Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty

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Skye nodded and smiled a little "It's a little scary though, when you only see your own kind then see a city with the others."

Silence nodded slowly. "Mother say not to change, changed mind. Still learning."

"t.. the war against the shifters was... fairly brutal." Ivor explained. "But.. also a very long time ago. S.. still, they were.. angry enough back then to nearly wipe the entire species out. "

---

Kay looked sheepish. [I was worried about you, especially after the news.] He reached out to caress Asher's cheek. [It's good to see you up and about again.]

Ethan frowned, but nodded. "Yeah, that'd make you scared to shift all right. I'm surprised they didn't tell you to stick to a humanoid shape though Silence, you're not exactly inconspicuous in that form."

~~
"That's fair, that trip to Mars was rather risky, and now there's this whole other mess to sort out. I'm sure most of us have been worrying lately," Asher said. He leaned into Kay's touch a little, it was nice to be here with him again, this week had felt so long. "It's good to be fixed up, I still haven't quite gotten over the thrill of climbing stairs yet," he said, trying for humor.

Silence shook her head. "Were far away, thought nobody would find us." Why change from your natural form if you didn't have to?

---

Kay smiled. [So I shouldn't be too surprised if I find you jogging up and down the stairwells?]

"Seems like you could practice shifting if you were so far from anyone else though," Ethan said. He smiled oddly, "I guess you didn't make that decision though, it was some old paraanoid person who thought up the no shifting rule, probably."

~~
Asher nodded. "If I take to climbing stairs and ladders for no apparent reason, and opening doors for people even if they don't want me to, you know what's happened. It's perfectly normal, nothing to be concerned about."

Silence nodded. "Scared. Want to hide from past. Avoid repeat."

---

[I've missed you.] Kay smiled, amused. Now THIS was a better distraction than the museum. He really didn't much want to think about the android revolution right now.

"Makes sense," Ethan decided. "So what are you two doing, anyway?"

~~
"I missed you too. The trip to Mars wasn't bad, but it just isn't the same without you." Asher said. "Come on, want to go somewhere other than the shuttle bay? Unless you like it here too, which is totally understandable." He smiled humorously, this room probably wasn't quite so appealing if you didn't like doing maintenance on small spacecraft.

Kay shook his head. [I'm sorry, I doubt i'll ever find space craft maintenance overly appealing.] Nope, engineering was not his thing at all.

---

"Exploring." Silence said.

"Wandering..." Ivor added. "Are.. we not supposed to be here?"

Asher didn't mind if Kay wasn't interested in spacecraft the way he was, if Kay had been, they'd probably be constantly be fighting for the repair jobs Vestia had, and it'd be terrible. Nope, having different interests was probably a good thing, for the sake of their workaholic sanity. "Fair enough. Where would you like to go?" he asked, smiling.

~~
Ethan frowned. "No, you're fine here. If Vestia's not telling you to fuck off, you're pretty much allowed anywhere on the ship," he said. "I was just curious because I was wandering too."

Kay hesitated. [Let's... go for a walk.] He suggested with a smile.

----

Ivor looked nervously up at the camera.

"You have nowhere to go?" Silence asked.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Asher said, amused. "It's been way too long since we got to do that."

~~
"You guys are fine, don't worry," Vestia reassured.

Ethan looked at Silence, "I was working, but I needed a break, so I decided to just wander a bit. There's places to go, but sometimes wandering is better."

"it.. is a very large ship." Ivor agreed. "d... do you get lost often?"

---

Kay nodded and led the way.

"I don't get lost often, my sense of direction is pretty good," Ethan said, "But I do often end up in parts of the ship I haven't seen before. She's made some new rooms even since I arrived here, so it's pretty much impossible to ever see them all." He smiled.

~~
Asher let Kay choose the direction, happy to just go anywhere. It was so good to be home again, here with Kay, and he could almost forget his worries.

Ivor nodded slowly, well that explained why they kept getting disoriented, the floor plan kept being added to.

"big ship" Silence remarked.

---

Kay was happy enough to just be with Asher for a while, to try not to think of the whole revolution thing and all that scary stuff and have well, something resembling normality just for a short while.

