Yisini had been keeping to herself as much as she could. The other deities were annoyed at her, to the point that Arkadin had done an annoying thing to make her do extra work. Normally the Thantophor would just grunt whenever Yisini had pissed him off, but he’d knocked one of her labs down a hill and made her clean it up. He was normally not vindictive like that. Then again, Yisini had noticed that Arkadin was hanging around like a bad smell right now.
“You here to destroy more labs of mine, little brother?” Yisini smiled, just a bit. She was currently working on some single-celled organisms, trying to stop them from exploding when exposed to arsenic. Why? Yisini wasn’t quite sure, but it was something to do.
“No…”
The Thantophor loomed into view, forming from a particularly death-like black cloud that had drifted in through a vent. Yisini had taken over this abandoned warehouse and hadn’t had time to set up her normal security systems yet. She barely had time for mortal security, let alone god security.
“So why are you here?” Yisini asked. “You never come to visit for good reasons. So get the bad reasons out of the way then leave.”
“I’m not here for a… a bad reason. I want to talk. Because I was talking to Kairos and Epani and they upset me. They think mortals are pointless and worthless…”
Yisini smiled some more. “No, really? Of course they think that. They aren’t as tied to the Circle as we are. Why should they care?”
“I suppose that’s true but they don’t seem to care at all.”
“You do though. You care a lot.”
Arkadin sighed. “I do. I might even care too much. I worry all the time and…” There was a lot of hesitation in the Thantophor’s voice. “You know, you and I, we both kinda… want the same things…”
Yisini’s eyes lit up. Was that… a level of understanding she had never seen before from Arkadin? She needed to press further. “Really? We want the same thing?”
“Yes. We want mortals to live long lives. Or forever, if possible.”
The smile on Yisini’s face exploded into a large grin. “You do see it from my point of view! You understand! I knew it! So why don’t you ever try to work with me in order to fix it?”
Arkadin took a deep breath. He considered his words carefully. “Yes, we do want the same thing, but my problem is that I disagree with your methods. You respect life but you don’t respect individuals. Even when they worship you.”
“So you don’t help me because…?” Yisini looked confused.
“Because your erratic work damages almost as much as it helps!”
“Really?”
Arkadin tutted, then pulled out a sheet of paper. “Alright, let me explain. You have been working towards immortality for, let’s say, the last several billion years. You are only 15% closer to your goals. In the last thirty years, while I was not being prosecuted by you all, I brought that percentage up by 1%.”
“That is nothing… Wait…” At first, Arkadin’s words confused Yisini. “Really, that much in such a small amount of time?”
“Yes.”
I… I don’t… What are you implying?”
Arkadin shrugged. “I am implying that I want to help. We can do better. Heck, we could get to 20% in, say, a thousand years.”
“There is a but here, right?” Yisini frowned.
“Not a massive but, to be honest…” Arkadin tutted. “I just want you to work a bit… more cleanly. Maybe not kill so many people. If I have less work to do, I could do more to help you?”
“But you know that’s how I work!” Yisini shrugged. “It’s how I do things.”
“You aren’t willing to… change at all?” Arkadin seemed to have given up. “I kinda thought as much…” With a long, drawn out sigh, the Thantophor began to disappear. After a few moments, he had faded away completely, leaving nothing but a strangely sweet scent.
Yisini stared at where Arkadin once stood, then shrugged and went back to work. As far as she was concerned, her brother’s ways were simply too small for her needs.