“This… isn’t the spaceport…” Arkay muttered as consciousness returned to him. “This is clearly some sort of large, glass cage…”
The Veth Prime rubbed his eyes, then had a look around. Everything looked rather cloudy and foggy, but also rather… nice, almost.
“Hey, kiddo!”
Something suddenly burst out of the clouds. A huge dragon with what looked like arrowheads covering its armoured body. Arkay’s captor was Kairos. The Whenvern. The Dragon God of Time.
“How are you, kiddo?” The Whenvern seemed incredibly cheerful. Arkay wanted to slap that cheerfulness out of him. But that was obviously a bad idea.
“Not great, actually,” Arkay sighed. “Some dickhead snatched me mid-teleport and put me in a cage.”
“I am sorry for that!” the Whenvern continued to smile. “I do that. I do that so I get you first, not Stasis. Stasis is odd. I do not trust him with you.”
Arkay rolled his eyes. “So what the fuck have you two retards done now?” Clearly Stasis and Kairos were working together, Arkay just needed to know what they were doing, then maybe he’d be able to get back to Kinigi and fix things.
“Oh, nothing. We just make it so things can’t go to Kinigi. They can leave, but they can’t go back!”
“Why?”
“So mortals can be happy!”
“What?”
None of this was making any sense to Arkay. Kairos noticed this and started to explain.
“Mortals are sad because they live short, poor lives. So I make them happy by making them live for a long time! Also I am secretly stealing a lot of Stasis’s ugly gold things and melting them down and giving the gold out randomly. I do the maths, I can keep up the blockage for five hundred and seventy three years. But I only intend to do this for a few decades. See how things go, yes? Maybe immortality is something mortals don’t like when they actually have it? Who knows?”
“You know this is wr-”
“Yes. But mortals are more important than you or me!” Kairos smiled as he flapped around Arkay. “Or Stasis. Or Kinisis really. None of us have reason if no one knows we exist! This is temporary. A happy experiment. One I do not want you to fuck up.”
Kairos’s tone suddenly changed, from light-hearted and happy to dead serious. Almost menacing.
The door of the glass cage opened, but Arkay realised he couldn’t move. Time around him had slowed down.
As he watched Arkay struggle, the Whenvern pulled a long spear out of thing air. On the end of the spear was a sharp, thin, metallic blade with a round lump in the middle.
“There is a reason why you are here and not trapped in Kinigi with all the other Veth,” the Whenvern sighed. “I hope maybe I can convince you that this is good. But your violent nature does not allow that, so I have to calm you down.”
In a single, swift movement, Kairos thrust the blade into Arkay’s stomach, twisted the spear then pulled it out again. The spearhead remained inside Arkay’s side, the wound swiftly healing up around it. Immediately, Arkay felt different. Foggy. He was in pain but he wasn’t enraged. Had he been drugged or something?
“You won’t feel so violent now,” Kairos smiled. “This is better than what Stasis wants to do to you. Ten years of torture to someone who sees a lot of torture already. Not worth it. You deserve better.”
“What… have…” Arkay could barely speak. Kairos clicked his tongue and time seemed to return to normal. “What have you done to me?”
“I make you happy!” Kairos’s smile returned. “I send you away now. Somewhere nice. You have a good holiday!”
With a snap of the Whenvern’s fingers, Arkay disappeared in a cloud of pink and purple smoke.
“Have fun, kiddo!”