Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Nine

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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.

James might run into Esk in the corridor. He was eating a bagel.

James blinked at the sight of Esk. It was always a little unexpected to come across someone eating in a corridor, after all. "Hey man, how's the boiled bread dough?" He asked.

Esk shrugged, still eating and spilling crumbs. "What do you care?" He looked at James critically. "Decided against going out there?" He gestured vaguely toward outside. "Why are you up here?" This wasn't exactly one of the main habitation floors, aside from Armin's larger room there wasn't much up here. Which was why Esk was here, it was quiet.

"Just making conversation," James said, waving a hand casually. "I had a lot of stuff to do here on the ship so I haven't been able to go out today, it's been a busy day. You haven't heard the latest news?"

Esk looked suspicious. "What news?" he asked warily.

"Armin's molting, so I'm going to be helping a vavare doctor with that," James said. "And my brother's going with the Silver Devil to Mars so he can be repaired. Rigel hasn't talked to you about it yet?"

"no." Esk shook his head. Though to be fair, he'd not really been overly sociable today so he hadn't seen Rigel. "is it a good idea to send Asher right back to the guys who treated you like shit in the first place?" He asked, his tone flat and dull.

James shrugged. "Maybe not the safest thing that can happen, but we've arranged for him to have a star dragon bodyguard, and Starr wrote up a letter so Rigel can act as his owner. He needs his body fixed up, he can't just stay in a wheelchair forever, so he might as well get fixed uo now and save us a detour to Mars later."

Esk grunted a faint response to that, shrugging and swallowing his food before he spoke again. "And you're staying here right?" Which was probably wise, James wasn't exactly good at shutting up. "Who's the star dragon?"

"Yep, I'm staying here for Armin's molt, and because I'd probably try to punch some MegaBrainTech salesperson in the face if I saw them," James said. "Her name's Nova, she specializes in teleporting magic, which is how she's planning to keep Asher safe. Seems like a nice lady, and Starr picked her so she must be good at what she does." He liked Nova, and was fairly confident that she'd live up to her promises.

Esk was of the opinion that everyone here was far too trusting. He looked skeptical. "Is Kay going?"

"Nah, he's staying here. He's like me, way too opinionated to go anywhere near those corporate creeps." James looked pleased, it was nice that his brother was dating someone who was so grumpy and protective. He looked curious. "Think you'll go on this trip?"

Esk shrugged. "if the captain wants me he'll ask me." He finished his bagel, licking his fingers. "Though it might be less annoying than staying here with a bunch of worrying assholes." He smirked a little at James.

James snorted. "You say that like people won't be worrying on the Silver Devil too. Face it Esk, people are going to care more about things than you do wherever you go." He shook his head.
"I'm not sure who all is going. Dawn and Luka I'm pretty sure are going, probably Tala as well 'cause she likes to go on missions so she can shout orders at people." He looked thoughtful, remembering Swarm's comment about Esk avoiding Dawn lately. Yeah, things he probably shouldn't ask about unless he wanted Esk getting pissed off at him.

"worrying won't do jack to change anything so why bother?" Esk countered with a shrug. "Kay's gonna be fucking annoying though. He's uh.." He struggled for the word, he'd learned it recently during his psychology lessons. "Codependent. And irritatingly mopey at the best of times. " he shook his head. "I don't wanna have to clean up the mess if something happens to Asher." Esk watched James suspiciously, the android looked like he wanted to ask something and was thinking better of it.

"People worry when they care about each other, it just happens," James said. "If worry was something we could all just logic away, we'd totally do that."
He shook his head again, "Man, if anything bad happens to Asher, Kay's not gonna be the only one who's going to be broken up about it. That's why we're taking, you know, precautions. Our corporate overlords are assholes, but they aren't, you know, batshit crazy axe murderers or something. They don't just do evil things for the sake of being evil, they do them to make money, and try to avoid PR incidents. Which is why Asher got that letter from Starr with her written requests."

"Isn't that why most slavers do what they do? Profit." Esk shook his head. "Crazy murderers are easier to handle." He had experience with crazy murderous people after all.

James laughed. "Well I mean, we wouldn't be sending Asher to Mars for repairs if our creators were crazy. We're doing it because they're fairly sane, and therefore we can sort of predict what kinds of trouble they might cause. Maybe you'd rather be fighting loony people, but if the point is to not get in a fight, then sane and money-driven people are better."

"you'll have to fight them eventually if you want your people free." Esk reasoned calmly. "Not now of course, but soon enough. And then, sane money driven people are the worst to go up against. Crazy people you just shoot. Megabrain you need to convince to admit they were wrong." He shook his head, yeah good luck on that one.

"One problem at a time. Right now we're focusing on making my brother's legs work," James said. He'd rather not think about the big picture right now, thank you very much. Too many risks and things that could go wrong. He decided to change the subject, "You gone exploring the city yet?"

Esk smirked slightly, it always amused him when someone got uncomfortable enough to change the subject. "Briefly. One big city is pretty much like any other."

James frowned at Esk. He'd gotten better at shrugging off the guy's smugness and attempts to get under people's skin, but still, it could be frustrating. He weighed the desire to retaliate against the desire to have an actual conversation, in his experience it wasn't too hard to make Esk uncomfortable enough to run off, but he was still curious about what Esk had been up to lately and wasn't quite ready to make an active attempt to piss the guy off.
"You could go with Dawn, she'd probably appreciate having someone to explore with her since she's still recovering from her injuries," he said, trying to fish for information without being too obvious about it, and probably kind of failing.

Esk's eyes narrowed a little. Ahh, this again. "weren't you supposed to be playing nurse?"

"Armin's asleep, and the doctor's watching him. I don't really need to hover over the guy right now," James said. He felt a bit of satisfaction at Esk's small reaction, even if it hadn't been his intention, it was always kind of satisfying to know Esk wasn't entirely invulnerable to human emotion. "I'm free, man! And I don't just mean that in the sense that I'm emancipated, I mean I don't have to work for a paycheck right now, either."

"I meant Dawn." Esk countered. "Escorting sick and injured people on sight seeing trips isn't my job." He snickered. "Do you EVER actually work?"

"Oh." James shook his head. Right, that did make sense. "Nah man, I gotta stay here in case Armin starts shedding his skin. I don't want to be unreachable at a bit moment. See? I'm totally responsible." He nodded.
"Besides, you and Dawn can actually carry conversations, I think. At least, probably better than I can." He and Dawn were pretty darn different, so it wasn't uncommon for him to be pretty confused by her. And he was pretty sure she felt the same way about him.

"that's not exactly saying a lot James." Esk folded his arms and leaned against the wall.