have had a headache already.
He nodded slowly.

"Excellent. One never knows when knowledge might be needed." Tala set to work eating her very greasy but vegetarian breakfast. The pain meds were kicking in now, which only boosted her good mood.

Kooshie wrote:"That's... A long time to wait," Ethan said. "I guess they had nothing better to do, but that's got to be depressing as hell." He shook his head. "I guess I should let you go back to, you know, ruling your people."

Starr nodded then sighed "It is a long time to wait, I just hope Hytar can free some of them during his campaign."

"He seems like he knows what he's doing, I'm sure he'll find some of them," Ethan said. "It's going to get harder, slavers don't like losing their prized property after all, but they're not going to be able to prepare for every attack." He sighed. "So you're planning to make a planet for them, right? What's to stop the slavers attacking again though?"

Starr nodded then shrugged a little "I could try to hide it, though that would mean no trade with allies. I'm not certain what to do."

"If you can create planets, do you even need to trade?" Ethan asked. "Seems like you could just develop your own industries and live cut off from the rest of the universe, like the Guild does."

Starr nodded then shook her head "True enough, but we need allies, not to be hidden again and allies means finding things to trade."

Ethan considered that, and decided it did make some amount of sense. He nodded. "God, I don't envy you your job," he said. "Hope you're hiring some good advisors at least."

~~
James waved to Asher when he came in. "Hey man, you'll be glad to know Vestia is watching Armin, and he didn't have any emergencies last night."

Asher smiled softly. "Good. We can probably let him sleep until the doctor comes, let the expert do his checkup this morning. You can go take a break now, it was great of you to stay all night here."

"Thanks man. Think it's okay for me to skip the appointment?"

"Probably. If we need someone really strong, we'll get one of the androids, or a star dragon with useful magic. Or we'll text you. You'll probably want to help Dawn and Tori later though, with their new med bay project."

"Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to that. As the only make medic there, all the ladies will want me," James said, fluttering his eyelashes. "No competition. It'll be awesome."

Asher laughed. "All right then. Have fun, baby bro."

James waved and headed out. "Yo Swarm, are you around here?" He called to the hallway at large. He didn't know if Swarm had left for the city, but maybe some of them were around. You never knew.

Starr nodded and smiled "Just one of the many positions to be filled in. Rebuilding an empire is not simple."

Ethan snorted. "Rebuilding sounds like a nightmare. You're planning to go the empire route then? Colonialism and territory?" Hey, half Starr's identity was from the other universe now, and that Starr seemed like she could be the colonialist-conqueror type of leader. Stood to reason this Starr might be too now that she had that one's memories, even if she did seem nice.

Swarm coalesced in the corridor. --we-- --are-- --here-- --friend--

-----

Kay wandered into the dining area to get breakfast, and his obligatory morning coffee.

Silence tilted her head at him, looking thoughtful. Something about the presence of another half shifter bothered her, was he why the man Hytar had sent Ivor here?
It would make sense, another half shifter, one who'd grown up in the same culture. Still... she was curious.

Kay frowned a little at her. He was certain he'd never really get used to Shifter's true forms, they were just too weird.

James smiled at Swarm, glad to see his unusual friend/friends. "Hey guys, I'm kinda surprised you're not all out in the city checking out the sights."

~~
"Greetings, Kay," Tala said. "There are an abundance of your kind among us today, it seems." They might look different, but they smelled similar. Although Ivor and Silence didn't stink of lycanthropy, of course.

--did-- --that-- --yesterday-- they told him. --crew-- --more-- --interesting-- --now-- they chittered, which might have been their way of laughing.

---

Kay nodded stiffly and went to get himself a drink.

Ivor looked like he wanted to ask something, but thought better of it.

Kay glanced over to him and they shared that prolonged look of telepathic communication before Kay went back to pouring coffee.

Ivor nodded and finished his food.

"you think can help?" Silence asked Kay.

Kay blinked, then shook his head. If Starr wasn't so busy and distracted he'd suggest her as a better teacher, but she had her own people to worry about.
He chewed his lip, thinking. Maybe he'd have to take this task on, but he wasn't convinced he was a good teacher, nor that he really understood his own abilities any better than Ivor or Silence did.

"Maybe... maybe I just... can't... learn... " Ivor hugged himself again.

Silence butted him gently with the top of her head, careful to avoid spiking him with her horns or tusks.

"it.. it's okay... i'm.. used to it." Ivor tentatively patted Silence's neck, pushing her softly away.

Kay came back over and sat at the table, there was no reason to write now, everyone here could hear his telepathy.

There must be a way for you to learn to block it, maybe not all of it, I can still hear, almost like white noise, but enough to allow you not to become overwhelmed.

Ivor looked uncertain.

Give it time. Kay told him.

"how... how did you... learn?" Ivor asked tentatively.

