UPON VESTIA: CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

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Asher considered his words for a few seconds, glancing around the room as he thought, then looked to Kay again. "I've been thinking over everything that's happened today, and I feel like it would be wrong for me to leave Terra before the androids have been granted their freedom," he said. "I think it might be in the best interests of the children and the androids if I stay on Terra while Vestia goes on to the Imperium." He wished he could have phrased it better, but he just didn't know how. Ugh.

Kay shook his head [I don't have any particuarly strong feelings about Horses.] He had no real idea why Esk hated horses specifically so much, he really doubted Esk would ever explain. Still, he was curious. [Do you know why he hates them so much?] He had some theories but nothing solid.

"No, I have no idea what his problem with them is," James said. "One of these days I'm gonna ask, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Also I'm pretty sure he'll just make a snide remark and stalk off instead of telling me. You don't know either, then?"

Kay shook his head. [He never was fond of many animals, they're all scared of him but I never remember him having specific issues with the horses. ] He looked thoughtful, unsure if he should share the next bit, but this was a pretty effective distraction and... well, Esk wasn't exactly in his good graces right now. [Our sister said he killed the horses at her husband's ranch. That was long after Matt and I had left the Imperium, she didn't explain a lot, just that he killed the horses and it was the last straw.] He frowned deeply. He'd been so angry with her at the time and she'd stopped talking to him for months. [I've never really gotten the full story out of either of them. She claims it's not worth dwelling on and Esk doesn't talk about anything unless it suits his latest tirade.] He exhaled deeply, a sort of quiet sigh. [I don't believe it was intentional though, my brother may be a horrible person but i've never known him to enjoy killing things.] No, Esk was far more.. practical and disturbingly pragmatic than he was psychotic. He usually had a reason for doing what he did, just not neccisarily one Kay agreed with. [Still, it's the only incident involving horses I know of. ] hmm.

"Dang," James looked horrified, but also a tiny bit impressed. "As in, your brother somehow managed to kill multiple horses? That's brutal, intentional or not." He tried to imagine how that sort of incident could even happen. He knew Esk kind of went on autopilot once his magic kicked in and started draining the being he was touching, but still, multiple horses seemed more tricky to kill off than a single smallish animal.
"That's a story I'm going to need to get out of Esk someday. No wonder your sister isn't a big fan of him though."

