Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Three

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"Hey man," James said to Kay, after waiting for a few seconds for the guy to pause his work, and realizing he wasn't going to. "How you holding up?"

~~
"It's my job to care about the books," Ethan said. He tried to look like he had no emotional investment in the state of the library, with moderate success. "Vestia pays me to keep them nice and safe and organized, which they aren't." He watched Esk curiously, "Who put you on janitor duty?"

Shane nodded then shrugged "Alright, considering." He said then smiled softly. "We won though, even with all this wierdness after."

~~~
Dawn sighed and headed to the room she had slept in to shower anyway. She would go check on their patients before going for food for herself.

~~~
Starr found the food, giving Luna cooked meat and water since she was too young for anything else, though she had her own breakfast too.

~~~
If she had the video files she would see that Sawna had fainted at the start of the anti-magic attack then had vanished when they had gone through time. Perhaps she had gone back to her universe somehow, who knew?

Matt opened his other eye, letting go of Ellie and rolling onto his back. "Hey..."

---

Esk eventually managed to clean all the long dried blood off himself. Gross.
He considered clothing options. Hmm, there weren't many were there? "vestia?" He asked. "I don't suppose you have a change of clothing right?" His own clothes were dirty with blood and grime and yeah, he needed clean clothing damnit.

---

Ellie kind of smiled at Shane's words. "Yeah. We won." She ruffled Matt's hair companionably. "Thanks for being good pillows, guys."

~~
James and Tori were probably doing some checkups in the med bay when Dawn arrived. They'd greet her and tell her about anything that had happened. James also told Dawn that there were 13 new Fast and Furious movies. He was trying to stay positive.

~~
Vestia considered the footage of Sawna disappearing. Well, that was unsettling. She decided to hold off on dropping the news until everyone had had breakfast, she doubted an extra half hour or so was going to change much.
Poor Sawna though. She hoped she was safe.

~~
"Yeah, I've got some clothes," Vestia said. "They should fit you fairly well I think." Hey, at least he didn't have spikes like Matt did or something. "Want a delivery, or do you want to look through them yourself?

Matt murred in reply, yawning like a cat, all sharp teeth.
"What time is it?" He asked.

---

Esk looked down at himself, wearing only a towel. "yeah i'll uh.. trust your judgement." he wasn't about to wander around naked okay, it was just inviting annoying interactions.
Besides, he didn't much care what he wore provided it was clean.

good thing he was fairly normally built. A little broad in the chest maybe, with the gangly limbs of his mother's race, but pretty standardly tall terran.

Vestia made a noise of amusement. "Yeah, fair enough." She'd look through her collection of clothes, and eventually a bot would arrive with something for Esk to wear. It was probably jeans and a plain t-shirt, her collection wasn't exactly very interesting.
They'd probably fit well enough, Vestia was okay at guessing clothing sizes.

Esk never wore anything overly interesting under body armor, so jeans and a tee were fine.

He got changed, thanking Vestia.

Clean clothes made him feel a lot better.

suitably dressed, He headed off to find food. He didn't bother with his boots, they needed cleaning, they were still encrusted in blood and right now he couldn't be bothered cleaning them okay?

So he padded in socks to the new dining hall.

---

Dawn chuckled at that update and shook her head "I wonder if they got better or worse with time." She said with a wink. "We will have to watch them and find out."