"Very big," Ethan agreed. He looked curiously at them, "Do either of you read?" Where he came from, literacy wasn't a given, especially not in the lower classes. And these guys didn't seem upper class to him.

~~
Asher was happy to walk with Kay for a while and just enjoy the moment, but he knew they should probably talk seriously about what was happening eventually. So after they'd walked a while peacefully, he finally tried bringing up the topic, "Kay, I'm sorry that things have had to change so suddenly. You know why the campaign has to happen now, of course, we can't simply put it off when they're planning to brainwash all my people, but that doesn't make it easy for you or for me. I wish I could do something to change that."

~~
Ellie went looking for Shane, she wanted to go bother him a bit.

Shane was preparing a room for the welcome home party

Ellie peered into the room. "Oh hey Shane! You're working already?" She grinned and walked in to join him.

Silence shook her head.

"a.... a little." Ivor admitted. Though his literacy level was fairly low. Education wasn't exactly a priority in a mental hospital. "w.. why do you ask?"

--

Kay flinched, but nodded. [I know. I wish we'd had more time and that all this was simpler but, it isn't.] He looked up at Asher sadly. [I know how important this is and as i've told you before, I support you.] What choice did he have after all?

Shane looked to Ellie and smiled, nodding "Yeah, I wanted to help get it ready"

"Because I'm the self-appointed librarian here, so I like to make a point of knowing what people like to read," Ethan said. "So do you have any preferences? I know a lot of people from the Imperium are fond of those pulpy adventure novels."

~~
Asher smiled sadly. "Thank you, Kay. I feel so fortunate to have your support, and I hope you know that." There had been so many times when Kay could have just walked away. Asher would have been heartbroken, but he knew that Kay leaving would have been entirely justified after all the pain he'd dragged him through. He sighed. "When the protest starts... I don't know how exactly this is going to pan out. We have plans, we have ideas, we have support. But ultimately there are a lot of Terrans out there who've seen us as appliances all their lives, and they're going to be very scared and very angry. I nearly died at the hands of hateful people, and I can only imagine how many more of them there will be when they have something to rally against."

~~
"Cool. Anything I can do?" Ellie asked cheerfully.

Shane chuckled and nodded, motioning around as he told her what was left to do in here.

Ellie would help. "So you haven't like, run into your old boss here on Terra yet, have you?" she asked.

"No, I haven't seen him or any of the gang." Shane said, pausing in thought at that.

"Good. Although you could totally beat him in a fight, I bet he's totally scared of you now." Ellie looked smug.

[The seed of doubt might just be enough to stay the hand of the majority.] Kay was anxious about all this though. [There's nothing we can do now though, just hope that the androids are organized enough to defend one another.] He shook his head, this was going to suck wasn't it? [Asher, this is neccisary. You know that. It'll hurt, there will be guilt, but ultimately, it has to happen for everyone to live free. Have faith, terrans aren't inherently evil, they're people and they made mistakes, but the majority aren't cruel or violent.]

---

Ivor shook his head. "I... don't... know. Not.. not many books at the hospital."

"Librarian?" Silence asked.

Asher nodded tiredly. "There are just so many unknowns at this point. I want to believe the best of people, I want to believe that the majority will see the truth, and choose to take their place on the right side of history, but we just won't know until it starts. I don't want to see how high the body count will climb, but the alternative is to let millions of people have their identities wiped, and that's not something we can accept." He managed a sad smile, "I guess what I'm trying to say is, this is going to be awful no matter what happens, and might mess me up emotionally for a while, so I just want you to make sure to look after yourself, okay? We both have... issues," --a slight understatement, really-- "and I don't want you wearing yourself out trying to help me."

~~
"A library is a place where a lot of books are kept. On this ship it's a collection of books that anyone on board can borrow whenever they want," Ethan said. "A librarian is someone who looks after a library."

Kooshie wrote:"Good. Although you could totally beat him in a fight, I bet he's totally scared of you now." Ellie looked smug.

Shane shook his head a little "He wouldn't care about that, just looks. Maybe they haven't seen past my change in appearance"

"I'd be scared of you if I was a cowardly crime boss, so he totally is," Ellie said. She grinned at Shane, "You don't look that different, you're still totally cute."