"Carpathia is the name of my home world. It is hidden pretty well, so not well known." Sawna replied with a shrug.

~~~
"Possibly." Starr said with a small shrug. "Do you want to try to talk to them?"

"It must be, I don't have any idea where it is," Ethan said. "Carpathia started using slaves during your lifetime, then?"

Kay lowered his head. [Jess loves him, like we all do, but... he's not the easiest person to live with. ] He shook his head again. [I've never quite worked up the courage to ask Esk directly what happened, I get the feeling he'll just become hostile like he always does. Maybe you'll have better luck. He actually seems to like the Silver Devil's crew.] He managed a small smile. It was nice he thought, that Esk had found people who could deal with him and in several cases, actually seemed to kinda like him despite his prickly nature. Maybe he wasn't such an asshole to those who weren't family.

---

Mourn tilted his head. "talk to? you mean talk you, you tell with magic?" Well it'd be novel. He grinned in amusement.

"Yeah, he's kinda... really hard to have an actual conversation with. He just gets defensive and starts acting like a jerk," James said. "Sorry, he's your brother and I shouldn't say mean things about him, but it's kinda true." He smiled a little, "But yeah, relatively speaking, he's nicer to us than he is to you guys. And it's sorta cute how nice he is to Dawn, when he's not hiding from her."
James did kind of like Esk, but he did find him pretty frustrating to talk to sometimes. They just didn't have very compatible personalities.

Kay smiled a more genuine smile. [Don't worry about it. We don't really get on. ] Yeah there was no real love lost between he and his brother. He was fine with other people acknowledging that Esk was a dick.
[Dawn seems to be a good influence on him. ] It was sweet, he couldn't help but hope she'd bring Esk out of this loathsome persona he'd cultivated for himself. [He was hiding from her?] He looked amused.

James looked amused. "Yeah, I was getting the impression you two aren't really close." Maybe it was the way Esk only talked about Kay with undisguised contempt. Or the way they both tended to avoid being anywhere near each other.
"He was totally avoiding her after she got shot, and I'm not sure why. I know he was because I kept Dawn company a lot while he was doing his best to hide, which is fine because I like Dawn. But it's also kinda not so fine because Dawn and I use the same words, but I'm never totally sure we're speaking the same language, whereas I think she and Esk actually understand each other."

Kay tilted his head, yeah Dawn was a bit odd, and that was an excellent way of putting it. He nodded. [Perhaps that's why they get along. I wonder why he was hiding.] Wierd, very weird.

"I dunno, it was weird," James said. "He's not a big fan of emotions, maybe he didn't want to deal with worrying about Dawn. Or something. I can't claim to really understand how your baby bro thinks."

Kay shook his head. Who the hell knew. [So, aside from not jousting, what can we do?] this had been an okay distraction but there was only so long you could talk about someone before you started feeling a bit rude.

"Uhh," James thought about that for a few seconds. "I mean there's other horse programs on the holodeck. I usually gallop through forests when I'm angry about something. Or there's rescuing damsels in distress... I don't know what they call a male damsel, but they have male damsels too." Yay inclusivity. "Or there's all the Star Trek games. Not sure if Asher introduced you to Star Trek or not, but the holodeck's plots are all episodic and short and usually fun. Alternately, we can watch the news and worry." He was curious what was happening, even though he was sure he'd regret finding out.

Kay looked down at his tablet, chewing his lip anxiously for a while as he thought. Not knowing was about as bad as knowing. He nodded slowly and thrust his tablet into James' hands so he could look up the news.

"We're going with the news then, I take it?" James said, just to make sure. That was what Kay meant, judging by how anxious he suddenly looked.

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:
Mourn tilted his head. "talk to? you mean talk you, you tell with magic?" Well it'd be novel. He grinned in amusement.

Starr nodded with a smile. "Yes, if you want." She wasn't sure what else there was to say though.

Kooshie wrote:"It must be, I don't have any idea where it is," Ethan said. "Carpathia started using slaves during your lifetime, then?"

"No, we do not use slaves ourselves, but we can become slaves if captured when we have run out of power." Sawna said with a shake of her head.

"Well that's unpleasant," Ethan said, frowning a little. "Good reason to drink lots of blood, I guess."

Sawna nodded and smiled "I drink once a day to keep up my health, more when it's needed. That and sleeping in the soil, as close as I can make it to my homeland's."

Ethan made a noise of disbelief. "You sleep in the dirt?"

Mourn nodded "okay." He wanted to know how this would work more than anything else.

---

Kay nodded, looking hesitant and anxious and hoping everything was fine.

James tried to smile again. "I'm sure it's all good out there, right?" He opened a web browser and started searching for news.

By now there was a lot of ROBOTS ARE FREE. MULTIPLE ATTACKS CONFIRMED! in the headlines. Probably most of the articles were just clickbait, but there was some truth in some of them. And truthful or not, they were sure to stir up more fear.

"I guess I was tempting fate by saying that, wasn't I?" James said wryly. "At least it looks like the update worked?"

Kay moved to James' side to read over his shoulder, looking even more anxious.

Kooshie wrote:Ethan made a noise of disbelief. "You sleep in the dirt?"

Sawna nodded and chuckled softly. "Yes, it is restoring for me."

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:Mourn nodded "okay." He wanted to know how this would work more than anything else

Starr smiled softly and nodded "Asher wants to know if you are okay with making a public statement saying that you developed the freedom code update in a video or a blog post, or something like that."

Mourn nodded "I fix robots, I tell yes?" He looked eager, he rather liked boasting. "I fix robots. terrans say not possible, I did it." He nodded again. "You tell robot, I tell terrans. I release code on site maybe? Backup."