Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Eight

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Shane nodded agreement. "Let them sort themselves out, when they are ready, if they ever are, they can admit it publicly as Starr and Armin have done with their dating.

~~~
Danika chuckled softly and shrugged "It's just part of the game, most of the situations are made up things to give a reason for adding money to your bank." She waited for him to put the amount in then picked up the dice to roll them, using the chance to show him how they were normally rolled without saying so. She landed on the starship (train) and immediately bought it

"Quite a few people here are...not anti-social, but do like being alone or only in small groups." Shane agreed then shrugged. "I'm just glad if they had some fun."

Lana nodded. There were a lot more people on this ship than she'd realised. That said, what could prepare anyone for the shere size of Vestia? she was mind blowingly huge and even with her decent chunk of passengers and crew, was mostly empty.
Lana found herself wondering how busy things would be if the cruise ship functioned as a proper cruise ship and just couldn't imagine that many people in one place.

---

Mourn went to find and talk to the Hawk girls. He hadn't been avoiding them, he'd just been distracted by other things.

(I'm not really sure honestly! Do we like, skip forward, have some people try to find Aketi kids, and then bring them back? Or do we want it to happen off screen? There are a few different ways we can handle this)

Ellie nodded. "Yeah, I'm glad too."

~~
"The Imperium are multitudinous and aggressive," Tala informed Matt, "To expect them to attack is entirely reasonable."

Ethan snorted. He still found it amusing that the Satare were a serious political and military power in this universe.

"We'll hope for the best," Asher said grimly, ignoring his duplicate's entirely inappropriate amusement. "We know too little to speculate about the condition of the kids right now, hoping is the best we can do until we learn more."

(i'm cool with doing either to be honest. I hadn't really planned to have anything untoward happen to those who go lol. I'm happy to play it out though if we want to, but we should have a Starr controlled character if we do that, so everyone can be included)

Matt blinked. Multi what now? He nodded to Asher. "Aketi are tough, we'll find them, we'll bring them back here. It'll all be okay." He sounded more like he was trying to convince himself of that.

(I'm good either way too, lol)

(I guess we can probably just have it happen off screen then, if that sounds okay to everyone. )

Asher looked wary at Matt's words, saying things were going to go well felt a bit like tempting fate to him. But he wasn't going to try to crush Matt's hopes because that would just be mean.

James sighed.

"Just uh... let me know when you're ready yeah?" Matt continued.

(sure, we can totally do a goes, comes back lol. I mean, should take them a few hours to find several small green things on a farm/in some woods. Shall we just fastforward)

Asher nodded. "Of course."

(Fast forwarding sounds good to me. Do we jump to when the team returns with the Aketi, or to some other point?)

(sounds good to me. I'm gonna say they found... five. Yep, that's a good number. )

(Sounds good to me too. I've been distracted by a tiny baby squirrel that got dumped on the ground by the storm recently. It's doing good so far )

(Poor baby squirrel. I'm glad it's in a good home though!

Should I write up a smallish timeskip post?)

(go for it!)

TIMESKIP - A FEW HOURS OR SOMETHING?

Jarral, James, and probably one of the Star Dragons would go to the Imperium, using Jarral's ...unusual means of transport.

Together they'd attempt to catch the Aketi kids, who they'd then bring back to Vestia using Nova's teleportation stones. Finding all the kids didn't prove to be too difficult, thankfully.

The team would, hopefully, safely teleport back.

~~
Asher had given James a copy of his Satare language files for the trip, so now James was suddenly fluent in Satare, with ten years' worth of practice he had never done. Which James found kinda weird, but anyway.

James didn't mind being transported by the Shadows too much, he was rather fond of them thanks to their important role in recently saving Jarral's life. Sure shadows moving around was a little weird, but then, so were a lot of things on Vestia. You just had to shrug it off.

He was glad to be home though.

Shadow travel was disorienting, but it was substantially more unsettling for those who witnessed it than the ones doing it.
Jarral didn't help much with finding the kids, the light blinded him and the sun burned his sensitive skin. So he instead had stuck to the shadows, rested and waited for the others to be done.

