To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch49 Advice

Advice

There was a gentle knock at her door, Aster tried to sit up in her medical bed only to be held back by the loosened straps Alwen had set up when she needed to leave for the day. Honestly if that girl wasn't so good at her job Aster might consider strongly reprimanding her. But the straps were there to stop her from doing exactly what she had just tried to do, if she moved to abruptly she could risk throwing herself into an intense cycle of pain and discomfort for hours.

She leaned back and called "Come in"

The door slid aside with a gentle woosh and admitted a violet skinned Torweni man who looked both nervous and concerned. "Is now a good time?" Modius asked.

"Good as any" She grumbled "Not like I can go anywhere."

He smiled and sat in the chair Kar had brought in when he went over some news with her. "How are you feeling?"

"Awful, that sister of yours is a sadist." The procedure was every bit as painful as Alwen had warned, and worst of all this was only the first of many.

Modius chuckled, "I pity the poor man who winds up with her"

"Or women" Aster challenged.

Modius frowned "Just because we're more liberal when it comes to matters of homosexuality doesn't mean we don't have straight people. I'm fairly certain my sister is only interested in the opposite sex." He chided.

Astarte smirked, the Torweni were very similar to humanity in many ways, but that weird chromosomal shifting of theirs meant that their society got to completely sidestep the social hurdle of homophobia. They still had issues of misogamy and a natural inclination towards patriarchy, but Aster sometimes felt a little jealous of them. Growing up as a pansexual women on Earth had been hard enough to deal with. Alongside the fact that her birth mother was absent for most of her childhood, she never knew who her father was, and being the adoptive daughter of a former prostitute, and it wasn't hard to see where she got the chip on her shoulder.

"And where do you land?" she crooned mischievously.

He shrugged "I could go either way"

Aster smirked "That sounds fun"

"I'm not doing a three way of any sort" he deadpanned.

Aster guffawed "Of course not, I can't even sit up right now without mind numbing pain." She teased.

His expression darkened; he apparently didn't like her joking about her broken condition. "That's part of the reason I came here."

She frowned "What?"

He looked at her pleadingly "I've seen the scars Aster. You've lost an eye and now your so broken you can't even walk. You're in pain and I'm worried about you"

"I'll heal, pain in life is inevitable; but suffering is optional"

"Was that another Maynard quote?"

"Buddha, but on that note. If there were no rewards to reap. No loving embrace to see me through. This tedious path I've chosen here, I certainly would've walked away"

"That was the Patient from Lateralis." he said, Aster nodded "I thought so, he wrote that about his mother who suffered from a stroke. Maynard's mother thought it was a test from God, and that she would be healed eventually if she remained faithful."