~~~
Shane chuckled and sat up, stretching then looking around for a cock. If the room didn't have one he would ask Vestia, that was quicker anyway.

~~~
Starr and Luna were eating quietly, they didn't need clothes in dragon form after all.

James laughed. "Fast and Furious only improves with time," he said. "Truly, a franchise that ages like fine wine." Figuring he should check on her too he asked, "Did you rest okay last night? You must've been exhausted."

~~
The clock was a very fancy one with a brass and wood frame, and old fashioned hands. It said it was midmorning, around 8 or 9 probably.

Ellie sighed. "Maaan, we barely slept in at all."

~~
Having found some pants on the Silver Devil, and taken a shower, Tala went to the dining hall. She'd nod in greeting to Starr and Esk, and send Luna a friendly thought, and go to get herself a very large black coffee.

Dawn nodded and smiled a little "Yeah, I found a room nearby to rest in for last night."
~~~
Shane chuckled and lay back down "We could always go back to sleep, maybe after we get something to eat and maybe showers."
~~~
Starr dipped her head in return greeting. She was glad Tala looked to be alright now.

(ahaha that typo)

Matt groaned "maybe we SHOULD." Because screw facing reality, screw it.

---

Esk nodded to Tala. Hmm, he wasn't looking forward to her angst upon learning about what had happened on Ha'kon.
She was usually pretty sensible though, maybe she'd hold it together better than the others had been last night.

"We're gonna need to resupply." He pointed out bluntly. They needed clothing for a start, probably more food, that kind of thing.

---

Kay hauled himself out of bed and went in search of coffee. Eugh, he couldn't function without coffee.
Everything else could wait.
He was sort of on autopilot in a way, just wandering in a haze.

---

Luka stirred in her sleep and half woke up, mumbling something.
She could hear the shower. "r.. rigel?"
that had to be him right? She didn't stagger into someone else's room last night yeah?

----

Armin joined the others in the dining hall, looking around first class interestedly.

"Oh good." James smiled a little. "Thank goodness this morning should be a tiny bit calmer, huh? You should like, have some coffee. I think Vestia's going to deliver some here in a bit, or you can go to First Class to find some, I heard."

~~
"Yeah. Let's like, eat things and get less gross, and then sleep all day," Ellie said. "Although I do need to tell my parents I'm alive too. Don't let me forget that."

~~
Tala still looked kind of tired, but better than yesterday. She got herself a salad to go with her coffee, and sat down to eat. "Yes, resupplying will be needed," she agreed. "Cursed slavers stole our things." Or rather, pitched them out an airlock. Same difference.

~~
Ethan would eventually ask Vestia about Hewitt.

Vestia explained that Hewitt had gotten tased by the slavers and was in a coma currently.

Ethan leaned against a wall and swore bitterly to himself for a while. First the library, now Hewitt. What was WITH this universe suddenly deciding to destroy things he cared about?

Not that he cared about Hewitt, of course. But STILL.

Esk looked bemused at Tala's remark. "They're good at that." He looked at his food. "Here's hoping they got eaten by demons I suppose." Assholes probably deserved it. Did demons eat people? Fucked if he knew.

Kay turned up, barely acknowleding people as he grabbed a mug and some black strong coffee. He slumped into a seat and added a lot of sugar, not something he usually did but today he needed SUGAR damnit.

"I'd ask if you were holding up but it's pretty obvious you're not." Esk remarked to his brother.

Kay ignored him. Nope, not in the mood, at all.

Esk shrugged and left him to it.

---

Matt closed his eyes again, thinking. "Uh.. do we even have any clean clothes?" He asked. that COULD be a problem. "I mean i'm all for wandering around naked but I kinda feel like everyone else might complain." He laughed, trying for a light mood because otherwise he'd just feel depressed again. His laugh was a bit hollow and insincere though.

"We shall all hope they met a suitable demise," Tala said through a mouthful of lettuce. She nodded to Kay in greeting, then looked to Esk again. "Do you know any news of the world?"

Esk looked at Tala. "Which world specifically?" He asked. He had a feeling she was asking about her homeworld without wanting to out and out ask. "There's a lot of news to catch up on."

Kay frowned and chewed his lip, then sipped his coffee. Eugh, way too sweet, but it'd have to do. He needed the energy.

Tala shrugged. "Anywhere." She had meant 'world' in a general sense, although yeah, she wanted to know about her home planet especially. "Have you read news of my home planet?"

Esk kept eating. "Nothing conclusive." Well that was evasive wasn't it. He shook his head. "The war's long over, wherever your people are, they aren't there." Hopefully. The Imperium wouldn't take prisoners after all, it wasn't their style, so either those still there got out in time, or the lot of them were slaughtered. Depressingly, the Imperium didn't much discriminate, man, woman, child, if you were in the way you got shot down.
it was brutally efficient.

"That is to be expected," Tala said after a few moments. Her voice sounded calm, but the telepaths in the room might have sensed her rage and grief for a moment before she'd managed to put her mental barriers up, blocking them from hearing her emotions. "We shall hope that the Imperium have not killed all of my tribe, or the Imperium shall live to regret it."

Kay edged ever so slightly away from Tala.

Esk nodded. "Someone within the Imperium may have better knowledge of what happened." he suggested.

Kay frowned. Only person they knew the other side of the border was their sister, who they hadn't seen for substantially MORE than 10 years.

"Hey i'm not volunteering to ask." Esk read Kay's expression. "Ask Luka, she's got family there right?" And she'd probably want to contact them right? all hi, i'm not dead and all that.

Tala twitched her ears forward, interested in learning more if she could. She wanted to believe that there was a chance her people were still alive. "Of course, the Imperium is likely to feed the public their lying propaganda. So its citizens may not know the truth anyway," she said. She didn't have a high opinion of the Imperium's honesty to their people.
She was probably a little biased though.

Esk shrugged. "Maybe someone else knows."
His own opinnion of his home world wasn't great either. then again, he had a first hand understanding of how brutal the military actually WAS. He'd been in those ground assaults, he'd shot people cowering in fear and begging for mercy. There was no mercy from the Imperium, only conquest.

Kay took his coffee and went to check on his patients.

Esk watched him leave. Yeah, Kay wasn't taking any of this well was he?

"If there are no answers to be had, then I will investigate the situation myself," Tala said. "We shall hope for answers." She knew going into the Imperium alone would pretty much be suicide for a minotaur.
She watched Kay go, "Your brother seems intent on working himself into a stupor." She'd noticed how exhausted he looked last night when he was tending to her injuries, Kay wasn't exactly subtle about it.

Esk nodded "yeah, he does that. " He rolled his eyes. "Suppose it means you don't have to think that way." He rose from his seat to put his plate away. "You think the kid might know? he was supposed to answer any questions we had right?"

Tala snorted. "He is silly. If I could communicate with my mate and people right now, I would be doing that, not working." Then again, she'd never had as much anxiety as everyone else seemed to, had she?
"I suppose I should ask your young nephew. He might be of use," she agreed.

Esk nodded. It was still kinda weird to think of the kid as his nephew, or to remember that Jarral was actually nearly the same age HE was. Yeesh, that was just bizarre.

"that's because you're not an idiot." He remarked. "I'm sure a lot of the crew are gonna be a pain in the arse over the next few days or weeks or whatever."

Tala's ears wiggled slightly. "I could tell your brother he is being an idiot. I am certain he would take it well, and immediately change his ways." She thought that idea was funny.
She finished her salad, swigged the last of her coffee, and got up to take her dishes to the counter.

Esk snorted. "in this state he might throw something at you. " Okay maybe just glare, either way, annoying.
Maybe HE should write to Asher, but that seemed like a bit too much effort. It wasn't his problem.

Tala's ears wiggled again at that. "That would be most terrifying," she said. She'd fought in battles before, the idea of having things thrown at her wasn't all that intimidating. "I will leave him to his silliness though, since he would not welcome my wisdom."