Aketi children it turned out, were about the size of a softball and roughly the same shape. Small little balls of spikey leaves which hid their small bodies and oversized heads. Huge eyes peered out from the mass of foliage and they emitted small chirps like crickets, whistling that sounded almost like birdsong and humming that may have been generator noise. It appeared they'd taken to mimmicking the noises around them and formed some sort of rough pigeon language out of it.
Some were curious about the new people and made no protest at being picked up. Others cowered or tried to hide.
but eventually they found five of them, hoping five was all there was.

Returning to Vestia, Jarral immediately made himself scarce, not even bothering to make an excuse.

---

Matt waited a little anxiously for everyone to get back, spending his time chatting to Web who would be heading home soon enough. Kay joined them, though he seemed distracted and not really engaging at all with the conversation.

---

Lana went to bed, because it was late.

----

The dragon that went was quiet, not making a fuss over the method of travel or the catching of the little ones. He did find it odd that the little ones managed to get out of the fenced in area, but again did not say anything about it. He was just glad the mission was a success in finding the kids and returning. Like Jerral, he moved to return to his quarters once they were home safely and the kids settled (probably in the farm area? Or sent to live with/near Hewitt?)

Starr however came to see the kids and the rescuers once they returned, wanting to thank the latter and see the former for herself. She was curious.

(Eh, they'll be fine at the farm for now lol.)

The Aketi children surveyed their new environment curiously. A couple rolled off to explore it, fairly content that they were safe. one of them remained still, emulating a regular non sentient plant quite believably if it weren't for those huge blinking eyes.

The little creatures moved by literally rolling like a tumbleweed and could get a pretty decent turn of speed on them. They also seemed to be able to climb using tiny little claws hidden amongst the spiked leaves. As one demostrated by climbing one of the fences and settling on top of it.

Amity came to see the children as well, they were technically guests after all. Or... parts of guests.
Hewitt however had seemed to be utterly disinterested.

(Ahhhh they're so cute omg)

James stuck around, watching the children settle into their new home. He wanted to be sure they were safe - He'd brought them here, he figured he had a duty to make sure they were safe now that they were here as well.

Asher came to see the kids when they arrived, since he felt very strongly that he owed them that after all those years of completely forgetting they existed. Oops.

Tala showed up, wanting to see if the children seemed harmed by their extended stay in a place as bad as the Imperium.

"You don't suppose the goats will eat them, do you?" James said hesitantly to the others as they watched the Aketi settle in.

Matt and Kay turned up to see the newcomers.
Matt crouched down near the one that was pretending to be a regular plant. "hey, it's okay, we're not gonna hurt you." He reached out, yelped and pulled his hand back, sucking his finger. "I dunno, they're pretty spikey." He told James.

[should we find them a room of their own?] Kay asked. [They've survived this long in imperfect conditions but that doesn't mean we should let it continue.]

"They seem to be doing okay..." Matt mused, standing back up and examining the tiny prick in his finger. "Maybe we should ask the Professor. He'd know more about what Aketi kids should be like right?"

Kay looked around, frowning a little at Hewitt's absence. Maybe he was still resting, he had just woken up from a very long coma. Still, he hated not knowing what was right here.

Matt looked thoughtful. "What about you then?" he looked to Amity.

Amity looked at Matt. "yes?" He didn't seem to have been following the conversation.

"Are they okay here?" Matt asked.

"the children?" Amity asked. He nodded slowly. "They appear to be unscathed."

Kay shook his head. [Do they need any special lodgings, any specific environment?]

"high humidity for six out of every twenty four hours should suffice." Amity replied.

"anything else?" Matt asked.

"I am afraid childcare is not part of my programming. I am, i'm afraid, no more knowledgable on the subject than you." Amity bowed his head appologetically.

Kay tapped at his tablet, bringing up the information that expert had given them to see if it had anything helpful they hadn't already considered.