Kay thought about that. My mother discouraged me from communicating in this manner, I was encouraged to use words instead and told that reading people's thoughts was rude, a massive violation of their privacy, so I tried not to. It took a long time, and I still pick up particularly loud thoughts. When people are angry or emotional it's particularly difficult to tune out, but usually? I've learned to ignore the constant noise. It's like walking into a room and everyone talking at once, after a while you no longer hear the voices, just a general din.

Ivor looked tense. "Everyone thinks... too loud." He complained. "like shouting at me, all the time. So many people shouting..." He shuddered.

Kay frowned a little. You need to try to tune it out.

"but how?" Ivor asked desperately.

Kay shook his head. I don't know. He admitted. He glanced to Shane and Tala, maybe they had some insight. They were capable of telepathy themselves right?

James snickered. "But there's so many more people out there, you'd think you'd be able to find something more interesting than us. Are we really that entertaining here?"

~~
Tala listened to the telepathic conversation, and switched to telepathy as well to 'speak', since that was polite. Her telepathic voice was quieter than her physical one, most of her excessive loudness was just from her throat structure, after all.
How good are you at not casting your thoughts abroad? she asked Ivor. She didn't spend much time around him, so she didn't really know.

Kooshie wrote:Ethan snorted. "Rebuilding sounds like a nightmare. You're planning to go the empire route then? Colonialism and territory?" Hey, half Starr's identity was from the other universe now, and that Starr seemed like she could be the colonialist-conqueror type of leader. Stood to reason this Starr might be too now that she had that one's memories, even if she did seem nice.

"My people need a home, we can't all just live on Vestia when they are free." Starr said then shrugged "We could just take what was our territory before back. I don't think any others have encroached since our world was destroyed.

Shane noticed the glance and tilted his head "What's up?" He hadn't been listening in after all.

"That's not really an empire," Ethan said. "Although maybe it's best not to jump right into empire building after a couple hundred years of slavery." He frowned, "Nobody else has taken the old territory? That's weird, land is land, and land is useful."

"It was our empire, it can be again." Starr said softly. She wasn't sure why it hadn't been taken, but that's what her friends in the Mimosa empire told her, that it was still there and relatively untouched.

Ivor frowned, looking uncertain. "I... d.. don't know..." He spoke aloud, too many years of conditioning prevented him from communicating telepathically intentionally.

Ethan shook his head. He didn't think it was much of an empire if they didn't conquer things, but then, maybe it was for the best if the star dragons didn't conquer anyone. The rest of the universe would have a rough time fighting vengeful dragons who could fly in space and create suns.
"Good luck with that," he said. "I should probably get going, I promised the professor I'd go with him to the city this morning."

~~
Tala's ears flicked forward curiously. "You don't know if you often broadcast or not?" Weird. She snorted quietly. "I have never had difficulty controlling my powers, they are weak enough that I cannot hear others or speak unless I focus. There are minotaurs with stronger powers though, and I have heard them say that training themselves to not hear thoughts is much the same process as learning not to project thoughts. If you can silence your mind, it seems likely you could learn to ignore others too."

Ivor shuddered. "Should... shouldn't speak into people's minds... makes them frightened... then you get hurt."

Kay bowed his head. Damn, seemed everyone on this ship was broken.

--oh-- --yes-- Swarm declared. --interactions-- --conversations-- --very-- --interesting-- The bobbed up and down. --we-- --see-- --many-- --things--

Starr nodded and smiled again "Yeah, it will be good for him to get out in the sun for a while." She said agreeably. "Have fun, but don't get in trouble out there." She said teasingly

Tala nodded, not especially bothered by the idea of people hurting people for talking in their heads. Pain wasn't that scary to her, and entering someone's mind uninvited was rude. "Unless your kind are very different from minotaurs, that likely means you can learn to block the voices," she told Ivor. "It is too bad none of the great telepaths of my kind are on this ship, they have many useful teachings to protect their minds from the telepathic noise."

~~
"Wanna tell me the latest gossip?" James asked hopefully. "I miss out on so many stories, just cause I'm too big and loud to go unnoticed." He grinned up at Swarm, then started walking down a hall at random.

~~
Ethan snorted. "I'll try to keep him out of trouble. Knowing him, it won't be easy." Hewitt sure did love picking arguments and having loud opinions. "Good luck with your people."

Do you think they may have recorded such teachings anywhere? Kay asked

---

Swarm chittered among themselves, trying to decide what was interesting. --Esk-- --is-- --avoiding-- --Dawn-- --hasn't-- --visited-- --her-- --in-- --days-- It was true, Esk hadn't checked up on Dawn since she'd started getting up and about again, and even before then, his visits had become less frequent as James took over her medical care.

--Tala-- --did-- --not-- --come-- --home-- --last-- --night--

That was probably the juiciest gossip they had. They still weren't totally sure why Ethan was being weird or what was going on with Ellie and Shane, so they didn't mention those.