“Elkay, my best of allies, my humble friend, can we please talk?”
The High General had been staring out of the window all morning. Journalists were outside, desperate to ask questions, desperate for news. King Ver had been watching him as he constantly sighed and rolled his eyes.
“About yesterday, I assume.”
“Well… yes.” Ver decided to just get to the point. “That is what everyone is talking about right now. Maybe it is worth just talking about it and getting it all over with.”
“Some vok are saying that I am not a true Rethan…” Elkay walked away from the window and threw himself in the nearest chair. “Vok have been whispering that for years…”
Ver decided to join Elkay and sit down. He’d spent most of the morning being checked over by medical staff, mostly to make sure that he was doing well. No one had been hurt aside from the perpetrator and he was now locked up in a cell, being interviewed by criminal investigators.
“May I say something that you might consider somewhat… mean?”
Elkay sighed. “What?”
“You’re a Rethavok who is shorter than normal and has a bloody big pair of wings coming off your back. You are secretive about your past, even to your own Vice-General. Do you even have friends outside of work?”
Ver expected some sort of comeback, some sort of retaliation. Instead, Elkay sighed a defeated sigh and slumped in his seat.
“I assume the answer to that last question is a no…”
“I do not talk about my life because I believe it to be embarrassing. That I am less of a Rethavok because of it. I never met my father and my mother abandoned me because she feared for her life. I am not the same as other Rethavok and despite decades of trying to change that, we are still somewhat fearful of things we do not understand.”
The King of the Vrekans wasn’t sure how to answer. “Well… not everyone can have the same awesome parents I had… Wait, that is not really comforting… Also shouldn’t that make you… proud? I mean, you came from nothing and you’re the High General of the Rethavok, literally the highest title one could obtain!”
“Yet everyone still judges me for who I am and what I look like rather than what I do.”
“People are bastards!” Ver smiled as he got up, looked around for the nearest place to get a drink then went and got one. “We’d all judge a potato if someone shoved it in front of us and asked us what we thought. Just because you can stop bullets with your mind-”
“… One bullet with my mind…”
“Just because you can stop a bullet with your mind and you don’t know who your father is…”
“… I know who my father is…”
Ver paused. “You do?”
Elkay nodded solemnly. “I do.”
“You seem not at all thrilled by that. I assume he is why you have… weird powers?”
The High General shrugged. “I really do not know. I assume so… considering how his legitimate children are…”
Ver blinked. He’d hoped to get answers and all he was getting was more confusion. “I don’t get it.”
Elkay knew he was confusing Ver and probably making matters worse. He decided he needed to come clean. “You promise you will not tell anyone. I will inform the world when I am ready.”
“I promise.”
Elkay closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.
“My mother was an average citizen. My father is Rether Rethianos. The father of Rethais and Retvik Rethianos. I was a failed abortion. A mistake.”
Ver remained silent for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, but you’re the best mistake this universe has ever seen…”
Elkay tutted, then decided to change the subject.