They could provide a humid room, they could provide nutrients in the air, but what worried him was whether ten years on a planet that wasn't their own had done any major harm to their development. The problem was, there simply wasn't much information readily available about Aketi children, they spent their early childhood hidden away high up in trees, rooted to the spot and once they left the treetops they had an innate drive to seek out more of their own kind, which inevitably drove them toward adult populations. There was no precedent for what had happened here, growing up with only other children for company and no adult guidance or modelling. The closest Kay could think of was those feral humanoid children you sometimes heard about, and few of those had come out of the experience without problems. It worried him.

Matt however was still trying to talk to the stationary Aketi, who simply stared at him.

Starr looked around at the little ones and walked over to the one on top of the fence post. "Hello, little one." She said softly, looking to what was inside the fence then back to the kid. She tried to see if it could be spoken to telepathically so they could hopefully bypass the not understanding phase if there was such. {Do you understand me?}

The small creature watched Starr, chirping when she talked into its mind. It wasn't clear if it understood or simply didn't much like the feeling though. Aketi were so alien that reading their minds wasn't particularly easy for those more accustomed to animal brains.

The leaves ruffled like feathers and it made a strange garbled tweeting noise.

One of the other Aketi rolled over to the fence post and stared up at Starr, chiriping back at the one above.

While Starr might not be able to read coherent thoughts from these small balls of leaves, she could sense their curiosity and a complete lack of fear from the pair.

Starr smiled softly, shaking her head a little. Well, at least they could let them know when they were happy, sad, upset or whatever even if they couldn't speak. She gently moved a hand towards each, not touching them so they could investigate as they wanted. "Well, little ones, just know we will not harm you here. You may even be able to go home at some point in the future. Who knows." She said more to herself than them since she doubted they could understand this language. It was a good thing to let them hear words and learn it though.

James relaxed slightly, hopefully the kids being spiky would protect them from the goats.

Asher, whose parental instincts and guilt were both quite strong at the moment, frowned in thought. "It's probably good for them to be here at the ranch at first," he said, "Since it's a more familiar environment than the rest of the ship will be. And they'll probably need some time to get used to our presence."
Although the Aketi were doing pretty well with the new people and place, all things considered.

Tala regarded the kids with mild suspicion. "Mayhap we should call in Ellie, as she has knowledge of plants," she declared.

Matt nodded. "That's not a bad idea actually, can't she do like.. plant telepathy stuff or... whatever?"

Kay tapped away at his tablet, reading all the information for the upteenth time.

Amity was introducing himself to a pair of Aketi, but they didn't really seem to understand him at all. Not that Amity noticed. To him, these were still HIS guests and thus he was still obligated to serve them.

The seedling on the fence post blinked a few times and studied Starr's outstretched hand, but decided that she moved too much to be a sturdy perch and remained where they were.

Starr chuckled softly, letting her hands rest on the fence instead, looking around at the giant farm they had made here. It really made you feel like you were not on a ship here, then again, what was a planet really but a different kind of ship in space? She let her thoughts wander and just watched the surroundings and the new kids quietly. Luna was sleeping after all and her people were doing their own things, giving her a rare moment of peace.

"Yeah, we should bring her over," James agreed. "Vestia, a little help please?"

"Sure thing," Vestia said. She'd relay the request to Ellie.

Ellie would arrive before long. She caught sight of the Aketi kids, and probably promptly let out an involuntary telepathic awwww! at the cuteness.
Which they might hear, because of the whole plant communication thing.

All of the Aketi turned to stare at Ellie, blinking their enormous eyes at her which was probably just a little bit spooky. Or cute... depending on whether you thought small balls of spikey leaves with giant eyes were cute.

Amity smiled to Ellie and bid her a polite hello.

Matt waved.

Kay was still absorbed in his tablet, pacing as he read.

Ellie was firmly of the mindset that the Aketi were cute. It helped that she had a natural fondness for all plants (with the possible exception of Professor Hewitt) and so even being stared at in unison didn't really give her pause.

"Hey guys!" she called to the adults belatedly. She'd been distracted by the cuteness at first. "So these are the kids that got abandoned, huh?"

Asher looked guilty.

"They have been abandoned for many years," Tala said, with all her usual tact, "You will do well to tell us if ought has gone awry in their development!"

Ellie saluted, heading over to join Starr near some of the kids.