“You’re not doing well, are you, Epani?”
Epani tutted, suddenly distracted from her work. But as her eyes refocused, Epani realised she had been working for two days straight without rest. This distraction was a required one, courtesy of Syksis, the Goddess of Healing.
“I am fine.”
“Physically, you are fine. As far as I can tell, since I’m not knowledgeable on godly biology. Mentally though, you’re a train wreck.”
“Possibly…” Epani turned to face the distraction. She was very large right now. Syksis was very small. Small enough to sit on Epani’s shoulder. “Why are you here, dear?”
“To talk to you and make sure you’re okay. Because you HAVE been here for bloody ages. Sure, you are a god, you are literally THE god, but you have mortal-like qualities and I assume you need to rest occasionally. What are you doing anyway?”
Epani sighed, then put the massive book down. Really, this whole room made no sense. It was utterly huge. But the door Syksis had used to enter had been normal-sized. She’d only managed to get here because Nanik had told her where Epani was.
“It turns out, I am not very good at running a universe, all on my own.”
“The universe is still here, seems like you’re doing an okay job so far.”
“Could still be better. Little Arkay was right. Perfection does require constant, endless maintenance. And I did not realise just how much maintenance it needed. Especially since I am doing everything on my own now.”
Syksis patted Epani on the shoulder, then decided to just sit on Epani’s shoulder and talk to her. “I’m going to assume that being attacked by the multiverse version of a sentient gelatinous cube threw a spanner into the works.”
“A spanner? All the spanners…” Epani grunted. “We made plans that this universe could be run by one person, if desperately needed, but we designed the universe to be run between the four of us. There is a lot of… behind the scenes stuff when it comes to running a universe, and a lot of that now falls on me and me alone.”
Syksis frowned, then took another look at what Epani was doing. She was reading books, but the writing was nonsensical and the letters seemed to move across the pages.
“And you are… doing more research right now?”
“I am almost always learning. This is the first universe I have been in where I have had to do the large-scale universal work on my own, and that I built from the ground up.”
“… First universe?” Syksis blinked.
“Indeed. Before this universe, I was made inside another universe by another deity. She… mostly destroyed that universe, and Sini and I looked after the survivors in a tiny, dying pocket of that universe until it was too dead to continue, then we decided to make this universe, to make something better. It just never occurred to me that… I would be doing all this without my little sister… And I also somewhat did not expect Kairos to be so… whatever he is…”
Syksis shrugged some more. “To be fair, no one expected Kairos to be… whatever the fuck he is. Even Dalosisaar is surprised that Kairos is turning out to be such an asshole, and Dalosisaar both worships the Time Dragon and was willing to throw down his life for him…” Syksis glanced at all the books. “May I hazard a guess that you are trying to learn time stuff?”
“You would be correct, yes. Well, mostly correct…” Epani started putting all the books away. “Being a Life Goddess, I am not naturally attuned to the Forward Flow. But as my darling Sini proved, a Time Drake can attune themselves to Life Goddess ways, so the opposite must be true. It must be possible. It has to be possible.”
“I thought we were going to get Dalosisaar and Elkay to learn that stuff?” Syksis asked. “Like, Kairos was already trying to teach Dalosisaar.”
“That is true but I do not want to force too much power on you all. I have always been a deity, I can handle such power. You are all my babies, I do not want you all getting hurt.”
Syksis inspected Epani, then went back to frowning. “You do legitimately see us as your babies.”
“You are my children. I mean, this entire universe is my child, but you twelve are as close to my actual children as I can get currently. And I am not… really in a position right now to have genetic children.”
“You can get pregnant?” Syksis exclaimed.
“Yes. When I state that Sini is my sister, she related to me the same way that Kohra is related to his big brother Levik. I have two other sisters as well, but I… not met one of them. And, being a Life Goddess, I can create actual children. That is not something I want to do currently. Learning time stuff is… an alternative.”
“Fair, I guess… Still, you need to takes breaks and stuff too. And you can talk to us. We’re your kids, but we’re here for you, the same way you are here for us. And we will fix this problem with the stupid ball and all that as well.”
Epani settled down and nodded in agreement. “My dear, you are completely correct. We must work together.”
“And rest together!” Syksis perked up. “Can I ask, what do you do to relax?”
“I normally sail through the skies of the universe and swim through fields of meteors, but we can do something simpler, if you want to join me in relaxation.”
“I guess we… could watch arena matches or something. I enjoy that.”
Epani smiled. “I occasionally enjoy that too. I suppose though, I ought to rebuild the Gold Suite, since it was designed for four deities, not fourteen… Do you want to bring some of your other fellow deities?”
Syksis nodded. “I’ll see if Valksia, Murum’Va and Maresia are busy or not. Worst case scenario, we bring Elkay. He’s always fun.”
“Alright, you go and see if your friends are available. I will go and sort out the Gold Suite, and I shall see you in three hours. Does that sound good?”
“It does, yes.”
Epani picked Syksis up off her shoulder and patted her on the head and put her down by the tiny door to the room. “Good. See you soon.”