Everything was cold and dark, but Retvik could feel something warm, drifting nearby. At first, he thought he was dead, but the sickening pain radiating across his body told him he was definitely still alive. There was definitely something jutting out of Retvik’s stomach, probably a piece of debris, he could feel blood leaking out of several wounds and some of Retvik’s organic plating had either burnt off or had been ripped off somehow.
That warmth drifted closer. Retvik opened his eyes and found himself nestled in a piece of rubble. No, not rubble. The large explosion Retvik had caused had thrown him into the corpse of the Life Goddess he had been standing near, and, somehow, that corpse had protected him. However, the thing sticking out of Retvik’s stomach was clearly a piece of Voidborn, probably the nasty one Retvik had blown up. After all, he had shoved multiple sticks of explosives into a Voidborn’s stomach cavity and ignited everything. And that explosion had clearly caused a chain reaction, causing the majority of the Diamond, the Voidborn ship Retvik and his fellow Thantir had infiltrated, to essentially fall apart.
In fact, as Retvik scanned his surroundings further, he was surprised to see that the area around him was… oddly clear. Sure, there was rubble and debris floating around everywhere, but there were no large pieces. This surprised Retvik, because the explosives they had used weren’t that powerful. Clearly the Decaylings had managed to hit some pretty important areas.
The warmth was now surrounding Retvik. This was strange, because Retvik was normally the source of all things warm. There was something yellow and black floating in front of Retvik.
“Arkay?” Retvik stuttered. “What are you doing here?”
He reached forward, but Retvik’s hand passed through the ghostly form in front of him. This confused Retvik greatly. Thankfully, the familiar face was about to explain.
“Saving you…” Arkay tutted, floating and twisting around Retvik. With a flick of his clawed fingers, the larger wounds on Retvik’s body began to heal up, and the piece of Voidborn armour lodged in Retvik’s stomach wriggled free and drifted off into the darkness. Retvik felt weird as some sort of dark energy pressed against his stomach injury, allowing Retvik’s own godly powers to kick into gear. A telekinetic force moved Retvik’s hand and moved it over his stomach, and Retvik realized Arkay was using Retvik’s own fire powers to seal the massive wound.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” Arkay seemed both annoyed and somewhat happy at the same time. “I told you, I promised you, I’d break reality to make sure that you and Litvir stayed alive long enough for us to reunite and hug once more. And right now, I am definitely breaking reality to stop you from dying.”
Again, Retvik tried to reach towards Arkay and pat him on the shoulder, but Arkay clearly wasn’t actually, physically there.
“How are you doing this?”
Arkay shrugged, double-checking that Retvik was no longer bleeding out. “I’m not really sure. I just, like, sensed that you were in horrible danger and, I dunno, created some sort of astral projection to your location. I’m pretty sure that, right now, I’ve passed out in the middle of a meeting between my fellow deities and myself, and they’re all panicking right now. But fuck them. The universe can last ten minutes without conscious entropy, and you’re more important.”
“I… I appreciate that, Arkay…” Retvik smiled, despite the pain he was in. “It is really nice to see you. You look good, in a slightly more Rethan form. More mature. Attractive even.”
Arkay glanced down at himself. Retvik was right, he did look more like a Rethavok and less like his old, Skyavok-like self. It was hard to tell, because Arkay wasn’t actually there, but he did blush at Retvik’s statement.
“Heh, thanks. Despite everything, despite you making me break reality to save your stupid butt, I’m really happy to see you too. I miss you. More than I’d like to admit…” Arkay trailed off, then glanced around, properly inspecting their surroundings. “Uh, why is there half a dead Life Goddess here?”
Retvik shrugged. “I do not know for certain, but I think the Crystal Doom were using the corpse to regenerate their armies. They… wanted to use Elkay to spawn new Voidborn instead, tried to convince him to join them, tried to… turn Elkay into a Voidborn proper.”
Arkay settled down next to Retvik and sighed. “Yeah… That… I assume Elkay tried to fight back, right? He didn’t consider actually joining them?”
“I assume not, since he seemed to be in pain and flailing around when I saw him. I had Teekay teleport him to safety while… while I set off all the explosions.”
“Ah, good… he has more sense than I do…” Arkay sighed again. “And the potential to be way, way more powerful than I am. As long as Elkay can maintain his identity and not fuck up at every opportunity like I do… You though, you’re fucking lucky you’re bound to me and I made a stupid promise to you and Litvir, because otherwise you would be pretty fucking dead right now.”
Retvik snorted. He was still in a lot of pain, but just seeing Arkay was enough to cancel that pain out. “I will be honest, as everything exploded, I did wonder if some sort of miracle would happen. You have a habit of saving my life.”
“Yeah, yeah, I definitely do…” Arkay trailed off. He had spotted movement. He got up, then twisted through the air, leaving a trail of flames as he did so. He circled around the little island of safety he had created around Retvik, then sent out several flaming flares, before sitting back down next to Retvik.
“Are you well, Arkay?”
Arkay shook his head. “I want to give you a hug, but I’m not able to do so. Promise me, when you see Litvir, you’ll let him hug you as much as he wants, alright?”
“That is an odd request.”
“If I’m picking things up properly, Litvir had you all connected via a telepathic link yes? He almost certainly lost his connection to you. He’s probably scared out of his mind and thinks you might be dead.”
“That is a good point. I will do as you say.” Retvik blinked. He could see a ship, a Life Goddess ship, slowly moving closer. “Can I tell anyone about seeing you?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Maybe tell Litvir, because he deserves to know. But… well, I’m doing things I really shouldn’t right now. I’m not even supposed to have the ability to do astral projections, but here I am, making sure you don’t die, breaking a lot of rules and stuff to keep my promise to you both.”
Arkay set off another flare. The Life Goddess ship clearly saw it and was heading closer.
“I think I have to go now. This is very straining for me…” Arkay frowned. “Please try not to die again.”
Retvik bowed his head. “Thank you Arkay. It has been wonderful, seeing you again.”
“It’s… it’s amazing, seeing you too, Retvik. Even if I can’t touch you. I’m… so sorry about what I did, what I said.”
“I know. I forgive you. And I am sorry that you are so far away.”
“It’s…” Arkay hesitated. “I… You know I love you, right? I always have. In a myriad of different ways.”
“I love you too, Arkay.”
Arkay blinked, then fell silent, clearly both happy and heartbroken, having heard those words said out loud. He reached forward and tried to put his hand on Retvik’s cheek, then sighed, remembering that he couldn’t actually touch Retvik. With a sigh, Arkay allowed himself a couple of tears, then faded away.
Retvik glanced down at his hand. There was a small wet patch, where one of Arkay’s tears had become real and had landed there. In the depths of the void, the tear had quickly evaporated, but it left a very faint mark on Retvik’s skin.
Before Retvik could ponder things further, something sparkled and flashed. Retvik suddenly found himself lying on the floor of the Life Goddess ship “Epani”, with a multitude of familiar faces standing above him. Or, in Tah’s case, standing on him.
“You’re insane!” Tah exclaimed as he climbed off Retvik’s chest, allowing Tahvra to check Retvik over. “Also how are you alive? That whole massive ship exploding should have killed you.”
Retvik smiled. “I guess I am just lucky or something. Now, if you all do not mind, I am going to pass out again.”
Tahvra patted Retvik on the head, then started wrapping his wounds. “Yeah, you do that while I fix you up. Tah, can you guys pilot the ship back to the Thantir Two?”
Tah nodded and teleported to the pilot seat, while Tahvra gently put a claw to Retvik’s neck, giving him a quick anaesthetic to take away his pain. Nuh helped Tah, while the Tattered Navigators all remained close, keeping an eye on Retvik.
With one last smile, Retvik fell asleep, allowing himself a well-earned rest.